A faded country house in the middle of nowhere.

The guests are snowed in.

The murders begin.

Ursula Smart (not her real name) gate-crashes her mother’s book club at an isolated country house for a long weekend retreat. Joining them are Mother’s best friend, Mirabelle, Aunts Charlotte and Less, and Bridget with her dog Mr Bojangles. It doesn’t matter that they’ve read Gone Girl three times this year already. But someone has other ideas.

A body is found in the grounds.

Is a lone killer hunting them? Or has one of their own group embarked on a killing spree?

What they need is a guide to survive.

The Smart Woman's Guide to Murder is the first book from British author Victoria Dowd, it takes place in the countryside of England and follows Ursula (not her real name) as she is forced to go with her mother, Pandora, (also not her real name) to the her book club in a mansion. Trouble arises as soon people begin to get murdered, the group must work together to determine who the killer is and keep themselves alive. This book is very well written but I didn’t really like any of the characters, they were kinda cunts 🤷🏽‍♀️

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This is a classic murder mystery set in an old rundown mansion which is completely cut off from the rest of the world by a snowstorm.

The story is told by Ursula, who has turned up to her mothers book club retreat uninvited and most unwelcome.

There is a fantastic cast of characters, all very different from each other, who provide some great laugh out loud moments.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it if anyone is looking for a quick, easy read.

Thank you to Joffe Books, Netgalley and Victoria Dowd for allowing me to review this book. I look forward to the sequel!

This book is due to be published in the UK on 6 May 2020

#THESMARTWOMANSGUIDETOMURDER #netgalley

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

Pandora Smart arranges a weekend away for the members of her book club to Ambergris Tower. But her daughter, Urusla decides to tags along with them. But once they are there there's a snow storm and they get snowed in. Theres no phone signal or wifi. Then they discover a dead body, then there's more dead bodies. Who will be next? The group must find out who the murderer is before they strike again.

This is another whodunnit and debut novel. The story is narrated by Ursula. The story has some humor buts theres plenty of suspense and mystery. There is six people staying in the rented house plus the butler and a housekeeper. As they try to solve the mystery, we find out more about the characters. I look forward to reading more from this author in future.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Joffe Books and the author Victoria Dowd for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the publisher and Net galley for an arc of this book.

The smart woman’s guide to murder is about a girl called Ursula who is travelling with her mother as well as her mother’s book club to a mansion in the English countryside. However after a murder has taken place on the grounds, people start dropping like flies which leaves Ursula and the rest of the book club to investigate and figure how who is the killer and if it’s one of them?

I enjoyed the entirety of this book and it left me being the detective and trying to figure how who was behind all of the murders which left me intrigued and wanting to read more and more. I was a little thrown off by the end but still thought it was an adequate murder mystery and took me right to the beautiful mansion itself.

Rating: 4/5 stars

I really need to stop requesting books that self-proclaim in their title...

I wanted to like this one SO MUCH. I loved the idea, was excited for something dark but funny, and thought the snark in the beginning was fantastic. Unfortunately, said snark quickly felt highly repetitive, the characters felt like caricatures (and yes, I get that this was most likely intentional as the whole book was a pastiche on closed-room mysteries, but that didn't change the fact that it made it near impossible to connect with any of them). Everyone was mean and petty and I didn't care if they were killed off, and that's never a good place to find yourself...

The plot was much slower than I expected from the setup and blurb, and when Things Started Happening, it didn't ramp up the excitement the way I hoped it would. Ultimately I found it too much work for what I wanted from it (which was a darkly comic quick read riffing off of the classic mysteries I love), and I gave up. This one just wasn't for me - or at least, not for me right now....

My daughter has currently developed a liking for classic whodunnits so this was a timely book to appear on the horizon.

This is a country house murder mystery in the Agatha Christie mold. Our narrator, Ursula Smart (not her real name) gate-crashes her mother’s book club at an isolated country house for a long weekend retreat. Much to Mother’s chagrin. Joining them are Mother’s best friend, Mirabelle, Aunts Charlotte and Less, and Bridget with her dog Mr Bojangles. A couple of members of staff, the Angels, who do little to take the chill off the atmosphere; an atmosphere that gets worse as deaths begin to occur.

There is lot to enjoy in this book, especially the humour. The fact the book club has read Gone Girl three times this year already; the repeated joke of characters shutting down the character of Bridget any time she want to discuss 'the book' (we never find out what this book is); and also witty lines such as: "Aunt Charlotte has always had a taste for the dramatic. Mother puts it down to her being dropped on her head as a baby. Mother did the dropping of course." Indeed, the book gets off the rollicking and very funny start, but is then let down a bit by a slightly baggy and draggy middle third that is less snappy and page turning, and often fells like it is treading water. It does just about recover at the end, whilst never quite recapturing the excellence of its beginnings.

That said, overall I found the Smart Woman's Guide to Murder an enjoyable read, with enough in it too make me mark Victoria Dowd as one to watch for the future, and to look forward the next book: The Smart Woman's Guide to Survival.

I received an ARC from Netgalley for review.

A retreat to a beautiful mansion in the English countryside sounds like the perfect getaway, what could possibly go wrong. Yes, you are the third wheel tagging along with your mother and her book club, who all hate you... but that's okay. And yes, there is no WiFi, no phones, no signal, and a torrential snow storm that snowed in all the cars with no hope of escape, but nothing could get in the way of this being a somewhat enjoyable trip. Oh wait, there's a dead body.

The Smart Woman's Guide to Murder is the Debut novel of British author Victoria Dowd, it takes place in the countryside of England and follows Ursula (not her real name) as she is forced to accompany her mother, Pandora, (also not her real name) to the gathering of her book-club in a beautiful mansion. Trouble surges however, as soon people begin to drop left and right and the group must band together to determine who the killer is and keep themselves from being the next victim.

Personal Thoughts -

As a debut novel by this author, I was impressed. It takes a lot of skill and courage to right a book, especially a crime thriller, and I'm excited to see more work from this author in the future. There is clear influence from great crime and detective novels like Agatha Christie, and the structure is there for a great story. I will say that while the premise is extremely enticing, it fell a little flat in the execution. The characters, while diverse, come off a little cliched and one note, and a few of them have too similar of a voice to separate between them, or have traits revealed without any reason.

For example, the main character Ursula, (love the name BTW) is shown as the obstinate, scared, damaged young woman, who kind of just wants to be left alone. However, as soon as things start happening she starts deducing information, coming up with theories, and almost solving parts of the case with a keen intuition that came out of nowhere. I had to stop reading and go back to see if I missed anything that would tell me where she got this kind of intelligence, because I had thought I had missed some key character trait. When I kept reading I thought the author would tell us this later and it never came up.

To the author's credit, there is clear planning that went into this book. It is one of those stories where you need to try and pay attention to everything in order to get what is going on, and she did a great job of that. One of the areas that fell flat with me however, was with the pacing. The story starts with a bang but then mellows out way too quickly and for far too long. I remember that I looked down at the bottom of my screen watching the percentage go up on the story waiting for something to happen. I would encourage the author to work on creating more genuine character interactions or additional conflict to keep the story going during that slow first act.

Final Thoughts -

The Smart Woman's Guide to Murder is great attempt to recreate the feelings of classic crime fiction of the past with an updated motif. As a debut novel it was a fantastic attempt and if the premise intrigues you at all I would encourage you to pick this book up and support the author. However there where multiple areas of concern including the characterization and pacing, which I hope that the Author improves on in the future. Thankfully the book is not terribly long so these elements are easily glossed over. The story does start picking up a lot towards the end and I genuinely enjoyed multiple parts of the story! I'm looking forward to more work from Victoria Dowd in the future!

I received an ARC from Netgalley for review.

A nice take on the classic murder mystery in a country house.
Amusing,especially when Ursula is talking about anything to do with her mother.
Good escapism for a few hours.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this review copy. Had high expectations for this novel after reading the synopsis but it was not met. It is an adequate thriller but lacks sophisticated. Characters are not fully developed and the imagery tries to be clever, but as we see from the first page, is often contrived e.g “violet snow”; “black twigs of the tree clawed the sky.” This was a shame as there was potential here but it needed a firmer hand during the editing process.

I will be editing this review later on, but as of right now it was a good story plot. A little confusing at times with the main character and her “spells”

I had high hopes as I love closed room mysteries but this fell really flat for me. Partially it was due to the writing style, there was a lot of facts that were repeated over and over again. Also, I'm not one who needs to like the characters but almost everyone was so rude to each other, it just wasn't very pleasant to read.

What a quirky, fun take on the traditional English Country House murder mystery! There's a wonderfully wacky cast of characters with differing ideas as to how a book club should be run. The nature steps in, and the guests are snowed in. One-by-one, murders begin. Is there a single killer that's hunting them all? Or is one of the book club members on a killing spree?

I found this to be charming, authentically golden age era style murder mystery, yet set in present day. I was delighted by this book and found myself laughing aloud at parts while simultaneously trying to figure out whodunit. I thoroughly recommend this book.

I would like to thank Victoria Dowd, Joffee Books and netgalley for the opportunity to read this book and exchange for a fair and honest review.

I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. I will admit reading the synopsis caught my eye right away, and while it was an interesting read, it didn’t fully catch my attention like I thought it would. Interested to see what she comes up with next though