What an intriguing format for a book! This was my first "interactive" mystery novel and I had a lot of fun following the clues and coming up with my own theories. I think this would have been a better book to read a physical of so I could have annotated and had notes around me. I really enjoyed that there were two mysteries being unraveled simultaneously and trying to figure out how they were interconnected. While I guessed the "bad guy" correctly, I did not expect the motive or fully understand what the motive was. I would have liked that flushed out a bit more. There was a large cast of characters but the format of the book made it easier to keep track of who everyone was. I liked the different media that was presented in the book as it kept me engaged in the process of solving the mystery. I'm looking forward to see what else this author comes up!

I liked the twists the book took but felt that the writing was a little clunky (which may have been the point as we were supposed to be the detectives). There were a few plotlines that were difficult to follow but I did like the summaries given, which gave me a bit of help.

You’ve Been Summoned is a delightfully unique take on a typical mystery. Jane Parks finds herself in quite a predicament when she is invited to her twin sister’s party in a historic house despite also being invited on a romantic getaway weekend camping with her boyfriend. Fortunately, the two events take place close enough where Jane can make it between the locations with relative ease. During her treks back and forth, the unthinkable happens and Jane’s twin sister goes missing.

The fun twist with this novel, though, is that the reader is able to take advantage of the same information as the detectives and are given the opportunity to solve the case themselves. From suspect interviews to diary entries and character narration, the different types of clues offer a plethora of ways to solve the case of the missing twin sister.

This was such a fun and unexpected way to read a mystery novel. It was a nice change to read a mystery with the expectation to be able to solve the mystery myself, rather than having last minute information thrown at me out of nowhere. Treating the case as a series of case files, rather than a linear novel made it easy to separate the information and take a deeper look at it all individually.

The characters themselves fell a little flat, but that is probably because they are being looked at from the lens of a police case file instead of a story that is based on the lives of the characters. With such a large cast of characters, it was relatively easy to keep track of them, but more difficult to give them consistent personalities that made sense with the narration style.

⅘ stars for this uniquely interesting case that kept me questioning from start to finish.

Thank you to Netgalley and Experiment 42 for the opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, I couldn’t finish reading it. I was so excited about it because the premise seemed really fun and completely unlike anything I’ve ever read. It’s possible that’s I just had too much going on to be able to focus on it. The part I did read was well written.

The interactive mystery novel, a murder mystery party for introverts, features a detective working on a case involving Jane's twin sister Sillian's disappearance. The reader is tasked with reviewing firsthand accounts, interviews, and artifacts to find the culprit. The story is well-crafted, dual-timeline, and features believable yet misleading clues. The interactive element enhances the reading experience, making it a great buddy read. The author takes the risk on this concept, and NetGalley and the author are grateful for the ARC.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book.
Wow this was very different from anything I've read before a murder mystery but you are the detective reading looking for clues and trying to piece it together through files and hints. This book was so intriguing and made me really focus and get to no the characters. Well worth the read!

Thanks to #NetGalley and #Experiment42 for the book #YouveBeenSummoned by #LindseyLamar. This is a very interesting book wanting you to be the detective and solve the case. It is quite enjoyable and was a lot of fun. What is the connection between two sets of twins and why is one of the twins missing?

I very much enjoyed reading this book as I am a huge fan of mysteries, especially those where you can sift through the evidence as you are reading and try to figure it out along with the characters. In this case, *you* are an investigator reading the evidence and trying to piece it together from packets of data like police interviews, narratives, newspaper articles, sketches, etc. Uniquely well done and I hope for more of these! The concluding chapters, however, felt super rushed and very convoluted. Various mistakes jarred me from the story. As this is the first book of this type from the author, if future similar stories are published, it would be my hope that these mistakes can be alleviated.

Spoilers to follow:
There were a few items that threw me out of the story, however. Since this is supposed to be a contemporary mystery, certain "facts" annoyed me. For instance, historical evidence states that DNA testing in the 1960s identified the body but DNA testing wasn't done AT ALL until the 1980s. As a scientist, this bugged me greatly, and was so obvious I thought the newspaper article was a planted clue. The historical diary written had several errors. When referring to one of the brothers or one of the sisters, they were misidentified by name. In light of the solution to the mystery, some of these were intentional, but some were clearly not and that lended to the confusion. I went back through the book after reading the conclusion to see if it was just my memory tricking me, but it was not - in light of the conclusion, there were definitely errors.

Still spoilers: The jewelry box was referred to both in the contemporary storyline and the historical storyline, such that you are led to believe they are one and the same. This might count as a red herring, but the contemporary jewelry box is not satisfactorily defined as being different from the historical one. If the same, then there was another person in the basement. If different, then I find it hard to believe that someone would bring an entire jewelry box to a masquerade party where rooms are not locked.

BIG spoiler: The historical storyline in the basement was at times hard to believe and confusing. Weeks? Months? And it didn't seem to correlate well with what was occurring "up top". At times it seemed the police were investigating, but the brother was still free even though it was said he was arrested? And, in light of the sister's identity, why drag out the basement so long? And, even though the sisters are identical twins, anyone that really knows the twins would be able to tell them apart. They make a big deal about how Mary's stuntwoman was the closest thing to a friend - she would definitely know the difference! And if the women were in the basement that long, the pregnancy would have been severely affected, perhaps leading to a miscarriage or birth defects, especially stunted growth.

TL:DR - unique and enjoyable, but the mistakes bugged me. 2.5 stars

Wow this book is amazing!
It’s not an ordinary murder mystery but it comes with a unique format that will make a different reading experience!
You can guess the culprit from the evidence and clues scattered throughout the story!

I really have fun making theories, jotting down clues that might be important in determining the real culprit. I have to admit it wasn’t easy, there’s a lot of suspicious characters and each one of them has secrets, it’s hard to know which ones has a malicious intent towards the victim.

There’s two mysteries that you need to solve here, the one in present time and also one in the past.
The big reveal comes with the supported evidence of the culprit's motive and I really like it was also wrapped up nicely with that epilogue.

Overall, this was a fantastic and fun interactive mystery novel!
I love the writing style of this book, it manage to build the suspense of the murder mystery from the beginning until the end.
I would definitely keep an eye out for another book by this author in the future!

I received an advanced review copy for free through Netgalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. Huge thank you to the author and publisher!

Not sure what to think about this book: there's historical fiction, mystery, abusive husbands, unreliable narration and Weird Happenings. The thing that worked least well was the historical fiction part since it's inserted into the rest of the book at what kind of feels like random times -- it reads like an infodump not like an organic part of the story.

As for the solving of the mystery, it just reads as the solution coming too quickly and something gets lost when that happens. Maybe some editorial smoothing would have helped.

eARC provided by publisher via Netgalley.

The interactive mystery was what drew me in. I admit that I think this is closer to 3,5 stars but I was entertained so I'm feeling fine with 4 stars.

The mystery within the mystery. Oddly enough I got everything right except who did it. I really enjoyed the way the book is set - the case files, the clues, the newspaper clippings, the notes - everything was so fun to go through. For sure I had to keep reading carefully and keep everything in my mind. One thing that did maybe bother me a little - the story from the 1940s was chronological, while in the present we kept kind of going back and forth - which ultimately I think was the authors intention (and I can't say more without heavy spoilers), so I think I'll have to forgive her that.

I recommend reading it. Something new in the book world considering the writing style and a good mystery... like a Halloween in March :)

Such an amazing concept that definitely made me feel more involved then a standard novel. Even with all the clues I didn't see that ending coming.
So worth the read

The description of the book immediately piqued my interest. When I was younger, I was a massive fan of choose-you-own-adventures/interactive books, so this really spoke to that part of me. Needless to say, I devoured this book in one sitting. The pictures of evidence, maps, text messages, emails, post-it notes, etc., really make you feel like you're a detective.

I have not read many thrillers/mysteries, but this book definitely has me wanting to read more! Two different cases, both intertwined, occur at once in the story, one in the present day and the other in the 1940s-1960s. Both are heavy in tragedy, lies, plot twists, and deceit.

I did not see the ending coming, which I was happy about (maybe I'm weird, but I never want to be right about the culprit while reading a thriller/mystery because if I figure it out too soon, I lose interest in the story). I had some guesses turn out to be right though.

4/5 stars!

A group of twentysomethings from Virginia meet for an overnight costume party. at the historic Sophomore Manor, which their host has rented for the weekend. Back in the 1940's and ‘50s the most prestigious socialites partied until the celebrity owners mysteriously went missing. The event began innocently enough: cocktail toasts, elaborate costumes, and exchanged pleasantries. But at the height of the party, Jane Parks notices her twin has vanished from the scene. It isn’t until Jane finds her sister’s body that the real guessing game begins. That’s where you come in. It’s up to you, detective, to expose a present-day link between the victim, the guest list, and Sophomore Manor’s unsolved history.
This interactive novel casts the reader as the detective. With integrated clues to examine and entangled interviews to analyze, the reader must make a case in this whodunit novel turned criminal investigation.

This was my first experience with an interactive mystery novel, and I have to admit, it was a lot of fun. It was a bit like one of those mystery dinner theaters (without the meal of course). The story is told in dual-timeline form, and interspersed throughout the present timeline are police interviews with party guests, and all sorts of clues found on the scene for you to take note of. I also loved the aspect of having two mysteries to solve - one for each timeline, as well as how they related to each other. If you love mysteries, then you will be enamored by this fresh take on one. I highly recommend it!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Lindsey Lamar for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for You’ve Been Summoned coming out February 27, 2024. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This is the first book I’ve read by this author. Whodunits are one of my favorite genres. I thought it was super fun and interactive. I loved the formatting of the book. The author gave opportunities to solve the case along the way. I wasn’t sure how the two timelines were going to come together, but I think it worked. I thought the writing was great. I definitely want to check out more books by this author!

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys whodunits!

During a long weekend in March, a group of twentysomethings from Virginia meet for an overnight costume party. For their venue, the host has rented the historical Sophomore Manor: a place where the most prestigious socialites of the 1940's and ‘50s partied until the celebrity owners mysteriously went missing.

The event began innocently enough: cocktail toasts, elaborate costumes, and exchanged pleasantries. But at the height of the party, Jane Parks notices her twin has vanished from the scene. It isn’t until Jane finds her sister’s body that the real guessing game begins.

That’s where you come in. It’s up to you, detective, to expose a present-day link between the victim, the guest list, and Sophomore Manor’s unsolved history.

This interactive novel casts the reader as the detective. With integrated clues to examine and entangled interviews to analyze, the reader must make a case in this whodunit novel turned criminal investigation.

This book was so fun. It’s like clue in book form and I so wish I had gotten a physical arc so I could’ve played along in the actual booklet. I feel like the twists were a little predictable, especially considering there was a typo in one of the diary entries (possibly just because it was an arc and it wasn’t caught) but overall really fun especially with the house itself being a extra entity. The parallel of the two stories running side by side was cool to see as well. I feel like some of the side characters could’ve been a bit more fleshed out and I think that there are still a few loose ends in regards to Alex but still enjoyable.

I had a lot of fun, it made me think of the gamebooks that I read/played. There's a lot of potential, an original idea.
Some editing would turn it into a solid 5*
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I think the interactive concept of this novel was clever and unique and it must have been a huge organizational undertaking for the author. I commend her for taking this project on. However, I struggled getting through the story and did not enjoy it. Among other things, the story suffered from ‘narrative interruptus’ – with the dual timeline readers would be treated to the rising action of one story only to have that flow be interrupted by a jarring chapter ending and an unrelated segue into the other storyline. I found Macie and Mary’s story more interesting and compelling, though I agree with so many of the other reviews that are critical of the historical accuracy of it. The more modern storyline falls flat for me – the characters aren’t particularly likeable, there are flimsy smoke and mirrors, and the pieces didn’t really add up. I wish I felt different because I can appreciate the amount of work that must have gone into writing this book, but there were a lot of aspects of it that never came together for me.

Kudos to the cover artist for the gorgeous cover.

I received an advanced reader copy through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This mystery was unique and interesting. Reminded me of books I read as a kid - but only in the best way. The dialogue was a little “campy” to me with some of the language choices. However it fit the idea of a campy mystery like Clue or a vintage movie. Would definitely read more from this author!

3.5 stars

Lindsey Lamar brings a dual storylines involving twins, one set in modern times and one set the in 1940s. The book is presented in sections as case files, and is an “interactive book”. However, I think there could be more opportunities for the interactive story line, maybe, including QR codes and stuff like that. I haven’t read a book in the style before, so that was interesting. The two story lines were engaging and I liked the 1940s story line with the Sophomore sisters a little bit better.

There is a lot of doublecrossing in this book, as well as multiple unreliable narrators. It’s definitely worth a read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Experiment 42 for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.