This was such a fun time! Especially if you enjoy murder mysteries and romcoms.

I found this to be very entertaining and funny. I laughed out loud several times. I thought the comedy was spot on and fit the tone of the book. I liked the characters, especially the heroine because she was the one with the sleuthing skills. The characters had great chemistry too. The plot was well developed and interesting. I really enjoyed the murder mystery (what can I say, I'm a true crime girlie).

While the story revolves around a murder mystery, this still remains lighthearted. I think the author did a fabulous job blending two genres. They went together seamlessly.

Would definitely recommend!

If you are a fan of romcom murder mysteries, such as the Stephanie Plum series, you will love this book. Yes it was predictable, but oh so much fun! Marooned on an island off of Seattle in an eccentric woman's mansion, the setting of her niece's wedding is perfect. Hot men, poison, back stabbing "friends" what more could you want!

Thanks to McMillian publishing and NetGalley for the ARC of this book to read.

This is a fun, no escape wedding murder mystery with a romance plot. Murder mystery writer Kate Valentine is invited to a wedding on a private island. Incidents/murder attempts start happening that coincide with incidents in her books. Kate must figure out who is trying to frame her and why. Who best to help her out but her old crush, Jake. Will sparks fly as they solve the mystery?

Yes!! I enjoyed this book so much! I thought the mystery was very interesting and kept me guessing. I loved the banter between the main characters and the conclusion.

This one was a fun, twisty mystery with a bit of romance. If you're looking for a romance, this isn't one at its core. It just has some romantic elements with the main characters. Even though it wasn't a very romantic story, I enjoyed the entertainment of it. There were many side characters, which was hard to manage at times because of the different situations arising throughout the story. I thought the main female character seemed fun and was pretty relatable at times. There were times when I was confused with her choices when dealing with her investigation since she's not an actual law enforcement person. Another area of confusion was her connection with Jake. Which came off as weird; they went from barely talking about their past to wanting to get down to business with each other and then having a big, tension-filled argument. When this happens in a story, I'm always unsure why the author did it this way. I think it showed some development gaps in the romance aspect of the story. Even though I am more of a proper romance reader, this was still really enjoyable, and I think many lovers of a fun Knives Out-type mystery will like this a lot. As for romance readers, it might be a hit or miss.

Love a good locked room mystery with some good romance thrown in! This was so much fun! The main characters had such good chemistry and that twist!? Was definitely not expecting that!! Great amount of spice and suspense for the length of the story. Just so good! Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for my digital ARC!!

Aside from some geography based mess ups, this is a decent mystery/romance. Mysteries are not my favorite genre but I want to like them and this one was engaging and not predictable.

Kate Valentine is a successful mystery writer who was invited to her ex-fiancé's wedding on a private island near the San Juans. Her former friend and long time crush, Jake is also there. The cast of quirky invitees leaving the reader guessing whodunnit, as Kate dons her "sleuthing sweater" and tries to be like Loretta, her plucky main character. Hijinks ensue.

The story dragged on a bit and many of the characters were insanely unlikeable. However, Kate and Jake were not, so it was not too hard to enjoy the read. I would give it 3 stars.


Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Minotaur, and Net Galley for the DRC! All opinions are my own!

I enjoyed many parts of this story. I loved the setting. I thought it was fun that the murder was copying her latest book. But I am a huge fan of character development. I had a tough time keeping the characters straight. And Spencer was so wishy-washy, why would someone with Kennedy's savvy fall for him? And what is with him pining after Kate? And I don't want to do spoilers, but the killer??? It didn't add up or make sense to me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance reader's copy of the book. This was a fast read for me. I liked that it was a romantic comedy sort of mixed with a mystery. The story was interesting and I was hooked and needed to know what happened next. The main character was interesting and I didn't hate her, didn't love her either but she wasn't bad. I never figured out the who dunnit until that was revealed so well done to the author in that that part wasn't very obvious. (At least for me.) I liked the love interest. Overall this was a fun popcorn read for me. I'll definitely be recommending it to all of my reader friends.

Thank you to Jenny Elder Moke, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for this arc of She Doesn’t Have A Clue, out January 21, 2025!

📜Quick Summary: Kate Valentine is a best selling author, who’s editor is, unfortunately, her ex-boyfriend. For a reason she can’t fathom, she’s invited to his wedding on a private island. This is the perfect opportunity to finish the draft of her latest Loretta mystery novel; an almost perfect wedding gift. But then the unthinkable happens…the bride is murdered and the story eerily follows her latest novel. With another past romantic love on the island-Jake- many old memories and feelings start stirring. Will Jake help her solve this mystery or will this one be unsolvable?

❣️Initial Feels: This seems like an easy, breezy, light hearted romantic comedy read infused with mystery. Right off the bat, the banter feels natural to the characters. Kate is also writing her novel with Loretta at times, so keeping those two storylines separate is key.

👀Trigger Warnings: murder

🙋🏼‍♀️Moving Character: Gosh, I loved all these characters for so many different reasons. I could see this playing out as a Netflix series, with so many unique characters bringing this novel to life. I loved Kate’s growth not only as a writer, but as a person. She embraced the changes and became more confident. I also loved Jake too; he leaned into his inner self many times at the end, and I loved his growth.

📖Read if you want: romance rolled up with mystery, private island setting vibes, fake dating, hidden secrets among the rich, lots (&lots) of characters

💡Final Sentiments: What could go wrong with a wealthy family, a private wedding island, and someone who’s in attendance that wants to kill someone? Well, this book has it all! Murder, drama, romance, ex lovers, and a quirky cast! I loved this one! If you want a great mix of murder and romance, this is it for you! This novel read so easily and I loved all the characters. Yes, there were a lot in this novel but each one was so entertaining! I could certainly see this as a short Netflix series with a fabulous cast!

🌟Overall Rating: 4.5 stars

This novel was provided by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.

Bestselling author Kate Valentine attends her ex-fiancé's wedding on a private island, hoping to finish her latest mystery novel as a gift. But when the bride is poisoned and a body is found, Kate is plunged into a real-life murder case that mirrors her book. With the help of Jake Hawkins, her biggest romantic regret, she must navigate a web of secrets and resentments to catch the killer—before it’s too late.

I really enjoyed this one. It was the perfect amount of mystery mixed with romance mixed with comedy. Kate is a little quirky but she was the perfect character for this book. I enjoyed seeing her and Jake’s relationship play out and the banter between them. Also, I LOVED Loretta’s POV and how she helped Kate uncover clues and stay calm.

There were quite of few unlikable suspects that really added to the mystery aspect of this book. And Kate’s character growth was such a good one!

Rating: 4/5
Spice: 2/5

Tropes:
Slow Burn
Second Chance
Close Proximity
Creepy Old House
Family Secrets

Thank you Net Galley, St Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books, and Jenny Elder Moke for a chance to read this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

Thank you, NetGalley!
This is half a murder mystery and half a romance book. I loved the main character, Kate. She was relatable and funny. Unfortunately, a book with a similar premise was published before this one. I loved this story and Kate and Jake had great chemistry. It’s not a competition but this is the better book.

Kate is an author of a popular murder mystery series who starts the book by bumping into her crush on her wya to her ex-fiance's wedding. Her book seems to come out of the pages when things start happening and people begin to suspect Kate had something to do with it. She teams up with Jake, her crush, to solve the mystery. There is sleuthing, secret passages, and many suspects along the way. The banter was my favorite part in the book.

This was a whacky blend of cozy murder mystery and second chance romance that takes place on a remote island off the coast of Seattle during a destination wedding of bestselling author Kate's ex, Spencer.

When bodies start turning up in circumstances that eerily resemble scenes from Kate's books, things start to get serious and the more time she spends with fellow guest Jake, the one who got away, the more old feelings from the past get dredged up.

Full of action, tons of forced proximity open door spice, ridiculous accidental deaths and even a cougar on the loose, this book will make you laugh, swoon and cackle with glee. A hugely entertaining adult fiction debut by a new to me author who I will eagerly look forward to reading more from.

This was also great on audio narrated by Sarah Mollo-Christensen who does an impressive job narrating the full cast of characters, including Jake's very convincing Australian accent. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital and audio copy in exchange for my honest review! Recommended for fans of Pip Drysdale's Close-up or Catherine Mack's No one was supposed to die at this wedding.

Very imaginative mystery! I love that the point of view vacillates between Kate and Loretta, her fictional character. How every situation is assessed and then rewritten in a novel. Even how Kate tries to draw strength from Loretta. And I absolutely love old mansions, with their many rooms and hidden passageways and alcoves - there is no better setting for a mystery ... or a wedding (or like this, both!)! The mystery was complex enough to keep you guessing which of the guests could be behind these devious acts, where everyone has a motive and there are so many machinations behind the scenes! An exciting and fun read!

Kate writes murder mysteries, and at her ex-fiance's wedding she is shocked when she's thrust into a real-life whodunnit. Teaming up with Jake, a former colleague and (maybe more than?) a friend who unexpectedly shows up at the wedding, Kate tries to solve the case before there's another victim. Piece of cake for a murder writer, right? Not when everyone's a suspect! The author jumps right into the story, and it's a great blend of exposition with events. There's quite a bit of intrigue, which keeps the story moving along. Jake and Kate together were a lot of fun, and Kate had just the right amount of snark and chaos. (And I think we could all benefit from having a Blake in our life!) The writing was witty and fairly fast-paced. There was a large cast of characters which, at times, made it harder to keep track of everyone and bogged the movement of the story down a bit. But that also made it harder to pin down who was behind everything, which certainly kept me guessing and reading to the end. Personally the book was a bit too long for my tastes, but ultimately the author made us care about Kate and Jake (and Loretta and Blake too!). Heavy use of the fake dating/just one bed/forced proximity/friends-to-lovers tropes in this open-door romance. Readers who like their romance stories wrapped up in a murder mystery filled with banter and emotional realizations will love this book!

Kate Valentine, best selling mystery author was invited to her ex fiance’s wedding by the bride’s rich aunt. there, her long time crush, Jake was mistakenly invited as her plus one. At the wedding, someone attempted to poison the wife. Strangely enough, this incident feels eerie similar to Kate's best selling series about Loretta. So she, along with Jake must investigate but who exactly is behind the crime?

I think this book is a pretty fun and cute mystery and romance read. It’s quite cozy, which is perfect for a romance novel.

This book has a perfect setting for a mystery book (an island in the pacific northwest). But somewhere, somehow the mystery vibe was lost and the book felt bright and cheery, which i guess fit well with the romcom aspect.

There are so many characters here. I am talking people be popping up left and right and I was constantly like:” Oh hi, who exactly are you?”. I was reading around 5 different plot lines at the same time. One moment Kate & Jake were on a stalking mission. The next? They were kissing and all over one another. Everything just felt disjointed and I was left confused. Because the story moved so fast from one subplot to the next, there was not enough tension built either for the romance or the mystery murder.

If you read the beginning of this review, you might think that it is quite…negative. I don’t hate this book, I think it has massive potential to be turned into a game. This book would be fun to read with a group of friends, annotated, solved like a pure murder mystery. Each character will be investigated for who they are, their motives, etc. I think it would really make a fun game night.

Kate Valentine is the author of the Starling Mystery series, starring Loretta Starling, Florida Keys bartender by night and amateur sleuth by day. Now Kate is at the diagonal geographic opposite of a tropical paradise — somewhere on a private island in the SanJuan Islands off coastal Washington State. Kate has been invited to a very recent EX fiancé’s nuptials. He’s Spencer, her editor at Simon Says. Six months ago Kate and Spencer were *the* engaged couple; now it’s Spencer and Kennedy Hempstead, a marketing manager at the same publishing firm. Kennedy’s advantage over Kate is being part of a very rich family. The island is named after her family and Kennedy’s aunt and strict executor of the entire family estate is the “Bitch Bull of Wall Street,” Rebecca Hempstead. Kate only decided to attend after getting a handwritten note from her.

Along with Kate is Jake Hawkins, the Hotstralian and another of the Simon Says authors, who was surreptitiously invited as Kate’s plus-one by the bride (Kate does have a secret fondness for Jake). Both of them are flirty but also put off by the awkwardness of the wedding and its strange guests, plus the overall creepiness of the big house (including way too many taxidermied monstrosities, personally killed by Rebecca for her unalive “menagerie”).

Then Spencer directly (and inappropriately) quotes one of Kate’s novel’s love scenes while touting his bride at the rehearsal dinner, which sends Kate into a voluntary drunken tizzy. Which only gets much worse when she stumbles over the seemingly dead body of the bride, much like the plot of her first Loretta Starling book and as well as a scene in book three, too. Plus, is there evidence of the unusual poison used in book four? Hoo boy.

What proceeds is an adorable cozy mystery with a lot of romantic bantering between Kate and the Aussie hunk. The book is interspersed with prescient quotes from Loretta books and Kate’s notes about potential Loretta vignettes. Kate’s reaction to finding the motionless Kennedy is primarily “What Would Loretta Do?” As a locked room mystery, we get to know all the possible suspects and then decide along with Kate (and Loretta) which of them is having murderous thoughts and has read Kate’s books thoroughly enough to try to frame her.

This is author Moke’s first foray into adult fiction and, hopefully, not her last. “She Doesn’t Have a Clue” is great for a cozy wintry day’s read or keep it for the next island beach wedding you’re invited to! 4.5 stars!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO Not human eyes, but Kate is caught off guard by a set of greenish-yellow eyes spying on her from the trees above.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): Hmmmmm — I did learn about deadly rosary peas, although they are normally native to Asia, Australia and the subtropical parts of the Americas (not the San Juan Islands).

Thank you to St.Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for this ARC, in exchange for an honest review.

In this fun read, we meet Kate, a writer who usually spends her time in the world of make-believe, working on a murder mystery series set in Florida. But now, she's heading off to her ex-fiancé's wedding on a private island. Not only is her ex fiancé tying the knot, but he’s also the one who edits her books, and he’s waiting for her next story. To make things even more awkward, Jake—her old friend and secret crush—is also on the boat. He’s an attractive Australian adventurer, and Kate is confused about why he’s even invited to the wedding.

Things get wild when they reach the island. From having awful weather is, discovering a dead animal, and to top it off, there are some pretty strange folks around. And yes, there’s a body or two to deal with. The wedding weekend is definitely off to a chaotic start!

I truly enjoyed this book! The cover and the summary drew me in, and I’m so happy I decided to read it. Kate is quirky and endearing, while Jake is a dream guy for her (even if he’s a globe-trotting surfer who may not be ready for a serious relationship). Their connection is fantastic, and the wedding chaos just keeps escalating.

This book is a fun mix of mystery, laughter, romance, and a touch of the bizarre. It’s entertaining, a bit steamy, and ridiculous in the best possible way. If you enjoy stories like this, I highly recommend giving it a go!
4.25 Stars!

This hybrid mystery/rom-com is so much fun. The sarcasm and zing-y dialogue had me laughing out loud. And spicy scenes were hot! I listened to the audiobook, and narrator Sarah Mollo-Christensen gives one hell of a performance. Definitely worth the read/listen, and I look forward to more from the author. Thanks to Minotaur for the ARC.

This is a very funny book. It has romance, comedy, and is a mystery book. It’s quite different. The main characters Kate is a writer who is bent framed for murder. She use'sher main character as a muse to solving the crime. She bumbles about causing really funny scenes. I really enjoyed the author’s style of writing. I liked following her clues to catching the killer. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced free copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley.