This was ok, but just ok. I didn't hate it, but I don't think that I would recommend it.

First, what I liked:
The setting was sublime, and I felt like Mack's writing really gave me those Mediterranean vacation vibes that I was looking for. The cast of characters had some fun personalities in it, but I did wish for more diversity. There were several moments in which I felt like Mack really captured the absolute awkwardness of traveling with a tour group of acquaintances and frienemies. There were some funny moments.

What I disliked:
The footnotes - my god - the footnotes were terrible. I know they were meant to accentuate Eleanor's personality, but they just came across as annoying. They often made no contribution to the story, and were written in a very immature voice. The writing needs some SERIOUS editing. Hopefully it will get a few more rounds of editing before going to print, so maybe this won't be a problem in the final copy. That being said, it was so bad that it was a distraction and impacted my overall vibe with the book. Lastly, Eleanor is such a supremely unlikable character that I could not bring myself to root for her or care about her issues. This was a problem since she is the only narrator. It just really alienated me.

With this book I hoped to get the same vibe as Finlay Donovan, and I must admit that even if initially I wasn't completely convinced by this reading, little by little the humor that lingers throughout the book took hold and the story started off smoothly. It all takes place while traveling in Europe, and this already convinced me to apply for this book, I love traveling settings, not to mention Europe. It's Catherine Mack's first book, and not a bad debut, there are some ideas that could be improved, perhaps making the plot a little more "lively", but otherwise I found it to be an excellent first story! It's a cozy mystery to read this summer, my favorite thing about this story was definitely the footnotes, a very nice twist.
Thank you NetGalley and St Martins Press for the advanced copy.
#EveryTimeIGoOnVacationSomeoneDies #NetGalley

I'd classify this book in the "cheeky narrator breaking the 4th wall of books" genre that has become increasingly popular. It took a while to get into, but it was a decent read. Would make for a great vacation read, so long as you aren't the narrator.

It's the first in a series, so I'm curious to see what the next book is about, which might be pretty high praise.

I really wanted to enjoy this by my goodness. The humor was trying to be shoved down my throat, the footnotes were cute and all but geez. I had to DNF at the 25% mark. I couldn't keep going, maybe I'll try again with the audiobook once it releases!

Humor is center stage (including wonderful usage of humorous footnotes!) in this fast-paced mystery with a great setting.

Eleanor Dash is on a book tour in Italy to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the first Vacation
Mystery tour, along with the hero of the mysteries, Connor Smith, five otherauthora and twenty
super fans. As Eleanor is on the last book in her contract, she wants to kill off the hero to end
her relationship with Connor. As she plots different ways to kill him off in the tenth book, members
of the tour group are attcked, ending in murder. Who is the real target - Eleanor or Connor? Does
it lead back to the real crime the first book was based on? An entertaining read with a cast
of intersting characters.
#EveryTimeIGoOnVacationSomeoneDies #NetGalley

I wanted to enjoy this book so badly. I enjoy cozy mysteries, travel, and books about authors.

What didn't work for me:
--The characters. Most were unlikeable and without enough development to help understand their choices.
--The FMC was particularly annoying and ditzy. It was hard to believe she was a successful author.
--The footnotes. So many footnotes. They weren't formatted well on my edition and were very distracting to read.

Thank you NetGalley and St Martins Press for the advanced copy.

Overall, a great storyline with interesting characters. Loved the setting as well. My downside to this story was there was almost too much dialogue, at times it got a bit confusing. There are also footnotes throughout. Some were worth reading, others distracted from the flow.
I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Loved the humor in this book. The footnotes were an added bit of humor. That said I would have liked a few less characters. But overall a fun read with good characters. Thanks #Netgalley and #StMartinsPress #MinotaurBooks for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

2.5 stars rounded up.

There are a lot of characters and I struggled to find a connection with any of them. I don’t have to like characters in a book but I need something to drive me to care about what’s happening to them. I almost wanted to like Harper but something was missing. I think the sister dynamic could have been developed a little deeper and that would have helped.

The story is heavy on dialogue. The way the dialog is written I was constantly confused by who was saying what. It drove me crazy to the point I started skimming long conversations. Maybe this will be better after the final edit.

The murder took place way too late in the book. I actually enjoyed the last 40% of the book. I found myself skimming chunks of the book but not once the murder happened.

I won’t say that I hated the footnotes. But the formatting was so bad it rendered them not worth reading. If I had read this in a physical copy, I may have appreciated them.

This book was a fun read and I loved all the footnotes. It brought a different experience to the reading. A great summer mystery read !

This book was funny and clever- I love an unreliable narrator and the footnotes were hilarious. It was also a clever mystery!

A fun and entertaining read, Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies, takes readers travel mystery with a large cast and beautiful settings.
This is the first book in a new series The Travel Mysteries by author Catherine Mack. This Mystery has humor, a murder, complex relationships, wonderful settings, deceptions, and a disdainful detective, all while giving readers a little behind the scenes at an authors life. Eleanor is a famous author and is working on book ten of her travel mystery series. She is full of whit and spunk and breaks the fourth wall for us multiple times throughout. Eleanor is traveling with several people as part of her publishers book promotions and this is a creative way to contain the eclectic group of suspects. We are given a full explanation of suspects, motives and opportunities when the group creates a murder board at one point. Even with all the help, I did not figure out the entire mystery until the big reveal. This is a fun one, and fans of mysteries will enjoy this entertaining story.

I received an advanced e-copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

After two chapters, I found I was no longer enjoying this book. I felt like I was reading an instructional manual because of all the footnotes for one reason and I felt like it was written for a 5th grader. The story itself was interesting but not enough to keep me reading. It began with an author on a book tour in Italy. She also wants to find a way to kill off the main character in her next vacation series book. Unfortunately, there is an attempt to kill the man she has based her book character on. Real life becomes mixed up in "book life". It was too bizarre for me.

Fun, frothy, and Europe, what more could you need?!?! I can definitely see why the author has a potential TV/movie deal for this book. I think I would prefer it in that form, but this was an easy, light read at the right time for me. However, I wanted the characters to be more fleshed out and felt like the author was rushing through the story. A bestselling author getting involved in a murder during a fan trip to Europe along with other authors and her friends (including past lovers) felt very meta! This would make a great pool/beach read and perfect for fans of Finlay Donovan!

Besides this title being super fun to say, I loved this unique little mystery. I loved the way it was told and how the fourth wall was broken. Darn the ebook for making footnotes so hard to follow.. Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for a chance to read and early copy in exchange for an honest review..

For the lovers of cozy mysteries and have wonder lust. Such a cute story with fun dynamic characters! I wish the beginning was more action packed to hook us in a bit more but I loved the funny moments the characters had with each other. I loved all the pop culture references however the unreliable narrator I thought took me out of it a bit.

3.5 stars

A kind of a different mystery, with a lot of humor and a decent plot. Accidental novelist (not quite believable) Eleanor is on a book tour with her sister/manager Hayley in Italy. A long involved story which sets up the book's premise: Eleanor fell in love with a private detective years ago in Italy and got involved in a major crime family case. When she came home, she wrote a book about it starring him (Connor). They didn't last, but the book was wildly popular and she went on to write a series starring him. He "blackmailed" her into sharing her book revenues so he wouldn't tell the Italian authorities that she had also abetted a few crimes in Italy. Connor is handsome, charming, egotistical and a major jerk and womanizer. And yes, he is also on the tour.

But Eleanor is far from perfect. She and her sister are very close, but ... they have a lot of old baggage. And Eleanor is keeping major secrets from her sister and her latest ex-boyfriend Oliver -- and yes - he is ALSO on the tour. You begin to see the setup.

Strange incidents happen. Connor believes someone is trying to murder him and there is no shortage of suspects. But then Eleanor appears to be the target.

Lots of action, hilarity, snarkiness and fun.I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

A light and humorous look at how to simultaneous write and solve a murder, featuring bestselling fictional author Eleanor Dash and a cast of eclectic characters. This whodunnit is ultimately a cheesy version of White Lotus mixed with vibes of the Knives Out movies. For me, a 2.5 rounded to 3 - you’ll either be charmed by its quirkiness or deeply annoyed, or if you’re me, a bit of both.

What I liked:
-Exploring Italy with the group like a tagalong tourist! Many cities and hotspots were mentioned, along with a few new cocktails I’ll be trying in the future.
-Seeing how the sausage is made; how our MC writes plots in her head and splices the process into the narrative.

What I didn’t love:
- If the point was to make us believe everyone wanted the MC dead, they succeeded… because she was insufferable.
-Our MC switching from first and second person POV. I can’t stand a fictional character directly talking to me, it feels just as awkward as a high school motivational speaker doing the “I can’t hear you” bit. Cringe.
-The writing was very repetitive. Without giving spoilers, many chapters had the same exact cliffhanger ending. Also, I’ll admit my vocabulary isn’t extensive and I had to look up the word “frisson,” because I had never seen or heard the word before. It then appeared multiple times throughout the rest of the book. I know that’s nitpicking, but what a strange word to repeat so many times?
-Maybe the most controversial, but the annotations were just too much… They added some humor, but most of the time it was trying far too hard and broke up the flow of reading with their abundance. Cute idea, poor execution.

While my “didn’t love” list is longer, overall, this was a cutesy read, perfect for murder-mystery fans who want those “vacay” vibes.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this advanced copy.

The cover of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies really made me take a second look and read the book's description. It seemed like a really fun premise, and I was looking for a "lighter" read. This is definitely a good book for people who are going on spring break or vacation.

The book gave me some Janet Evanovich style vibes with the main character. Eleanor finds herself at the center of a mystery as well, everyone around her starts to die. A successful author whose career is starting to slow down, she's on a tour in Italy with her fans as well as other authors. As she talks about killing off one of her characters (who mimics someone in real life) to write him out of her life, suspicions rise and nobody knows who to trust.

The descriptions of Italy really made me want to go on my own vacation, not going to lie. One of the things I love about books is how they can transport you anywhere, and Catherine Mack did a really great job of bringing Italy to life. As far as the plot, it was a fun and interesting premise. If you read a lot of mysteries, you'll likely figure out who the mystery killer is if you can pick up on the clues along the way. The book was still enjoyable, and I really would recommend if you need something along the lines of a beach read or going on vacation book.

Please be advised I received an Advance Readers Copy (ARC) of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.