This may be my favorite Minotaur Sampler yet. In fact I ended up falling in love with quite a few of these stories that I applied for ARCs of 3 of them, which I am now working through reading. Red River Road, The Nature of Disappearing and If Something Happens to Me were big hits with me as a reader.

I am currently working on reviews of the later two above and also have interest in checking Agony Hill out Further, along with Trouble in Queenstown.

Fantastic Sampler, which gives readers enough of a taste to become invested in the characters and the stories at hand. I can’t wait to find more books of interest in the next Sampler.

I love trying and finding new authors! This book sampler did not disappoint! When I saw all the authors listed i jumped at the opportunity! I would definitely recommend this to others and will be getting my own copies of these books for further reading!

Thank you netgalley for the advanced copies. It in no way affected my opinion or review.

This package was a bit confusing to me, I enjoyed some but not all included so it makes it a bit difficult to rate rather than 1 to 1.

Great preview of these upcoming books. It is nice to see multiple books before I request them to see if they are my kind of book.

I really love these little samplers! They're the perfect way to sample several different books, all in one place so it's less overwhelming.

Great way for HS students to experience various styles of writing. Only devoted a few days to this sample but could have spent a few weeks. Students were into each writing. Better than I expected.

Nice sampler, I enjoyed Alex Finlay's title, haven't read the others completely. Always enjoy the Minotaur Sampler.

I really appreciated this sampler! I ended up reading and reviewing If Something Happens to Me and really enjoying it! I gave it 4 stars and I don’t know that I would have gotten to it so soon had I not sampled it here

This was a great compilation of summer mysteries! In short:

Every Time I Go on Vacation Someone Dies was a fun, quirky book about murders on a mystery book book tour. I liked Mack's writing enough to overlook the weird footnote idea and request the audio version to skip that part and truly enjoyed this title and its twists.

Finlay is a master at a twist as I did not see one of the biggest ones in If Something Happens to Me coming. The book is a story of a five year old missing person case and how it breaks open again when the missing girl, Ali's, car is found at the bottom of a lake with not her, but someone else in it. I enjoyed this story enough to read the full book and enjoyed how the story unwound even though I wasn't really convinced by the ending.

Next we had two books of returning home, Agony Hill and Trouble in Queenstown. Both were somewhat gritty crime dramas, Agony Hill taking place in the 60's and Queenstown in New Jersey. I liked the main characters in each of these book a lot - Franklin in Agony Hill and Vandy in Queenstown. While I wasn't sure I'd like the 1960's setting, I ended up truly enjoying Franklin and his old school detective work. Vandy was a great, conflicted character and Queenstown has a lot going on in the few chapters that I read, but I look forward to seeing where Pitts takes her.

The final two books are mysteries surrounding young women who went missing while documenting their van life travels on social media, making me never want to travel in vans, ever. Each are promising mysteries, even though I don't know that we needed two in one sampler. I tend to lean toward Nature of Disappearing a little more since I liked Emlyn more than Katy in Red River Road, but it is hard to gauge where things will go in a full novel.

All in all, super fun and twisty books to recommend all summer! Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Minotaur, and NetGalley for the early reads in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was my first time reading a sampler and I really enjoyed the format. It gave me brief access to a vast variety of mysteries so I was able to determine which books I would like to further explore. Some of the titles I'm most looking forward to adding to my tbr include THE NATURE OF DISAPPEARING by Kimi Cunningham Grant (I loved her first novel These Silent Woods), IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME by Alex Finley and RED RIVER ROAD by Anna Downes.

Thank you so much NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the e-copy in exchange for an honest review!

This was a great sample of amazing authors. Highly recommend to anyone who has wanted to try these authors,

I love this sampler, I was able to find a few books from there to add on to my tbr. Most of the stories kept my interest and stories I would personally read and recommend people.

Thank you to publisher here at NetGalley for providing me with this copy.

I loved reading this sample books!! It was great to get an idea of what each of the books was about. Being able to determine in advance if a book is really something you would like to read is amazing! So thankful I was able to do it.

What an amazing collection of stories! Thank you for the opportunity to read them all! I especially loved Everytime I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies!

This is probably the best Minotaur Sampler yet! Very excited to finish these stories when they are published. “Every Time I Go on Vacation Someone Dies” by Catherine Mack: Eleanor Dash is on a book tour in Italy, ready to kill off her main character, Connor Smith, even though he is a fan favorite. When a murder attempt on the real Connor occurs, Eleanor’s enlisted to solve the case. I laughed multiple times during the sample and cannot wait to read more of this wild romp. Some people may be distracted by the footnotes, but I enjoyed them. “If Something Happens to Me” by Alex Finlay: For five years, Ryan Richardson has relived the unsolved abduction of his high school girlfriend. Ryan was never charged as there was no proof he was involved, but many hold him as the primary suspect. Ryan changed his last name and enrolled in law school, trying to put the past behind him. The case is reignited by the discovery of his girlfriend’s car—with two dead men inside and a note with Ali’s handwriting. Pieces of the story continue to be exposed…will Ryan finally get answers? There was an instant interest in Ryan’s character and how he handled this profound and tragic event. “The Nature of Disappearing” by Kimi Cunningham Grant is one of my most anticipated reads of the year. Emlyn is working as a fishing and hunting guide in Idaho when news of her best friend’s disappearance brings her ex, Tyler, asking for her help to find out what happened. The details of the scenery and fly-fishing were well done and I am eager to get to the bottom of this mystery! “Trouble in Queenstown” by Delia Pitts: Vandy Myrick is working as a private eye back in her home town of Queenstown, New jersey. Trouble is brewing in this small community. Her newest client, the mayor’s nephew, has a case that seems straightforward, but quickly becomes complicated. Visceral and crude, this story may not be for everyone, but readers will be hard-pressed to not find themselves rooting for Vandy. “Agony Hill” by Sarah Stewart Taylor: 1960’s rural Vermont is the setting for multiple mysteries, including a suspicious death in a barn fire. Warren is new to town and determined to do his job well. I found Warren very easy to get invested in. Hope that he find the answers he is looking for. “Red River Road” by Anna Downes: Katy Sweeney is retracing her sister’s steps using the social media accounts that documented her travels in Australia. An unforeseen encounter with a stranger complicates her plans, but may be the key to finding out what is going on. This one was unsettling right from the start. Not sure who is trustworthy or who is truly lost.

This was such a great sampler pack! The stories pulled you in almost immediately, and left you wanting for more!

I can't give a detailed review of each of these books, as I have not read them yet. But they are on my to read list and I'm so excited to have gotten an introduction to them. They all have their own plots and twists, but the one I'm most excited about is "Every time I go on Vacation Someone Dies". This is funny and has great characters. I can't wait to see where the story goes and how it ends.

Agony Hill is another one I can't wait to read. It is set in the 1960s in Vermont I was born in 1964 and grew up in New York, not far from the Vermont border. I've traveled all throughout New England and this series sounds like I could really relate to the area and the history.

I would love to read each book in this sampler, they all had things that interested me. I've never done a sampler before because I didn't think I would like just a tidbit of a story. After reading these, I totally understand why people can enjoy them. You can get a taste of the book and a feeling of whether it would interest you before you dive into the book itself. It was totally worth my time.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to preview six great new titles in The Minotaur Sampler, volume 11.

I am most excited about The Nature of Disappearing by Kimi Cunningham Grant, since I read and loved her first book.

Lately, I have loved the idea of sampling books. I read a few chapters of a few books, and based on which one excites me the most is the book I choose to read. I am such a mood reader, and this Minotaur Sampler gave me great look inside different novels.

I appreciate the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read the samples in exchange for an honest review.

This Minotaur Sampler, with passages from some of my favorite authors (Sarah Stewart Taylor and Alex Finlay) will have you running to pre-order these books. They are all quite different, but each had me hooked! This is a really good way to get introduced to more authors. I am really looking forward to reading all of them!

This sampler was amazing and is perfect for finding your next read!
There are three stand-alones and 3first in series. This is one of my favorite samplers to read and included many books I’m interested in. They have all now been added to my TBR list and I have requested some to read &review.
Huge thanks to Netgalley for this ARC!