Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for inviting me to reading this ARC. I loved the premise of this book, but the execution was not as good as its potential. I found all the double names to be a bit confusing and hard to follow. A fun idea, though!

All right, firstly I’m focusing on the reasons that make me get my hands into this book asap!

- A marvelous estate with 1920’s murder theme that gives you opportunity to dress and act like characters from Great Gatsby for three days!
- The murder game idea and detailed instructions that left on guests’ rooms are fun! A famous speakeasy songstress Ida Crooner throws a party at her estate and she’s found death now 8 guests whose characters are written on the texts they’ve given have to sniff around the clues and solve the mystery.
- But when a real murder occurs those guests will have hard time to differentiate which is part of the game and what is real!

One location, 48 hours to solve the mystery, game into game plot were the reasons I wanted to read this book!
But…
Here comes what made me so exhausted, confused and frustrated;

All these characters have their own names and game names. Even the main character Rebecca plays a character called Debbie Taunte. And of course the characters in the game created a little different from their main characteristics. I honestly took notes and wrote who was who and turned back several times and read again to remember the names! It distracted me a lot.

And let’s not forget Rebecca and Blake’s marriage and cheating drama. We learn so much of their history and their families which provide us enough material as if we’re reading a second chance love story which also distracted me because I only wanted to focus the main murder mystery!

Some descriptions in the book had too long and too elaborated which also bored me a little.

And the conclusion was a little dramatic for me. I’m not sure I’d like it!

The plot and Christie- esque presentation were promising! But I didn’t enjoy the execution a lot. So I’m giving my three solid, it’s okay but not addictive reading stars!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

All Dressed Up by Jilly Gagnon was a fun, exciting new novel.
A classic whodunit story.
The writing was interesting and had me flipping the screen on my Kindle continuously.
The pacing was quick and the characters likable enough.
Our characters were very interesting, Becca I enjoyed following her story as she tries to uncover this mystery. I truly enjoyed the 1920s murder mystery theme.
Overall, A great story, amazing writing and good characterization.
I can't wait to read more of her work.in the future.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

Random House|Ballantine & Bantam,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!
I will post my review to my platforms, blog, B&N and Waterstone closer to pub date.

Overall, this was a really fun read. I appreciate how the author layered two different mysteries with two different casts of characters. I especially loved how she wrote the dossier — the campy take on 1920s slang was great.

This was almost a five-star review for me. However, I found that having so many characters (who each had two names) made it difficult to follow who was doing what. And when the final twist was revealed, I felt pretty underwhelmed. With as clever as the author was to weave together two mysteries, I wish the ending would have been more impactful.

“All Dressed Up” is a mystery novel by Lilly Gagnon. This book takes place over 48 hours at a hotel with a “1920s murder mystery theme” weekend. I must admit that the idea of a pretend murder happening inside a real murder I found an interesting set-up. While I wouldn't say "sign me up for participating," I would say "sign me up to read this!"

Where this book caused me some issues were all the “double” names people had - our heroine, Becca, plays the part of “Miss Debbie Taunte.” (yes, the name puns are groaners, but Ms. Gagnon had fun with the names, so kudos to her choices) Some times she’s referred to as Debbie and other times Becca - depending upon if the game was currently being played or not. The majority of the cast has double names and I’ll admit to getting lost a bit at times. I really would’ve liked a “who is who” cast listing at the beginning of the book to help keep people straight. While I understood that this book needed to have more than “just” a faux mystery and a real mystery, Becca’s introspection into her behavior, recollections of her family and past, and talk about her attractions I found, at times, a bit too much. While the reader reads a lot about Becca, her husband, and their mutual friends, a number of other characters are there to add color but because they’re not as fleshed out for me often they were rather flat. I also had an issue over a few minor things some of the characters did (they didn’t affect the story but I found them odd), but they didn’t take away from the main story.

While I enjoyed this story, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I hoped I would. I'd overall rate this book about 3.25 stars, which I was disappointed by as I really wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I'd probably read another book by this author.

All Dressed Up by Jilly Gagnon is delicious. " . . . a campy flapper-filled mystery nested inside a modern one, All Dressed Up is a loving tribute to classic whodunits and a riveting exploration of the secrets we keep in order to sustain the act."