*My review will be posted on Instagram within two weeks of the release date (slated for 3/14/23); this review will be updated with the appropriate links once live. -- ETA updated links on 3/14/23.

This one was a ✨WILD RIDE✨ Murder mystery meets romance meets a dash of magic... PLUS tarot cards?! I was all in with the description, and I was all in with the book as a whole. The tarot cards were such a unique addition and fun spin, and really added something special and different to the story as a whole.

It was a REALLY fast read, I got lost in the book so easily and finished it really quickly. However, it did seem somewhat formulaic and predictable at a certain point; it started off so, so strong and slowly lost steam in the second half.

But, I think this will be a winner for fans of Ninth House and/or Book of Night. While not as fantasy-forward as these two, I think these readers will thoroughly enjoy the story.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Bantam for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received a digital advance reader’s copy of Play the Fool by Lina Chern via NetGalley. Play the Fool is scheduled for release on March 28, 2023.

Play the Fool follows Katie, a woman who has failed at adulting on her own and is now living near her parents, working at a glorified souvenir shop in the mall. The only bright spot for Katie is Marley, a woman who works in a shop across the atrium that has befriended Katie and seems to see her as a real person. Katie’s world shifts when a man stumbles into her shop. Katie offers to read his cards, and in the midst of the reading sneaks a peek at his phone. She sees something she wishes she could unsee: a photo of Marley lying dead by a dumpster. Katie finds herself caught in the search for the real Marley and the person responsible for her death.

While the plot of this novel did ask me to suspend my disbelief a bit (I very much questioned the interactions Katie had with the local police department), it was close enough to believable to keep me reading. I did see a couple of the reveals coming, but there were other twists that I did not. As a whole, the story was enjoyable and engaging. There is a touch of romance in the novel, but the focus is clearly on Katie and the mystery she is trying to solve. At the end of the novel, I could imagine some of what was in Katie’s future, but like Katie looking in the cards, questions remained.

As a character, I loved Katie. She is the walking definition of a hot mess. Some disasters fell into her lap, but others were the result of her questionable choices. I found myself telling her not to do what she was doing, but at the same time believing that is exactly what she would do. Even her most outlandish decisions were in keeping with her character. Around Katie, we have a variety of police officers, bad guys, and troublesome family. With Katie, we gain insight into each of them, finding them to be more than they were at first glance.

Overall, Play the Fool was a delightful, light-hearted mystery featuring a lovely mess of a main character.

Katie feels like a failure but has pretty much accepted that this is her life: a series of dead-end jobs and continuing to disappoint her parents for the rest of her life. But when a guy stumbles into the shop where she works looking a mess, she offers to do a tarot reading for him and stumbles across a picture on his phone that of her friend Marley, dead. Marley is everything Katie feels she isn't and she isn't going to rest until she finds out what happened to the her, even as her amateur sleuthing puts her in the crosshairs of some seriously dangerous people.

Early in my reading journey with this book I thought "this is a book with an identity crisis." It seemed like it wanted to be a crime novel and a cozy mystery and maybe even a little bit of a rom-com and couldn't decide what to be. The protagonist made some decisions that don't track as plausible, even in a cozy, and I was having a hard time suspending my disbelief. BUT. I kept reading. And once I accepted that this novel is its own kind of mystery, with a protagonist who makes some seriously bad choices (to often hilarious effect), I found myself really enjoying it. Yes, there is some incomplete character development in secondary characters, but those characters are interesting enough as they are that I want to know more about them. As in, please write another book (or books) that explores Joey's art issues and Owen's neurodivergence and follows up on what happens when Katie opens a business in fortune telling and delves into Jamie's adjustment to suburban policing. As much as I struggled with getting into the book, I want to know what happens to these people next.

Thank you to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read Play the Fool early in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars / This review will be posted on goodreads.com today.

Brilliantly creative and funny. A hapless young woman struggling to find her place in the world, finds herself enmeshed in a murder mystery. Katie works at a Russian import place in the dying old mall in her town. Across the way is a shop where Marley works. They meet up outside in the courtyard and become an unlikely pair of friends.

When Marley goes missing, Katie gets wrapped up in trying to find out what exactly happened to Marley. Along the way she befriends one cop, enrages another, and finds out what she’s made of, and what she’s made for. Katie is a mess, but in nothing but a good way. So unlike her siblings, Owen, who struggles a bit with reality even though he’s a brilliant grad student, and Jessie, her real estate sister. Katie is the black sheep, but Marley helps her to figure out what she’s good at and how to keep at it.

Really cute story with plenty of mystery and misadventures for Katie, I loved reading this one. Very well done and fun story. Definitely recommend.

"a cynical tarot card reader"...this hooked me immediately and I was so entertained.
This was a great story, one that provided entertainment and an escape.

This was fun, enjoyable and different (in a good way).

I gave this book a few shots, the premise sounded right up my alley, but I had a hard time getting into the writing style. There was nothing wrong with it, just didn’t jive with me.

This was a pretty good debut novel. I thought the writing was good, although the story itself was hard to believe at times. I liked the humor but there were a few moments it went too far. I didn’t think the mystery was that mysterious, but it was a wild and bumpy ride. I loved the tarot card imagery and the fact that the main character even envisioned cards that fit as she spoke with people. It was really creative and very interesting. Katie True is a middle child who manages to squeak through life while the rest of her family reaches big and wonders what is wrong with her. She works at a dead end job in a mall and wishes she could have her own business reading tarot cards. When she suddenly becomes the only one sure her only friend is dead and amazingly finds a cop willing to unofficially work the case with her, her life takes on a whole new direction as they try to find out what happened to Marley.

Play the Fool is about a "nobody" girl named Katie, working a dead-end mall job, turned undercover detective, in this mystery debut, when she befriends another "nobody" named Marley, a girl from her past who also happens to be working a dead-end mall job at a store next door. This story takes off almost immediately when an unexpected man stumbles into her shop, with a bloody wound on his forehead. Katie offers to do a tarot card reading, but what starts as a tarot reading for fun, turns into a series of events that she definitely didn't expect to foresee in her future.

From the beginning I didn't feel the main protagonist was a believable character. Her decisions made for a decent story, but I had a hard time believing that she would sacrifice her own safety and well-being, without so much as a second thought, for a girl she barely knew that she ate fried rice with during break hours.

As for the antagonists, there were a couple; But they weren't a extremely threatening presence within the story. One was a lover scorned, and the other was just a bad guy trying to get this money back, who happened to be related.

I think the author did a good job with this genre, though I felt it wasn't my cup of tea. It was well-written for other lovers of mystery, though I couldn't quite grasp how the tarot cards fit into the story. Aside from the title and the beginning when she reads the cards for the gentleman that stumbles in, which I felt very strongly was a scenario that would not happen in real life... I had to ask myself, "Would you read the cards for someone who stumbles into your place of work with a bloody headwound?" In all honesty, I wouldn't. BUT... As I mentioned prior, I think the author had reason for the protagonists' decisions, and it made for a fairly well-written mystery.

Playing the Fool was definitely not what I expected. Unfortunately, it will not be one I recommend to my fellow readers... But as I've come to see with any other book, I hope other readers will enjoy it, even if I didn't.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group, and the author for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

3.5⭐️ Play the Fool is a fun debut mystery by Lina Chern. Katie Tue is stuck at a dead end job selling Russian knick knacks at a store in the mall. One night, a guy stumbles in with a gash on his forehead and she decides to pull out her tarot cards. That decision will lead her on a wild goose chase trying o find out who murdered her friend and fellow mall worker, Marley. What she uncovers will make Katie question everything she thought she knew about Marley and their friendship. play the Fool has some fun characters, a decent story, and a few twists and turns to keep the story moving.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

This is a slacker success story. I liked Katie’s love interest Jamie a lot, and didn’t mind how directionless Katie was. I loved how sweet she was to her neurodivergent brother Owen, and her dry sense of humor. The plot was a little slapstick in places (a female police officer covered in blue paint in a shed along with a painting of Nick Cave?) but it fit with the overall tone of the book. I loved the tarot theme throughout and almost felt like it could have been played up a little more. I would recommend this to mystery lovers who are good with a little bit of goth eccentricity.

Play the Fool is a unique mystery with a tarot-card reading amateur sleuth.

Katie True works at a store at the mall, selling cheap imported goods. She is a bit aimless, unlike the rest of her family. What she's really good at is reading tarot cards, or, more accurately, reading people and using the cards to help them. This particular day, a strange man lurches into her shop with a minor head wound. She offers to read his cards, and in doing so, sees his phone and the picture of a dead woman on it. But it isn't just any dead woman, it is her friend Marley, who works in a store across the mall from her.

Katie is a bit too curious, and follows the man from the mall to a house, where she sees Marley's things. She follows him in and hears him searching for something. The cops come, and don't catch him, but they find her hiding in the closet. The police officer, Jamie, is suspicious of her at first, but eventually starts investigating Marley's disappearance/death, even though there's no body or evidence that the picture Katie saw was real. Katie starts to wear Marley's necklace, and finds it brings her courage to be herself. She also starts getting visits from burglars and thugs who threaten her, thinking she has whatever Marley was hiding. Could it b the necklace they're searching for?

This book was exciting enough to keep my interest, but it wasn't my favorite. There wasn't enough joy and smart dialogue to make this book compare favorably with Dial A for Aunties or Finlay Donovan, but it also wasn't dark enough to be considered a thriller. It fell somewhere in the middle and it suffered for that. But it's not a bad book if you are looking for a different type of mystery.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy of this book.

A light and enjoyable read. Katie is a quirky character, is good at reading Tarot cards but does not yet have regular clients. An entertaining story which read more like a cozy mystery to me.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is the most fun book I’ve read in months! I was worried it was going to lean heavily into mysticism or the supernatural, but it didn’t and just included it as a fun touch! The mystery was intriguing and kept me reading well past my bedtime! Plus, look at this cover 🤤

Play the Fool by Lina Chern

Published: March 28, 2023
Bantam
Genre: Friendship Fiction
Pages: 313
KKECReads Rating: 5/5
I received a copy of this book for free, and I leave my review voluntarily.

Lina Chern has been published in Mystery Weekly, The Marlboro Review, the Bellingham Review, Rhino, The Collagist, Black Fox Literary magazine, and the Coil. She lives in the Chicago area with her family. Play the Fool is her debut novel.

“Everything was going to be fine.”

Katie is trying to figure out what she is good at. What will make her family take her seriously. She’s a talented tarot card reader. But her family would never see that as anything serious. When Katie befriends another woman who works at the same mall, Marley, she is drawn to Marley’s judgment-free attitude. Friendship is hard.

This book was so good! I loved how tarot cards were used in this book and how Katie visualized different cards when she processed things.

Katie was such a fantastic character. I loved her immediately. She is loyal and doing her best. I enjoyed watching her come into her own. Jamie was a great character, solid and true, and he was the perfect opposite of Katie. Their chemistry was fantastic.

I loved how emotion was used in this story. There was a perfect balance between humor and drama, which worked seamlessly to bring this story to life.

This is a fantastic debut; the writing is witty and clever, and the story is beautifully unique. This story sucks you in, and the more you read, the harder to put down this book becomes.

I enjoyed the storyline of this novel; the build-up and ending were so well done. This was such a fantastic read. I look forward to the next story Lina creates.

This book was great until around half way through. It just became unbelievable and the story fell apart for me. I loved the first half of this one but, just couldn't fully enjoy the last half.

Play the Fool has a really interesting concept: what happens when a neurotypical woman who reads tarot cards gets caught up in a murder? What I thought this book would be about was mystery, mayhem, and madness. And while I did get some of that because the main character, Katie, is pretty chaotic, this was more of a character driven book, where the mystery was more a vehicle to understand our characters more. This is more about how the mystery enables character development and growth because the focus on the mystery really isn't as prevalent, or as fleshed out, as I was thinking it would be, but the characters are.

Katie was a really misunderstood and lost FMC, but she is also quite hard on herself. Because she doesn't want to achieve as much, or on the same path, as her family, she is seen as a low achiever and she embraces that, even though the author makes clear that Katie is good at things in her own right. It was actually kind of heartbreaking to read at the beginning, of a person who just wants to be seen as valuable in her own right. I found that Katie was full of potential, but she was bogged down by others, who she believed. I wouldn't call her quirky, I wouldn't call her quirky, but instead lacked confidence in herself and didn't want to continue to fail the way she is told she does by others.

When she finally starts TRULY breaking out of that narrative and starts to believe in herself, the book ends. She was fun and I loved that she could "read" situations with tarot. I wish that aspect was explored a bit more because it is clear that the author is trying to showcase her abilities as atypical from what we expect of achievement, but it just didn't get there fully.

The relationship Katie has with her brother, Owen, and the detective on the case, Jamie, was amazing. It was like both of these characters could see the best in her, which was refreshing since Katie is so hard on herself. These characters also offered more diversity in terms of the social aspect of individuals (how not everyone needs to be super outgoing and have lots and lots of friends) and neurodivergence, and I appreciated that representation.

The actual mystery part was lacking, but again, I think that is because the mystery was supposed to be secondary to the characters. For the mystery, I was trying to figure out what happened and it was an easy read. So it wasn't extremely obvious what the outcome would be and I was flying through this book. I was interested, yes, but not overly invested in needing to know what happened. It seemed like you had to suspend disbelief a bit throughout and I never felt that Katie was in any real danger. The mystery didn't seem pressing and the bad guys didn't really seem that bad. The central idea was solid, but this would have been a slam dunk if the character development AND the mystery were equal.

Overall, I think this was a really solid book if you are interested in character driven mysteries and nonstandard characters! However, you may not be as enthralled if you read mysteries for the twists and turns. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this book in exchange for an honest review!

I enjoyed this tarot meets psychic meets thriller saga! Overall, I decent paced read with a unique premise.

3.5 ⭐️

"Play the Fool" by Lina Chern is an entertaining novel with interesting characters and plot twists I didn't see coming. The author weaves her extensive knowledge of tarot cards into the plot, adding to the mystery. And the cover of this book is gorgeous! Though the story kept me engaged, the plot didn't wow me. I wish there had been more detail. I like richly detailed writing and this book came up short for me in that aspect. It left me wanting more. Overall, it is an entertaining, fast-paced, and easy read, great for a day at the beach or a snowy afternoon on the couch.

Thank you NetGalley, Bantam publishing, and Lina Chern for the opportunity to read an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Play the Fool is an adult murder mystery. It follows Katie, who struggles from job to job, is a complete failure to her parents and has no interest in college. She is working at her local mall when a large, disheveled man with a bleeding head walks in. Katie has always had a talent for reading people and something is definitely wrong and when she offers help, she ends up for more than she bargained for.
This book is character driven by Katie; the whole investigation is propelled by her. Katie is a very self-aware character, she knows where she struggles, flaws, her dynamic in her family as well as things that she has always been good at, especially reading people, which helped her be an excellent psychic, but in the investigation of her dead friend. She is constantly making horrible decisions and it ended up with her in hot water with a very sexy cop from LA. The writing was good, and I liked the incorporation of her using the tarot cards throughout the whole story, they were like a security blanket for her as well as a tool she used.
I liked diverse characters, especially katies relationship with her brother, Owen. She understood, accepted, and wanted to protect him. Katie’s relationship with other characters were all unique, she had open communication and attachment with one, and was very closed off and avoidant with others.
I had a really good time with this book, it was entertaining, fast paced, and character focused. I definitely recommend checking this murder mystery out.
Trigger warnings: blood, guns, substance use, kidnapping
I received this advanced ebook, via Netgalley. This review is my own honest opinion.

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!!

This was such a fun murder/mystery! Katie works at this kind of strange store in the mall, among the many odd stores that can be found in malls everywhere. When a man bleeding from a head wound comes in, Katie offers to give him a tarot reading partially just so she can figure out what is going on with him. What she doesn't expect tho, is finding out her friend Marley is dead. And, this starts her on the case.


I loved the main character. Katie is relatable and an overall cool person. The cop that becomes involved, Jamie, is another favorite character. Really all the characters are great. This book was funny and enjoyable.

Out March 28, 2023!