Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson

A great sequel to A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. Also well done, super gripping. 

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

I really liked this story, and I was actually super surprised by the resolution. I thought the author did an amazing job having Pip make reasonable choices and smart detective work, and make us think we were going through all of the discovering with her. She did the amazing job of making you suspect the villain early on, then clearing him for you mentally, before you realize at the end that it was actually him all along. I was really impressed with the mystery.

Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

This book was funny and fun but also I was annoyed by her crazy ridiculous choices. I hate it when characters cross the line into unbelievable and this book did that for me. I could have believed the main premise but I couldn't believe all her choices as she went through the process. Although I liked the ending. 

The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman

I love the Thursday Murder Club so so so much. The audiobook narrator for this series is so amazing and makes the series. I just love these characters. 

Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone

This was different than I expected because I thought it would be just a straight thriller, but then you start realizing that something else is going on partway through the book, and you try to figure out what is happening. This book is about Ariel Pryce, who wakes up on a vacation in Lisbon and is worried to realize that her new husband is missing. She tries to track him down and spends the next two days looking for him, trying to get the police and the embassy to help her. And then you realize other things are happening and that there is more going on than you realized at first... I thought this book was really satisfying and interesting, and it was so nice to see true justice exacted on someone who was really terrible. 

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li

I really liked this heist novel about some college students getting asked to steal the Chinese Zodiac heads from the Western museums where they've been held since being stolen from China 150 years ago. It was billed as an Ocean's Eleven-type book, and that comparison was what got me interested. But what I ended liking about it were the different characters and their interactions, and the history of Chinese art and what it's like being a Chinese immigrant, and the morality of museums keeping art that has been stolen. The plot definitely started off stronger in the first half of the novel than in the second half, where it started to get a little slow, but it was still a fun book. I was definitely rooting for them and hoping they would earn the 50 million dollars they were going for. 

The Maid by Nita Prose

I started this one and almost stopped halfway through because I felt so uneasy about what was happening. It felt like it was going to be a bad story about a neurodivergent girl getting taken advantage of and things not working out--but I am glad that I didn't give up on it because it had a very redeeming second half and, not to be a huge spoiler, but things DID WORK OUT and I was very happy. Molly is a maid at a fancy hotel, and we find out quickly that she doesn't understand normal social cues and relies on the rules her grandmother taught her to get by. One day she finds a longtime guest dead in his hotel bed--and she ends up becoming a suspect. Luckily she ends up figuring out eventually who her real friends are and they help her catch who's really behind this. I ended up really enjoying this one and I was super surprised by the twist at the end.

State of Terror by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny

I freaking love Louise Penny and I love her mysteries. And after reading and enjoying Bill Clinton's foray into fiction, I was definitely down to try out Hillary Clinton's attempt. This book is about a secretary of state who ends up having to save the world from a nuclear attack, and a whole lot of intrigue and craziness that happens before then. I thought it was super interesting, especially coming from a former Secretary of State's perspective, and I could see Louise Penny's touch in the pacing and plot of the book. It was a great thriller and definitely a worthwhile read. It was really fun that Armand Gamache and Three Pines made a cameo appearance near the end. 

The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray

Get this: a murder mystery where the main characters from each of Jane Austen's novels are the suspects. WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE?! I can see where this would cross a lot of people's lines of what they can do and what they can't, but MAN I am all about this sort of thing. I really loved this idea where all of these familiar characters are intermingling and interacting, when they never do in Austen's books. I feel like it might have been interesting to see them all having a normal dinner party without being interrupted by Mr. Wickham and a murder, but this was interesting too. The ending was a bit of a surprise but seemed to fit well with what we know about the characters, and I thought it was a really fun read. 

The Last of August by Brittany Cavallaro

This was the sequel to A Study in Charlotte and after finishing the first one, I was interested enough to follow it up with the second. I was kind of disappointed in the ending of this one--again, it seemed really dark and unnecessarily depressing. But the mystery itself was good and I felt like there was enough drama and excitement to keep me interested. But I don't know that I want to continue and finish the series since I kind of want a happy ending at some point. 

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

I actually have no idea where I heard about this book or where I got it as a recommendation, but I am a sucker for all sorts of modern adaptations of classics, and this is a Sherlock-and-Watson book set in modern times, with the idea that Sherlock's great-great-granddaughter and Watson's great-great-grandson become friends at a boarding school in Connecticut and have to solve a mystery together. I liked the connections to the original novels and stories, and I really liked Holmes's and Watson's characters. I thought the story was really fun, but things got kind of dark at different moments, which I didn't really want out of this book. It was a great mystery and I loved how everything got resolved at the end.

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

I loved, LOVED The Thursday Murder Club when it came out a year ago, and I was so excited to listen to the sequel, and it did not disappoint. Honestly, how could this go wrong? Four octogenarians solving murder mysteries? This murder mystery was so fun and enjoyable, with all of the same lovable characters and funny hijinks. I still love Bogdan so much and love how he and Elizabeth get along so well. I think half of the reason I love this book so much though is because of the INCREDIBLE narrator. Major points to her because it is so well-done. 

The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny

I will always read whatever Armand Gamache book Louise Penny comes out with. As soon as I heard this one was out, I requested it at the library. I got it as an ebook and read it on my phone, because there was supposedly a 8-week wait for the audiobook, but I was disappointed that the audiobook actually came out quicker because I would have loved listening to this one even more than reading it. I enjoyed reading it, but there's something about the atmosphere of listening to Gamache books that makes them more special. This book was an interesting story which just feels so dang pertinent to our time--how does Louise Penny do it?--about people getting caught up in total insanity and madness and bad science, plus it was written in the time "after the pandemic," when everyone was fully vaccinated and safe again. I wanted to cry a little reading about the world we almost had if everyone would have gotten vaccinated. But the story was awesome and I always love revisiting Three Pines. 

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

This book was an interesting idea. It was a murder mystery within a murder mystery--the book was about an editor for a murder mystery who reads one of the books she's about to edit and discovers that the ending was missing. And then immediately the author of the book is murdered. And then things start happening and she begins to poke around and try to find out if she can figure out what happened to the missing pages of the manuscript, and what really happened to the author of the book and why he was murdered. I liked both stories (the "book within the book" and then the outside story as well) and I was surprised by the ending. (I'm not that good at guessing who the murderer is in any murder mystery though, so that doesn't mean much.) Overall, I liked this one a lot, although it did feel a bit long.

Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney

This book is about a woman who is in a coma in the hospital and can't remember what has happened to her. The book alternates between the present-day story, where Amber is in the coma and trying to piece together what happened based on what she can hear from the people around her talking, and flashbacks to Amber's childhood through diary entries from several decades ago. You can tell that something super creepy and traumatizing happened at some point, and that something is super wrong. Plus, the very first thing you learn is that she's probably lying to us in her retelling of what happened. The book has a huge twist that affects everything you know about the characters, and then the ending was super surprising to me as well. This was a totally creepy, suspenseful read (listen) and it was a great one to listen to while driving across the country for our long road trip. 

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

This book is kind of set in a modern-day Harry Potter world, where some people are magic and most people aren't, and the magic people go to school to learn magic and all the other things they need to know. At one of these magical schools, there's a grisly murder in the school library, and the principal hires a non-magical private investigator to find out whodunit. This investigator is the twin sister of a magical teacher at the school, although they haven't talked in years--so there are all sorts of layers about family and belonging and being left out that are a part of this story. I really liked the magic in this book--it seemed more "real" and believable than the magic in Harry Potter--and I liked how the murder mystery got resolved in the end. 

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

This was an interesting murder mystery, in the sense that you never find out who died or how they died until the very end. You know that somebody dies at this wedding on an island, and there are some very creepy and dark scenes every few chapters or so that are showing the people at the wedding finding out that something happened and slowly getting clues about it, but the rest of the book is slowly working up to what happened and giving lots of backstory for all of the characters. There are a lot of different points of view from different characters, all of whom end up having motives to be a murderer (although they don't all know it, even, until the end). I really felt the creepiness of the setting and the impending doom as things really seemed like it was going south, so Lucy Foley did a good job at that. I also really liked each of the characters that narrated--or, if I didn't like them, I could understand them and differentiate them. Overall, this was really interesting and well done.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

I absolutely loved this murder mystery. This was a book recommendation from a friend--we ended up reading it for book club--and when she described it as "four eighty-year-olds solving a murder" I immediately put it on my to-read list. Who wouldn't love that book description? I bought a copy but didn't have a chance to read it so I ended up listening to it on Audible and just loved every second of it. The four members of the Thursday Murder Club--Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim, and Joyce--were this great fun group of people, and I absolutely loved all of the characters. I thought Osmand did an amazing job at developing each character to have his or her own personality and to be so distinct from the rest. I loved being able to hear all of their thoughts at different times, and I thought all of the asides that almost seemed like throwaways were so hilarious. The murders were exciting and hard to figure out. And I loved how the characters constantly were taking advantage of the fact that they were old and nobody would want to arrest them or would take them seriously. The main takeaway was the undeniable lesson that we all underestimate older people and to not do that. This was such a fun read and the audiobook was fantastic as well!

All the Devils are Here by Louise Penny

This is the first Armand Gamache book set outside of Quebec, and they make it all the way over to Paris and get caught up in a really huge cover-up and plot when Armand's godfather Steven is hit by a car on their way home from dinner one night. I loved the mystery, I loved the setting, I loved the twist at the end (I totally thought someone was a bad guy and he turned out to be a good guy). My only complaint was that things tied up far too neatly with a bow at the end, but I guess you can't deny Louise Penny that. Just another great Gamache mystery.

A Better Man by Louise Penny

It has been such a long time since I've listened to a Gamache book, and it took no time at all for me to be sucked back in to Three Pines and the world of Armand Gamache. I love Gamache so much. Some of Penny's descriptions have gotten noticeably stale, as this is the 15th book in the series--she loves to describe the characters in the same way every book. Gamache has his kind but intelligent eyes, Clara has paint in her hair. But then again, that makes sense; it's part of the magic of Three Pines that they remain the same and are the same people you see every time. The mystery in this book, about a woman who was found murdered in the river behind Three Pines, was gripping, and Penny did an amazing job again creating the setting for the book with the river overrunning its banks. I breezed through this audiobook. Even if some things are getting old, I will always come back for every Gamache story.