I am a mood-reading menace. I frequently will be in the middle of a book I am enjoying and suddenly my brain will decide I need to stop reading it and read something else. It's annoying, and it only makes my TBR start to fill up when I suddenly find myself reading multiple books at once. But this time, when the mood read drop started, I shocked myself by finding the perfect book. I not only enjoyed the read, but I flew through it in one sitting - quite literally unable to put it down!
And to my surprise, it kicked The Golden Spoon out of my favorite murder mystery spot and left itself the undisputed winner of my rankings. Why? Well, you'll have to keep reading to find out.
Eleanor Dash is a prolific mystery writer with a problem: she based the main character of her first book on her ex-boyfriend, used his real name in the story, and he's been blackmailing her for part of her advance and royalties ever since. Ten years later, she is sick of the charismatic narcissist and is ready to do what everyone believes to be unthinkable - she is going to kill off Connor Smith...in her books. However, on the 10th-anniversary book tour of her first book, someone is trying to kill Connor for real. Everyone on the tour hates him, everyone on the tour has a motive, and he turns to Eleanor to help him solve the mystery and keep him from being murdered. That is if she doesn't (fictionally) murder him first.
One of the most delightful parts of this book is how it was written. While it is written in first person, it is full of fourth wall breaks and footnotes that makes it feel more like a faux memoir than a regular fiction story. Some of the fourth wall breaks are things I would actually love to see in regular mystery fiction - as we entered into the third act there was a full rundown of the clues we had so far, the different motives the suspects had, and a reminder you're reading a mystery you need to be able to figure it out yourself. It was nice to have this engagement as a reader with the main character, as it truly made Eleanor's story come alive.
In addition, Connor is the type of antagonist everyone loves to hate. It was honestly amazing how every time I learned a new piece of information about him, I managed to hate him more, but that hate also drove me to keep reading. Part of me was hoping that whoever was after them managed to kill him before the end (because truthfully, he deserves it) and the other part of me was terrified someone else would die because of Connor's ineptitude. I honestly am curious to see if he will learn his lesson over the next two books in the series, but I don't think he will. He is too full of himself for self-improvement.
I also loved how much the author's love of Italy shone through the novel. It was a fantastic setting for this book, juxtaposing the beauty and history with the chaos and murder attempts that took up the plot. The descriptions allowed me to envision the beauty of the different locations they traveled to - and reminded me why I want to travel there someday. Despite the chaos, it was a love letter to vacations and travel and made me fall in love with the real places they ventured throughout the novel.
I truly cannot praise this book enough. The twists and turns left me wanting more, it had a strong grip on my emotions from the very first page, and I had to stop and laugh so many times my dog tried to steal my book from me because I kept waking her up from her nap. The book also set up it's sequel so well in the epilogue, and left just enough loose ends I am thankful I only have to wait a few months for the sequel. It's got big shoes to fill, but I am confident it will be just as amazing as the first one.
Every Time I Go On Vacation, Someone Dies is available through Macmillan Publishers.