"The déjà vu is strong for 25-year-old former kid detective Charlotte Illes when she lands back in Frencham Middle School - this time as a substitute teacher with a sideline in sleuthing - in the second zany mystery based on the much-loved TikTok web series from @katiefliesaway.

For fans of Poker Face, Knives Out, Elle Cosimano's Finlay Donovan Series, and anyone seeking to satisfy their Harriet the Spy, Encyclopedia Brown, or Nancy Drew nostalgia!

Mention "returning to the scene of a crime," and people don't usually picture a middle school. But that's where kid detective Lottie Illes enjoyed some of her greatest successes, solving mysteries and winning acclaim - before the world of adult responsibilities came crashing in...

Twentysomething Charlotte is now back in the classroom, this time as a substitute teacher. However, as much as she's tried to escape the shadow of her younger self, others haven't forgotten about Lottie. In fact, a fellow teacher is hoping for help discovering the culprit behind anonymous threats being sent to her and her aunt, who's running for reelection to the Board of Education.

At first, Charlotte assumes the messages are a harmless prank. But maybe it's a good thing she left a detective kit hidden in the band room storage closet all those years ago - just in case. Because the threats are escalating, and it's clear that untangling mysteries isn't child's play anymore..."

There's prepared and there's Charlotte Illes prepared with a detective kit hidden for over a decade just "in case."

The modern day Nancy Drew,
This book had great queer representation! I found the stories really funny! charlotte Illes is fantastic!

This story is very YA, fun and interesting, it’s definitely written in a way that will keep anyone that loves Nancy drew mysteries engaged!

I found, Gabe, Lucy and Charlotte a great trio and the side characters! Great fun, there really wasn’t a ‘plot twist’ as such, the book was written in a fun way that you wanted to keep reading to see how it ends.
I loved learning about the characters and the cases that childhood friends Lucy and Charlotte solved in their youth and how this affected Charlottes current case.

Charlotte Illes is not a teacher is about an armature detective who works as a substitute teacher and takes a case for a colleague … but will they solve the case.. is this story what you expected it to be. Things aren’t what they seem.

I enjoyed this story, I’d recommend it to Nancy Drew lovers!

As a child, I used to love reading mysteries and solving them. Me and my friends would invent stories with missing items and try to solve cases. It felt nostalgic in the best way. This book felt like reconnecting with this little girl reading detective’s novels. And that’s exactly what Charlotte is afraid of, becoming Lottie again. And it’s especially hard, as she’s working in the place where all her cases took place, with people knowing who she used to be. And we can see glimpses of that girl through the little flashbacks in some chapters.
I loved this book; it was both funny and serious at the right moments. It felt alive. Like you were part of the friend group, and you were helping solve the case too. The friends were funny, and they know each other so well, they always had each other’s backs. Something that is very often lacking, the friends were always present in Charlotte’s life, and they stayed relevant the whole story. They had lives of their own, too.
And even though the story was light and funny, Katie Siegel, the author, found a way to broach more serious subjects. For example, the discussion between Charlotte and Gabe about the school being accepting of queer kids, which was different for them. I loved seeing Charlotte recognising herself in Nia, and slowly making her peace with doing things the Lottie way.
All in all, it’s a solid 4.5 stars read, I only wished it was longer. I can’t wait for it to come out so I can receive my physical copy.

What I love most from Siegel's books is just the pure current of fun that run through them. The humor rolls naturally throughout, I have loved seeing how the characters, the main three, Charlotte, Gabe, and Lucy, have grown together and independently. While the mystery at hand might not be as life and death as book 1 I found the ongoing story just as enticing and was blown away by the final twists and turns. Knowing the story behind Siegel's interesting journey to writing is quite funny considering the skills she brings to her works, you'd never know that CIINAD and CIINAT are the first books she really ever written. I don't know what might be next for our investigators but I really hope they return to a bookstore near you soon, or that Siegel will try her hand at another literary endeavor.

So I loveeeeeeed the first book in this series. I honestly don’t remember tooo much about it beyond the characters and was just going to mention I found her hesitancy around being a detective again boring but I looked at the reviews for the first book and apparently that’s a plot point too? We get it, she has doubts. I think the mystery in this was a little less exciting and instead the author was relying on funny characters as a way to be interesting. I do appreciate that the dialogue and characters are cringe at points, but cringe in a way humans, especially autistic people and or queer people who spend way too much time online actually are, instead of some middle aged woman’s perception of millennials or teenagers. Overall, I liked it and it’s exciting to have a series I’m invested in.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

I had forgotten how funny the first book was, but I was quickly reminded when I was already laughing before I started chapter one here! There are two pages that precede the first page of chapter one - don't miss them. I laughed out loud throughout the entire story. All of our favorites are back. The mystery itself is on the lighter side but it's still so much fun. A really quick read. I'm already anticipating the next one. Highly recommend, and if you haven't read the first one, what are you waiting for?

"Call it a strategy, not a mistake," Charlotte suggested.

I adore Charlotte Illes! Her sense of humor, her madcap mistakes (er, strategies), her exuberant attitude...

I loved her first book, and I knew I had to read the second. And it's dedicated to teachers! How could this teacher-librarian resist?!

Found Family is quickly becoming my favorite trope, and Charlotte's circle of BFFs rank high on my list of faves. Gabe and Lucy are so different, but such necessary balance for Charlotte. The combo of cultures and backgrounds like a friend sandwich... Mmm, and how about a spark of love interest for her in this book two?

And Charlotte does not disappoint. Thanks, Katie Siegel, for giving Charlotte to the world.

Charlotte Illes is not a teacher was a really fun book to read. Thanks Netgalley for the ARC. Charlotte pushes her want to be a detective and takes up a job at the old middle school as substitute teacher. Her bestfriend, alongside her, retells the drama and issues happening between the teachers. Someone is getting blackmailed and no one knows by who. The itch begins and Charlotte steps up to figure out what and who is doing this. It was a cute read. I enjoyed the journey this book took me on. Charlotte and her friends are fun and witty and help each other out through the hardest times. It was a lighthearted story about friendship, love, hard truths and companionship.

I like the first book in this series so I was excited to read the ARC for book #2. It follows amateur detective Charlotte taking a break from solving mysteries; until one falls into her lap at her middle school, where her sleuthing career started. It was great seeing her old friends again and their antics always make me laugh. It was a solid mystery book, albeit a little immature (simple?!) than her previous case she solved. It kept me entertained but I was expecting more.
All in all a solid read. I am looking forward to reading her next book in the series.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

Sequel. Charlotte, former child detective, has now gotten a job as a substitute teacher at the school where her best friend works. Of course a mystery presents itself. This was decent, though I guessed at least part of the mystery fairly early on. Are middle-schoolers really like this? 3 stars.

I really liked Charlotte Illes in Not a Detective and thought this was a really nice follow-up. Charlotte is a former child detective who enjoyed some fame/infamy in her hometown of Frencham for the cases that she solved, particularly during her time at Frencham Middle School. Now in her 20s, Charlotte is living at home with her mom and has started working cases again, partly due to her success in solving the case from the first book, but she's decided to also get a normal job and starts working as a substitute teacher at Frencham Middle. She's still dealing with something of an identity crisis, but this time it's not about her reluctance to be a detective but rather about separating herself from the *child* detective that she was. That's hard when she's (literally) back at the scene of the crime, constantly being reminded of her old, frankly questionable, methods. The vibe here was different than what I remember of the first one - the stakes of the actual mystery seem lower and the physical world of the story is more limited - but I really liked the direction that this took. We get to know Charlotte's two best friends - Lucy, who was involved in a lot of Charlotte's own middle school detective antics and who is now a language arts teacher at Frencham Middle, and Gabe, who decides to join them in their quest to figure out who is sending threatening texts and letters to Lucy's fellow teacher Kim. It felt like we got to know Charlotte better by getting to know her friends and by seeing how she reacts with both colleagues and students (including a very adorable group of primarily queer amateur detective students). There was great queer representation here, and I also appreciated that Siegel was intentional about describing the physical attributes of most of the characters as they were introduced. It's still really common for authors to give detailed physical descriptions only of non-white characters, but in Siegel's writing, everyone gets described. It's a relatively small thing in terms of the narrative, but it really stood out to me. I look forward to returning to Frencham for future Charlotte Illes books!

This was a super fun read, even though I hadn’t realized this book was the second in the series. I felt like I was still able to fall into the story and didn’t get lost despite missing the first book!

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.

Another enjoyable romp through the world of Charlotte Illes, while still underscoring the poignancy of growing up.

This is the second book in the series and I highly recommend reading or re-reading the first installment of this series before picking this one up. I had to do a bit of a re-read to remember what happened and who everyone was. This was definitely better than the first book in my opinion from both a mystery plot point and also from a character development standpoint. This time our teenage sleuth is a substitute teacher at her old middle school. While older, she definitely hasn’t put her sleuthing days behind her!

Free eARC provided by NetGalley and the publisher for reviewing purposes.

This is a great second installment in this series. We follow Charlotte Illes, former child detective a la Encyclopedia Brown or Nancy Drew, now a grown up millennial as she tries to survive life and gets back into mystery solving. Fair warning- this is very much a millennial coded book. I really enjoyed this mystery more than the previous installment- I found the integration of her friends into the story to be more natural (Charlotte is working as a substitute at the school where her best friend works), and even though I didn't remember a lot of the first book, this universe felt a lot more lived in. It's also fun to return to where Charlotte had a lot of middle school adventures and see her interact now as an adult with the vice principal who used to punish her for rule breaking while solving mysteries as a child. For those who don't usually enjoy child characters written in books- the middle schoolers themselves are not a huge part of the story, but they are well written and I thought they were a good part of the story.
I also felt like the details for solving this mystery made more sense when you put them together than the first book- kudos to the author for improving on the mystery part when the first installment felt so character driven. Overall, if you liked the first one and you're a cozy mystery fan, I think you'll like this one even better!

Another cute Charlotte Illes! It’s a fun cozy mystery with a great group of friends! Very enjoyable!

"I thought this was really well written and I look forward to reading more from this author in the future. I think it will find readers at our library, so we will definitely be purchasing for the collection.

What a beautiful second novel! Charlotte Illes returns to a new mystery and keep readers on their toes!

Enjoyed this endearing, funny mystery! Well-written with quirky, delightful characters. This is the second Charlotte Illes novel in the series…looking forward to the next one.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Charlotte Illes is back with her besties and ready for... middle school. Taking a gig at her old middle school as a substitute teacher, Charlotte finds mysteries a plenty, just like when she was a kid. As she tries to leave her adolescent sleuthing self behind, she finds herself forging a new and unexpected path, but not completely removed from little Lottie. While a lot has changed since middle school (including her perspective on a former teacher) her love for mysteries and justice is still her driving force.

This second in the series was as delightful as the first and I look forward to more shenanigans from Charlotte and her best friends.