I like my murder fictional—and with laughter!

If you do too, you’re in great hands with Kellye Garrett and HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE! Okay, I can see I’m overusing exclamation marks already, but dayem internet friend, this book deserves a few (hundred… thousand) exclamatory sentences.

Dayna is the kind of protagonist you want to sit down and have a coffee with, or a few drinks at the local dive bar, or if you’re anti-alcohol and caffeine (which is cool), she’s the kind of friend you want to have ice cream with. And she’s in deep, broke, and living in Hollywood where she knows all the men are better looking than she is—it’s depressing, real, and hilarious! Add in a murder and you’ve got HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE!

I’m lucky enough to have gotten a hold of an e-ARC before publication. Still, this book is high on my pre-order list. Read it, enjoy it, and wait for the next installment in the series!

-This review is on Goodreads and will be up on amazon as soon as possible.
-I may be doing an interview with Kellye Garrett on twitter, TBD.

Why DNF? Once I got to later part of the first chapter when we reached the mystery that is when things went down for me. I didn’t find the mystery interesting.

Liked: I liked the first chapter a lot. The idea (and follow through) of the main character being a former child star was really entertaining.

Dayna is all over the place after retiring from acting. It's fun to see her go from jobless to homoside detective. Her character was refreshing and suprisingly relatable in many aspects. She just needs to sort out her emotional feelings because at one point it felt like a love triangle was developing.

I enjoyed this romp of a crime caper, involving one of my favourite things - vintage clothing!
Out of work actress Danye has a slim motive for turning sleuth, but she chases around Hollywood with loads of energy. Danye's trying to get enough info to earn the reward money for helping to solve the murder of a young saleswoman. Her constant calls to the Crimestoppers phone line are among the funniest pieces in the book!

While I found some of the transitions confusing and a few plot holes, the freshness of Danye and her friends in their pursuit of fashion, fame money and love were very entertaining. Bring on another Hollywood Homicide!

Dayna, deciding to retire from acting is broke and finds out her parents are in foreclosure and her
dad needs financial help. She sees a billboard regarding money for tips leading to the arrest of a
hit and run driver. She realizes she was near this corner at the time, seen the commotion, so she starts investigating with the help of her friends and ex-cop Aubrey S. Adams-Parker.
The plot was fast paced with lots of twists and turns, and had a lot suspense throughout.
It was beautifully written with the closeness of the friends showing through.
An entertaining mystery and I recommend it to anyone looking for a light read.

This is a fun an entertaining book with engaging characters and well written plot. I enjoed the way the characters interacted with each other and how they went about their investigation. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes light humorous mysteries. I hope there is more to come from this author.

From the first page to the exhilarating escapades to that last line, this book took me on a fun ride where a simple desire turns into more than just that and took our heroine and friends on an adventure that kept me entertained and engaged in all aspects of this well-executed drama.

The author took great care in telling this story with a nice tempo that set the stage as the visually appealing narrative kept me glued to the pages as Dayna’s search for a killer took me through the hills of Hollywood with Sienna, Emme and Aubrey bringing up the rear. From a hit and run, to murder, to consignment shopping, to finding clues to calling tip lines to car chases to role-playing to solving a murder to all that Hollywood has to offer is what you’ll find in this enticingly frolicking mystery. A kaleidoscope of amusingly energetic antics provided merriment that enhanced the telling of this tale. Boasting a likable cast of characters, friendly banter and Hollywood as the backdrop, this was very enjoyable and I look forward to more exciting adventures with Dayna and her friends.

I could do 4 stars but I think 2 will make more people wonder what was my problem?

So, This book made me think maybe it was time to give up reading altogether. SRSLY!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If you know me at all, you know that I read daily, compulsively, and review a lot. So this whole "time to give it up" was like a strange out-of-body experience. I eventually had a moment where I realized "it's just really awful timing in a comedy that seems to go in ever-larger circles of crazed ditzy-ness."

I read about Kellye Garrett's background, and she has the most impressive resume of experience. I do forgive her for making me basically "suicidal reader." She did get the plot going better, and I did finish the book.

Will I read future Detective Day books? Oh, I am so not ready to say.

I loved this book! Funny, and entertaining. A good book to reward yourself with after you've slogged through a tough "book-club required" non-fiction tome. A nice break! Main character, Dayna, was very likeable. Jokes were good. Loved the last two sentences, and I liked the joke about Wasilla, Alaska. I liked that she was a "good" girl, not cussing al through the book, that gets so tiresome and is unnecessary. People who liked "Girlfriends" tv show (with Tracee Ellis Ross) or Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books will like this book. I think is should appeal to ALL women aged 30-70. I will definitely be on the lookout for the next in the series from Kellye Garrett. Keep them coming!

Enjoyable not only for the banter with friends, and sometimes poignant events in Dayna's life, the crime she determines to uncover to win the cash for helping the police, is credible, if really peculiar to Hollywood - and that's the other good thing about this novel, it really knows Hollywood and the downside of life there scrambling for auditions, and dealing with misogynistic creeps - or otherwise playing them to your own end. It is as enjoyable for finding out about Hollywood as it is following the crime, and finding out the perpetrators - with lots of twists and last-minute turns - it's worth staying to the end. I hope Dayna has more mysteries to solve.

rratum:
"After what felt like a millennia" should read either "a millennium" or omit the 'a' altogether. Millennia is plural.
"No I couldn't take let you do that." is confused!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I'm really sorry to post a negative review on this one because it had some good qualities and I think this writer is one to watch, but for me, this novel simply didn't make the grade. In the interests of full disclosure, this is the start of an intended series, and I am not typically a fan of series, especially not detective series. This one intrigued me, and while it started out interestingly and had some fun characters and a sense of humor, it quickly went downhill as the main character demonstrated an increasing level of stupidity and ineptitude. I don't mind a main character who starts out dumb and wises-up as the story progresses, but when it goes the other way, it's not a good sign.

The problem is that this main character, Dayna is going way above and beyond her initial purview and we're never offered any valid reasons for this. I do get that this is what these amateur detective stories do, and it wouldn't be so bad if we were offered even a half-assed justification for it, but we don't get any here. Her motivation was supposed to be that her father is at grave risk of foreclosure. There's a reward of fifteen thousand dollars for information leading to the arrest of the hit and run driver who killed this girl named Hayley, so Dayna starts thinking about how she can get that money. So far so good. This is perfectly sensible and reasonable, but it neither explains nor validates some of the ridiculous things she does.

Dayna is a little slow on the uptake in realizing that they have the offending vehicle on video, but this is forgivable, given that she was out partying with friends that night and wasn't exactly sober. Once she acquired the video though, she just needed to pass it on to the police and she was done, but she doesn't do this. She doesn't have to become a private detective, yet she does take this on in her own very amateur and bumbling way.

The problem here is that she ends up breaking the law and getting in the way of the investigation rather than helping move it along, blundering into situations where she's very likely to tip-off potential suspects and have them skip town or go into hiding rather than having them end-up being successfully fingered for the crime. This is where Le Stupide set in with a vengeance and I found myself cringing rather than laughing or being excited by the story, and it's where I began to lose interest in this character.

Whenever Dayna gets some information, she routinely fails to pass it on to the police - the very people whom she hopes will facilitate this reward so she can help out her dad. The police get it at best second-hand if at all, and this betrays her, because it makes her look less interested in helping dad than it does in being a busybody and a rubbernecker. She insists on following-up evidence herself without passing it on, or she withholds it from the police because in her very amateur opinion, it's never enough.

Because of this, by about sixty percent through the novel she's pretty much a bigger criminal than the one she's trying to track down - at least in terms of how many laws she's breaking. At one point she and some friends discover a robbery has taken place, and rather than inform the police right away, these idiots go trampling all over the crime scene, destroying any clues that the police might have found to help them track down the thieves.

In short, Dayna is moronic. She obsesses over leaving her prints on a baseball cap she finds, yet spares not a single thought for the entire crime scene she just destroyed, evidence-wise. She's thoroughly incompetent, yet never once did she get chewed-out by the police who in reality would have had this clown arrested for interfering with a crime scene, or perverting the course of justice, which she does repeatedly.

At one point Dayna comes into possession of security video tape which positively identifies one of the house burglars who is linked to the hit and run, yet instead of just passing it on to the police and letting them do their job, she takes off on another tangent on her own, all the time lying to her best friends that she's not pursuing this on her own. It was never explained how it was that these relatively amateur thieves knew there were no alarms at this particular house - which was in a very swanky neighborhood where alarms and high-level security were the norm, not the exception, so this robbery made very little sense to begin with except as a poorly-staged venue for Dayna to get a clue. Which she never really does in any meaningful sense, quite frankly.

Dayna herself was not a likable person, and she looked ever more dumb as the story unfolded. It's not surprising that the murderer targets her (so we;re told. I remain unconvinced, but this was around eighty percent in, when I had honestly lost interest altogether. I DNF'd this at ninety or so when the story, instead of smartly winding-up, devolved into an endless ramble. The novel was about a third too long and moved too slowly.

At that point I was wishing the near-miss traffic accident had not missed her. The driver would have done LA a service by getting this inept fool out of the way of the real police work. There are intelligent ways to write your character into places and situation she should not be -ways that don't make her look like a major buttinsky, but this story seemed bent on going the dingbat route every time, making Dayna look far more like dumbbell than some belle detective. Because this kind of thing was the norm rather than the exception in this novel, in the final analysis, I can't recommend this book as a worthy read and I will definitely not be following this series.

Review:

I really wanted to adore this book. Instead, I only liked it a lot. (Still keeping my preorder.)

Small dif, right? Maybe.

There is so much to love about this book. The cover is absolutely amazeballs! Seriously, scroll back up and look at that gorgeous cover. In an age when most covers are photo-manipulated, Ms. Garrett’s book merited custom artwork.

Ms. Garrett has voice to worship upon an alter to, really, 3 pages into the book and the MC, Dayna, had me by the throat. It’s that good.

Voice is one of the things I look for, because it can’t be taught. You’re either born with voice or you develop it by reading and trying to write and reading again and then finally throwing up your hands and saying fuck it, I’m going to write what I want. Then (after failing, a lot) thinking about how you write, deciding you don’t know anything and going for it anyway. I’m known as a voice-y writer, I know.

Ms. Garrett has VOICE. (trust me, it’s worth the caps).

and yet…

(^that there^? You caught your breath, maybe a little? Possibly blinked your eyes? You want to know what I have to say next? Voice. Remember, I’m an editor too.)

This book is fantastic, it’s well worth the purchase and the read, I just didn’t connect with the characters as well as I’d hoped.

So here’s why.

I’m not into shopping (like, I have to be forced to shop, and even though I know the names? I wouldn’t buy a pair of Louboutin’s if I had the disposable cash, not that I do, but that’s irrelevant.) Prada shmada. I have 2 designer handbags ’cause my MIL is into fashion and name brand, they’ve been gifts… and? they sit in my closet, unused. Give me a well-made leather pouch big enough for my stuff? I’m happy. Until it disintegrates, leaving minuscule bits of itself everywhere. At which point, I grouse my way into a store to get another one. The character I connected best to in this story is Emme, and there wasn’t enough Emme for me. (That’s a ME thing, not a BOOK thing.)

The heels I love… (the few, the far between, the ones I need help walking in) well, those tend not to be designer either.

So, I couldn’t connect to those parts of the book, and there’s enough of things like it… that ignoring it affected the story. They’re beautifully described and voice-y parts, no doubt. Gorgeous, but… not a ‘me’ thing.

I found it incredibly interesting to get-what feels like-an insider peek into Hollywood or acting. Especially as I’ve only done stage acting. It was real enough that I wondered about the author’s background. (and then I read the author blurb, and no wonder it felt so real!)

I’ve also been an in real life criminal forensic technician. It’s not like you see on TV. I’ve worked with cops, and met a few PIs. (I’ve worked with many FBI special agents in my time, they tend to like to drink… IME.)

so… the retired cop character came off a bit flat and unrealistic for me.

A lot of the parts involving the investigation read to me… with my experience, more like a tv show than the real thing, so it didn’t work as well as it could’ve ‘for ME.’ It’s well written, very, and probably will be an incredibly entertaining read for a lot of people.

The one thing I can say in regards to the investigation? It’s so perfectly in character for Dayna that it’s beautiful. Do you have any idea how hard it is to do that? To separate the ‘what you as the author knows’ from ‘what the character as she’s written CAN know?’ It’s nigh impossible at times, I’ll leave it there because it’s incredibly well done.

This book has one of those really well-fleshed out characters, you know the ones, the ones that make it feel like you’re walking around in their skin.

It’s a fantastic book, just not a *me* book. (I figured it would be, because I love mystery, which is why I asked for it from Netgalley.)

Remember, please. Reading is subjective. I found the writing excellent, the MC interesting, the world believable. I just didn’t connect with this story. Which is not even close to a problem with the story itself.

Scores:

Readability: 4/5 Characters are well-rounded, real and they have relatable flaws! I loved that Dayna gets mouthy when she’s anxious. It’s awesome, cause that’s one of my own flaws. The book is fast paced and well written.

Arcs: 5/5 Dayna’s arc is well defined, I’d love to see more backstory and even shorts regarding her room-mate, love interest, and their friend.

Craft: 3/5 Here, it’s getting a lower score. I hope it’s only because this book is at ARC stage, (or that maybe these mistakes are intentional for piracy tracking purposes, they ARE repetitive, so it’s possible this is the case) but I caught many problems within the text. If the mistakes are formatting mistakes (also possible) I really hope there’s more editing that will happen with this book before it hits shelves or that these mistakes are intentional. (As they ARE repetitive, always in the same place, I’m hazarding they may be either on purpose or formatting) and it’s still getting a good craft score because there aren’t many fillers/filters, the author doesn’t ramble, and it’s all very tightly written.

Would I buy it for a friend? I’m keeping my pre-ordered copy, even though I have an ARC, and yes, I’d buy it for a friend, if they liked shoes.

I loved this book!!! I will definitely recommend this book to my students. The writing made the story fast paced and practical to a YA's mind. They will be able to get involved in a story that reels the reader in by allowing its settings and characters to create a vivid scene for one's imagination. The main characters become friends as the story evolves and you are quickly involved in trying to figure out who the culprit was. After reading, I wanted to know if the author had experiences in Hollywood and I was proven right. Her knowledge of the details showed through her writjng and helped the story. I am looking forward to reading her followup in the series.

This book was so much fun. It has everything - an engaging heroine, snappy dialog, and a fast-paced adventure. I love it when I find a new series and author; I will be buying this book for both my personal and professional libraries.

The heroine sleuth is Dayna Anderson; she recently lost her job as the Chubby Chicken spokeswoman and is broke. She comes under even greater pressure when her father reluctantly admits to her that he needs financial help or her parents will lose their home. Dayna sees a billboard promising money for tips leading to the arrest of a person who killed a woman in a hit and run incident. She investigates with the help of her friends. As she learns more about the victim, Dayna wants justice for the dead woman.

A satisfying and fun read.