Twisted mystery set in the 1960s

Eastport, Maine, 1964: Wilhelmina ‘Billie’ McCadie is a mid-20-something college grad who’s caught in a bit of a boring rut: an introvert who’d rather spend her evenings reading a book or two who’s sent out numerous job applications…and received numerous rejection letters. While on her lunch break from sewing at Primp and Ribbon Alterations, she checks her PO Box and finds a couple of the usual ‘rejection-letter thin’ envelopes. She opens and tosses the first; she’s about to toss the second unopened when the postman sticks his head out. She ponders the etiquette of tossing unopen mail in front of the postman briefly, then sticks in her purse to open later. And when she does, she realizes it’s not a rejection letter, but a love letter gone astray. Addressed to Gertrude and containing an engagement ring, the letter leaves Billie intrigued, pondering who Gertrude. Moments later, she meets Avery Webster, one of the uber wealthy summer folk, who invites her to a party later that evening. She hesitates but then goes out of curiosity. Where she meets the mysterious Gertude, whom the letter is addressed to, followed soon after finding the body of the mysterious Gertrude, a large knife wound on her chest. By the next morning Billie has decided: she’ll need to find who killed Gertrude. The following year finds Billie consuming numerous cocktails, being stalked, stalking others, skirting the edge of trouble, romance, and, of course as with any good murder mystery, a few more bodies.

I adored Billie! This was such a delightful twisty tale. It started off rather boring, echoing Billie’s mood, to the point where I debated about not finishing. But then a few pages later, she received her letter, and the excitement started. I loved how Billie kept coming back to the etiquette lessons her mother taught her and the linguist footnotes she includes. And while I’m not exactly sure how it would work plot-wise, I’d love to read another book featuring Billie.

Highly recommended! I received a copy of this from NetGallley.com that I voluntarily reviewed.

Quick-ish Thoughts Reviews

🎵 Thank you, @berkleyromance, for the free copy of The Love Lyric by Kristina Forest. This was my first time reading this author & I really enjoyed how strong of a connection the hero feels to the heroine, even years after their first meeting. He’s an R&B singer who feels put in a box by his label & wants his mom to accept all of him; she’s a single mom business executive who lost a husband she loved. This a soft story about people who take a chance—more than one, really—as they chase their happiness. 4 ⭐️, out now!

🥂 Etiquette for Lovers & Killers by Anna Fitzgerald Healy is a mystery set in a compelling 1960s setting with a heroine this side of dark. Billy McCadie is drawn to the recent victim of a murder investigation & pulled into a rich world she knows little about. Sprinkled with Billie’s linguistic explanations & her morbid explorations of the people who lost their lives, this book is unsettling in an entertaining kind of way.
4.33 ⭐️, out 07/01. (Thanks to publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.)

🗡️ The Knight & the Butcherbird by Alix E. Harrow. Harrow’s writing is beautifully violent—you feel the sharpness of her words. In this post apocalyptic short story, demons exist, & they’re people who were mysteriously mutated into something deadly. The protagonist Shrike’s wife is a demon, & that puts her in the path of a Knight sent to kill her demon-wife. The effect of this story is tremendous & cemented for me again how talented the author is. 5 ⭐️, out 03/11. (Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.)

🏴‍☠️ Any Duke in a Storm by Amalie Howard. What a delicious book! Whew!, it crackles with heat, verve, & passion. I love the queer rep, the unconventional leads, & the charming smuggler hero who gets hot for the pirate-smuggler baddie heroine. Sooo good! 5 ⭐️.

📖 have you read any of these or are any on your TBR?

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Etiquette for Lovers and Killers.

Billie McCadie is bored out of her gourd in her tiny town of Eastport, Maine. She lives with her grandparents and slums it working at a dress shop despite her intelligence and college degree.

Then her life takes a dramatic turn when she meets a handsome, affluent young man and a party girl in his social circle is murdered.

Life suddenly seems dramatic and not all boring for Billie as she works on figuring out whodunit.

First, great cover and title!

Second, I love the premise and the 60s setting.

Third, Billie was hard to like.

I didn't dislike her but I didn't like her and I just couldn't put my finger on why. She seemed both mature and immature at the same time.

She was smart and resourceful but seemed silly and naive, desperate to find a man and fall in love like all the heroines in the books she reads.

Fourth, the etiquette rules were amusing but they soon grew tiresome. The schtick didn't last long.

Fifth, the narrative lacked suspense and urgency.

It was boring since a good portion of the story dealt with Billie's budding romance with Avery.

This was cozier than I expected; murders do happen but it's not graphic or violent.

We're mostly in Billie's head and her romance with Avery, her Nancy Drew-like machinations, socializing with the hoity-toity and and dealing with her grandparents and her lack of a real job.

I guessed who the bad guy was easily and though the ending wasn't bad, I wasn't a fan of the mystery or Billie.

The writing was good, but the story too slow-paced, which fits the 60s setting.

📖Review: Etiquette for Lovers and Killers

🧁Rate: 5 Stars!! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

🍨Praise: Who would have known a mystery taking place in the 1960s would really be a grand ride?! The author Anna did for sure! And she is absolutely correct! I totally image the town it took place in like the one for Murder She Wrote! Cabot Cove! Angela Lansbury will be proud!

☕ We meet our main character Billie! She truly wants to leave her town and make it in the career world! Unfortunately no such luck so far. However! Something very quirky and miraculous happens! She receives a love letter but not addressed to her! Oh wow!! What takes place next is Billie entering a world a mysterious intrigue, murder, connecting the crime fill dots! And most of all Billie discovering parts of herself as a human being that helps her grow.

🥞Characters: Billie and all the other characters in this fun and very observant mystery had my heart and my mind with every word and Every act they did. With more and more intrigue and decisive calculating both rising against our main character and being dished out by other characters the story had me on the edge of my seat!

💄Trope: I will definitely be looking forward to more mysteries by Anna!! She truly has a great gift!

🍪 Mystery
🍪 Intrigue
🍪 Thought-provoking
🍪 Suspense

Bravo Anna! 🍰

I did not finish this book.

I wanted to love it. Loved the cover and the time period and was sooooo bored.

Not for me.

I liked that this book it did well blending mystery and romance. I thought it was quite unique and I really loved the story, especially being set in that time frame. There was humor, romance and intrigue for sure. It kept me guessing on who it was the whole time, so many suspects! Over all loved the book. A tad more romance would have added stars (but that is personal preference). A great choice for your next read!

I liked that this book blended mystery and romance into it. I thought it was unique and loved the story. This book had some humor too. There were a lot of potential suspects which added a of twists and guessing on my part. I enjoyed all the etiquette details too.

This cover is so cute! And the title. My problem is I do just a book based off its cover and then realize a few chapters in it isn’t something I’m actually into.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for giving me the opportunity to read this book! I am normally not a sucker for a murder mystery but I really did enjoy this book. It was cozy, mysterious, and enticing in all the right ways! I will definitely be recommending this to all who ask and look forward to the official pub date!

What a completely original and fabulous story!

Anna Fitzgerald Healy transports readers to the early 1960s in Eastport, Maine—a quaint oceanside town known for its picturesque beauty and the influx of wealthy summer visitors. At the center of it all is Wilhelmina (Billie) McCadie, a young local desperate to escape the confines of small-town life. With dreams of a career in museums, Billie has been sending out job applications far and wide, but so far, opportunity hasn’t come knocking.

Then, something unexpected arrives: a misdelivered love letter. Enchanted and curious, Billie becomes fixated on the recipient, Gertrude, and the mysterious writer. Is Gertrude engaged? Who is she really? What starts as a playful distraction quickly becomes a consuming quest. When Billie tracks down Gertrude at an exclusive party hosted in the wealthy summer enclave, she’s drawn even deeper into their world. But things take a dark turn when Gertrude is found murdered.

What follows is a captivating blend of mystery, intrigue, and social commentary. Healy masterfully weaves together the charm of a bygone era with a sharp and witty narrative. The novel is packed with delightful details, from chapter intros featuring Victorian etiquette tips to fascinating tidbits about the origins of words and phrases. These touches not only enhance the story but also highlight Healy’s knack for making history feel vibrant and relevant. The suspense is perfectly balanced with lighter moments, and the story keeps you guessing until the very end.

Anna Fitzgerald Healy has crafted a truly unique and engaging novel with Etiquette for Lovers and Killers. I absolutely loved it and can’t wait to see what she writes next!

#PenguinBooks #EtiquetteForLoversAndKillers #AnnaFitzgeraldHealy

wow wow wow! What a fun and twisty ride. I loved the mystery and suspense which was written into this book. I definitely couldn't guess what was going to happen next. Definitely recommend!

I really enjoyed this as a murder-mystery novel, it had that element that I was looking for and enjoyed from this type of book. It had that humor that I was looking for and enj9oyed the twists of this book. Anna Fitzgerald Healy does a fantastic job in writing this and was enjoying the characters.

I confess I gave up on this book half way through. While dictionary definitions and etiquette rules might seem like an interesting twist they just didn’t work for me. They pulled me right out of the narrative of the story and I just stared skipping over them. And then it just became too much effort.

Etiquette for Lovers and Killers is a clever and engaging mystery thriller that keeps you hooked from start to finish. What begins as a seemingly innocent curiosity quickly spirals into a deadly game of blackmail, betrayal, and suspense. The small-town atmosphere adds a layer of intrigue, with every character hiding something and everyone a potential suspect. The wit and humor of Billie’s observations provide a sharp contrast to the darker, more dangerous events unfolding, making for a truly captivating read. With its mix of clever plotting, tension-filled moments, and unexpected twists, this thriller keeps you guessing and thoroughly engaged until the very end.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Penguin Group for the ARC of Etiquette for Lovers and Killers by Anna Fitzgerald Healy.

Healy has writing talent - I want to put that out in the review first and foremost. She has recreated 1960s Eastport, Maine in vivid detail from the houses to the clothing to the cars to the technology. The setting is immaculately well done. The plot and characters have the idea established, but I think they are missing something in execution - but you can see her talent shine through the whole story. This is a debut novel, and I think it shows that Healy has room to further develop her talents, but that the intrinsic core of being a strong writer is there.

In Etiquette for Lovers and Killers we follow 26-year-old wallflower Billie McCadie. Billie lives with her grandparents and is trying to find a job using her linguistics degree but without any luck, so, in the meantime, she works as a seamstress and watches the comings and goings of the tiny coastal Maine summer town with a sense of aloofness. When she receives a letter to her PO Box addressed to Gertrude that contains an engagement ring and a threatening/passionate love letter, Billie is thrust into the world of the uppercrust summer people. Invited to a party where Gertrude is present, Billie is drawn into a world of intrigue and murder when she finds Gertrude's body after seeing her in compromising positions with multiple guests throughout the night. Billie turns her boredom to sleuthing, hoping to find Gertrude's murderer, but more bodies pile up and the Billie soon finds she may be both a suspect and the next victim.

The story started off strong, but once Gertrude is murdered, the story veers off from a simple murder mystery. I think the additional layers placed in the story might have over complicated it, while also being kind of obvious where it would go eventually? Maybe it felt like too much misdirection to get where it was already going in a straighter line? It just seems like the motivations of the secondary and tertiary characters were out of place or greatly exaggerated for effect, while Billie herself seems to be going through a Natalie Portman-Black Swan-esque breakdown/transformation. It's not so much a murder mystery as it is a metamorphosis of Billie through some pretty unhealthy coping mechanism and poor decision making skills. I don't think we're supposed to like her, but I also don't feel like I ever really knew her. We see only her ambitions and no reflection outside of the murders - we are just on the outside watching without some of that extra context.

I also feel a bit tricked by the author or that they/their editor did not do enough research when the term mulkvisti is used later in the book. The book says it means "One I hate less than the others", but a simple Google search will show it translates directly to say "dick" and there are multiple people debunking the "One I hate less than the others" as something that spread on Tumblr a few years ago but was not based in fact. Once I realized that, part of me questioned a lot of the witty linguistic footnotes / whenever characters spoke not English because I'm not unsure if any of it was factual. It's kind of disappointing to have a character with a linguistics background as her dream and have the linguistic parts be wrong.

This story takes place in idealistic 1960's New England, where etiquette and being polite matters over all else (at least for women). But one day a dead body shows up...and it's not the last.

This was a fun and unique twist on a murder mystery, I think setting it in such a falsely picture-perfect era and location really added to the ambience and the eeriness that arises when the bodies do.

I did think it was cool that there were little etiquette lessons at the beginning of each chapter, I thought that was funny and a nice little touch. Little touches like that do make a difference in reading experience, in my opinion.

However, I do wish that this was a little more riveting. I found it a bit slow-paced for my taste in mysteries/thrillers. But overall, I had fun.

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review! My Goodreads review is up and my TikTok (Zoe_Lipman) review will be up at the end of the month with my monthly reading wrap-up.