The title really intrigued me and made me want to read it. The characters were interesting and the writing was easy flowing with some dark humor which I loved. It felt like being in a game of Clue!

Well-plotted and intriguing mystery. Ending got a little confusing and hard to follow, but it was a memorable and unique book.

Reading Between the Wines book review #34/115 for 2023:
Rating: 3 🍷 🍷 🍷
Book 🎧: Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
Author: Benjamin Stevenson
Genre: General Fiction (Adult) | Humor & Satire | Mystery & Thrillers
Available now!

Sipping thoughts: I was so confused during most of this book but also equally intrigued. In the moments of clarity of what was going on, I really enjoyed it. What I truly enjoyed about this book is the way it was written. It was a good detour from the typically written thrillers.

Cheers and thank you to @NetGalley and @MarinerBooks for an advanced copy of @ThoseEmptyEyes.

#ThoseEmptyEyes #BenjaminStevenson #MarinerBooks #NetGalley #advancedreadercopy #ARC #Kindle #Booksofinstagram #readersofinstagram #bookstagram #nicoles_bookcellar #bookworm #bookdragon #booknerd #booklover #bookstagrammer #bookaholic #bookreview #bookreviewer #IHaveNoShelfControl #ReadingBetweenTheWines #fiction #thriller #suspense #mystery #MysteryAndThrillers #GeneralFictionAdult

After the title pulls you in, whats left is a fun, engaging, entertaining, dark read. I think Stevenson had such a fun, fresh was to write as a narrator: with little tidbits mixed in where the narrator is looking back on the event, or learned something new and writes it in to the story.

I was entertained. I laughed. It was great.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Abostly loved this book. Couldn't put it down at all. Can't stop talking about this book.
Already told a few people that they need to read this book big time.
I highly recommend it. Cover does fit the book big time.
Blurb Is what caught my eye big time. So happy I took a chance on this book. So gonna reread this year.

I don’t get the hype surrounding this book. I was bored and contemplated not finished several times.


I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

Thanks to Mariner Books & NetGalley for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This one is definitely quirky! The writing style is a bit cute, but I admit I was charmed by it (some chapters are entirely blank, one stops midsentence, picking up where it left off in the next, etc.). Each chapter is devoted to a family member who has killed someone, and describes the killing while advancing the plot. Weirdly engaging, no?

The book does get bogged down in an overly-complicated whodunnit: Ernest, our narrator, is a writer of mystery how-to's. self-published, and following a classic-mystery style, so much is made of a denouement in the library, for example. Still, it's an interesting exercise in creating a funny, yet still classic mystery in a remote setting (as an American, I had no idea there are ski lodges in Australia) with, of course, a blizzard bearing down.

You might guess the ending (I didn't, but I like to keep myself in the dark in these matters so as to amplify my enjoyment in the Big reveal), but you won't mind much. Hopefully Stevenson will create a less byzantine story next time and my attention will stray less.

This book was fantastic. My biggest pet peeve right off the bat is this book takes place in Australia and not a single brown person exists. Oh, they’re skiing? Like the people who were there first don’t like skiing or snow? It rubbed me the wrong way, immensely.

Now, moving on from that, this book was great. I think it’s a great way to get into mysteries if you don’t actually know you’d be good at them. Because wow he does a great job laying out tons of information and it’s such a good book.

I laughed at the writing, I cried at what was going on. It was so good. I highlighted a lot of passages, I just loved the writing so much.

Now, one big issue is I have no idea what any of these people look like. The main character (also the writer which I adored as a premise) tells us who they are but we don’t truly know what they look like. It’s frustrating.

And, depending on your thoughts on it, everyone in his family has indeed killed someone. This was a book about family. What it means, what you’ll do to fit it and where the lines get blurred and crossed.

I don’t want to spoil this book, so please do yourself a favor and read it when it comes out. 5/5 for me.

I received this eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone is the first Ernest Cunningham humorous mystery by Benjamin Stevenson. Released 17th Jan 2023 by HarperCollins on their Mariner imprint, it's 384 pages and is available in hardcover, large print paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is such a clever and well rendered work full of quirky humor and giggle-out-loud prose. Everyone in narrator Ern's extended family (including in-laws, uncles, step-siblings, and siblings) has killed someone at some point. A family reunion at a ski-chalet is the perfect closed circle remote setting for murder. There have been comparisons to Clue and Knives Out, and those are both apt and inevitable. It's not at all derivative, but it does have the same vibes of whimsy and camp that are also present in the aforementioned.

It's an impressively wide ranging cast of characters, and although the book's first person narrative takes some effort, readers are well repaid in the form of fast, sharply funny, and perceptive commentary from the narrator. Ernie continually breaks the fourth wall, which some readers will find annoying and repetitive, and which seemed personally to be just on the right side of comedic.

Four stars. Well written, clever, at certain points sublimely funny, and entertaining.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

"Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone" by Benjamin Stevenson is a fun new mystery novel with a strong gimmick that is introduced on page number one. Stevenson's novel takes the reader on a twisted journey into the psyche of a family with a deadly secret. The book is filled with fun characters, unexpected plot twists, and a comical atmosphere that keeps you going.

My only issue was that about %60 of the way the novel lost its pull. Because all the characters were set into this gimmick, the development got a bit forced by the end. Because the hook that everyone killed someone was so intrinsic to the plot, meant that it was hard to have any real surprises with each character's development, and the surprises that did unfold were not original enough to recapture my attention. Over all the first part of the book is four starts but the second part was a struggle to get through.

Overall, "Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone" is a fun read for folks looking for a comical mystery but I would not put it in the same conversation as Knives Out or the Thursday Murder Club.

I loved this!!! This was so much fun and I loved the writing style! The plot was perfect for those who love mystery thrillers but also love humor.

This is one of those fun mysteries in which you’re aware that everyone is capable of the crime, but never quite sure who did it. Unfortunately it‘s just a bit too long for the content and starts to feel like it’s dragging around the halfway point.

It reads as though it could be easily adapted into a miniseries, which might be a better medium for this story to be through.

Excellent book. It was fun and I really enjoyed the way it was set up/written. I adore all the characters even though they are all murderers. The book kept me invested until the end and I did not see that ending coming.

A breath of fresh air in the mystery genre. Such an original story with such a fun narrator. I've already checked and seen there will be another book in this series and I am already so excited!

When you read a ton of books in a particular genre, it's really fun to have a book that plays with everything you expect, and that's what Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone accomplishes. Told from the perspective of Ernest Cunningham, he tells readers a complicated story of his family history intertwined with their current family reunion. It's a bit madcap and at times ludicrous, but it's also hugely fun to read, and to see whose secrets Ernest reveals next.

I love this quirky, twisty turny, humorous so much it is very fun to handsell it. It is very hard to find new mysteries that make you laugh out loud. This is an author that I will be paying more attention to.

I did not know what to expect when I picked this book up. It was a quirky, fun mystery. I like a good locked room mystery so I knew when that snow started piling up on the mountain and a dead body was found that we would be in for a treat. The characters were well developed and the narration style appealed to me very much. Recommended for fans of The Spellman Files.

Meet Ernest Cunningham, "Ern," the narrator of Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone. Ern is the self-published author of numerous books telling others how to write crime fiction. He begins with Ronald Knox's 1929 Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction. Knox was a Catholic Priest and member of the legendary Detection Club. Other members included Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and G.K. Chesterton. You should take a look at them, as they are essential.

https://www.writingclasses.com/toolbox/tips-masters/ronald-knox-10-commandments-of-detective-fiction

Ern is attending a family reunion at a ski lodge in the mountains of New South Wales, AU. He never looks forward to reunions because he has always felt like an outsider. This reunion promises to be particularly fraught as Ern's brother, Michael, is getting out of prison after a stretch for murder. Ern happens to be the person who testified and put Michael there. The Cunninghams are unhappy with Ern, not his mother, Audrey, and her husband, Marcello, not Michael's ex-wife, Lucy, not Ern's soon-to-be ex-wife, Erin, or his managing Aunt Katherine. The only one who seems happy to see him is his half-sister, Sofia. That may be because she needs money and somehow knows about the bag containing 267 thousand dollars Ern has been holding onto for Michael. Soon after their arrival, a body is found, the victim of a particularly horrible death. Very quickly, the lodge is snowed in, and the temperatures drop precipitously. Not only is the snow falling, but so are the Cunninghams. Is there a serial killer loose known as The Black Tongue? Can one of the Cunninghams be the killer, or is someone seeking revenge for Ern's father, Robert, and his notorious criminal past? People don't often forget about cop-killers, even if they are long dead.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone is one of the most original pieces of crime fiction I have ever read; horrifying and hilarious at once. Anyone who has read Golden Age mysteries will recognize all the tropes of the snowed-in scenario but with a new spin. Stevenson's Ern has a terrific "voice," sly, ironic, and likable. I was suspicious of his claim to be a reliable narrator, but that is what he proved to be. I don't expect to read another book this year that will engage me as much as Everyone in my Family has engaged me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for an advance digital copy. The opinions are my own.

I am guilty of reading books based solely on there covers and titles. I hardly ever read a synopsis 🥴. The vast majority of the time my instincts are correct and I love it; however, not so much with this book.

For me, the narrator was distracting as he was telling the mystery while writing the mystery and making comments what chapters the murders happen.

It was weird and I found it distracting.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone was narrated by Ernest (Ern) who’s a self-published author writing how-to guides across various topics. Ern began the story with the *rules* and what to expect in this story. Then he talked about an incident gone tragic with his brother, and several years he and his family members are having family reunion at a ski lodge. People obviously started dying around them and Ern and his family started to wonder if these deaths have anything to do with their family and their secrets (duh lol)

This is a really smart book, with lots of details though! I started with the audiobook and decided to switch to read with my eyeballs because there are lots of characters, lots of details that eventually will all come together and different events taking place at different times.

I’m proud to say I sort of guessed the final reveal, but was still shocked at how things turned out. There were so many layers to peel off and so many seemingly individual events that eventually all came together. This was a book that definitely had my head wrapped around it trying to figure things out. If you’re looking for a quick twisty thriller, this is probably not it, but I was surprised how much I like it.