Scenes of the Crime by Jilly Gagnon is my first book by this author and definitely not the last. This is a suspenseful story with many twist and turns. It is told in dual timelines with a twist, it has screenplay written into it. I really enjoyed this writing style. It is filled with friendships, secrets, lies, jealousy, mystery and murder. The characters are well developed, some likable and some not, with toxic tendencies. The story is fast paced and totally enthralling. It is unpredictable with a jaw dropping ending that will leave you speechless!! I highly recommend this one and look forward to reading more from Ms. Gagnon.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House, Bantam and Jilly Gagnon for this compelling story to read and review. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.
#netgalley. #randomhouse. #bantam. #jillygagnon. #scenesofthecrime. #arc

It was suppose to be the perfect spring break. A remote Oregon Coast winery, an endless supply of wine and 5 college friends. During the trip something horrible happens and one of the five, Vanessa, vanishes without a trace and is presumed dead. Years later, the four left return to the winery to find out what really happened during that trip. Emily, now a writer for a television show just knows she can get the truth out of them and write the ultimate script for a new show.

This is the second book I have read by Jilly Gagnon and I just love her locked room mysteries. She uses a lot of descriptive words and phrases to describe the beauty of this remote Oregon Winery. The way the book bounces from the past and present with script writing was really interesting. The ending was not what I thought which I really appreciated.

Scenes of a Crime followed a script of basic book writing and it fell a little flat for me. Five 20 somethings, on a remote winery that is owned by one of the ladies' families. This has been overplayed at old hotels, ski lodges, hospitals, islands, etc. Then the book threw in a character that is actually trying to write a screen play 15 years after the initial trip and excerpts are stuck into the book. I did not feel the screen play aspects added to the overall story and hurt the flow.

This book is fine if you are looking for a beach read that is predictable and takes little concentration to figure out what is coming next. For some reason this book was memorable, so I believe there is a pretty good bones that make up this story.

I would like to thank NetGalley for an advanced copy of Scenes of a Crime in exchange for an honest review. #NetGalley #ScenesoftheCrime #Jilly Gagnon

I didn't know what to expect with this one. To be honest, I'm a little burnt out on thrillers at the moment but the premise of this one really interested me. I'm so glad I picked it up. There was no guessing game on who did what and where and when. The author throws curve balls left and right, which made for a very entertaining read. Right off the bat, we learn through scripts in between chapters, the narrator is unreliable. And that premise is true until the final page of the book. I am here for it. Emily was such an interesting character, and I wasn't sure if she was the good guy or the bad guy (I'm still not). The story keeps you hooked, and I'm so glad I got the opportunity to read it.

Unfortunately, I was underwhelmed by this story and had such a hard time getting through it. 

I truly feel that what the author was trying to do was unique, which I appreciate. The mystery and thriller genre can be formulaic in nature, so mixing it up and attempting something new is admirable. It was great in theory to try it out. Mixing in the flashbacks through screenwriting was kinda cool and I loved that the author tried to be different. 

But in practice, I think it hurt the pacing. I know what the author was trying to do. She was trying to blend fact and fiction so that we, as an audience, were not only more invested, but less likely to pick out the twists and turns because we ourselves were twisted and turned. But to me, it was too slow for a build up that had very little pay off. For 50% of the book, it felt like nothing happened. And even when it did, I found that being so confused about what was fact and what was fiction actually hurt my understanding of the plot.

I also had large problems with the characters. The author tried to create toxic female friendships in their various forms. Many of the other reviewers stated that the women were unlikable. To me, an unlikable female character, when done well, really propels a novel forward. A woman doesn't HAVE to be likeable to be worthy. But, in this case, the characters were not done well. They were caricatures of what toxic female relationships looked like. Their motivations were confusing and very one dimensional. And because their motivations were the foundation of the novel, it created a novel that was limited and perplexing.

Overall, this was not the book for me. While I appreciate the author's attempts to try something new for the genre, I feel as if nothing happened for a majority of the book, the characters were too simplistic and reductive, and the plot just didn't add up.

Thank you to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a bit of a predictable story. It does have a Ya feel to it and may be more suitable for that audience.
I struggled to get through it. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the early copy

I struggled a little bit with the formatting of this, but that is on me. I thought it was a unique writing style.

When Emily sees a woman who looks exactly like her old friend Vanessa, who went missing years ago, she must go back to where it all happened to put the pieces together. With her screenwriter background, she has a unique way of fitting the puzzle pieces together.

She invites three girls to the place it all went down to uncover the truth. And of course, we learn they all had motive for wanting Vanessa gone.

This just wasn’t riveting enough to keep me fully invested. I found the characters a little dull, though ultimately, this was an enjoyable mystery.

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


Emily is a screenwriter. She’s had a story in her head for years, but hasn’t been able to get it on paper. So when she thinks she sees her long dead friend in a coffee shop, Emily decides it’s time to solve the mystery of her friend’s disappearance years ago and get that story finished.

The four remaining women involved in the original mystery meet back up at the house where Vanessa went missing, but supposedly died, on the Oregon coastline. Emily knows that one of them has the true story locked deep away, but which one. After all these years can Emily’s sleuthing reveal the truth and help her complete the story that has no ending?

Great novel. I read Jilly Gagnon’s previous mystery - All Dressed Up - but this one was ten times better. I loved how the actual story was interspersed with flashbacks and pieces of the screenplay that Emily is working on. While I had my suspicions of how it would end, I truly never expected the ending that happened.

Really fun read, especially for a cold, foggy night along the coast with a glass of good Oregonian wine.

What happened that weekend at the winery 15 years ago? Emily has always wondered where Vanessa went- is she alive or is she dead?- and now she's really curious because she thinks she just spotted her alive. Now a screenwriter, Emily decides to reconvene with the other three women there that weekend to try to find the truth and make a script out of it. Brittany, Paige, and Lydia all have secrets (none that dramatic) which slowly come out. Gagnon mixes the "real" action with the screenplay in a device that doesn't always work. It is, however, what distinguishes this from the rather trope-y plot and characters. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A fast read.

TV sitcom writer Emily Fischer is desperately looking for a way to get out of her lucrative but mind-numbing job. She’s tried for years to finish a screenplay about a friend’s disappearance many years before. In order to finally finish, and hopefully get answers about what really happened, she calls the three other people who were present when their friend Vanessa went missing. Brittany has inherited the sprawling winery property after the recent death of her grandmother. Fifteen years ago, when the girls were in college, they had a wild weekend at the winery. Brittany’s cousin, Vanessa, who was the outcast in her family, attended along with Emily and two other girls, Paige and Lydia. Paige, an athlete, was always trying to gain Brittany’s favor and attention. Lydia was frequently at odds with Brittany and Emily was the peacemaker. One night, after a great deal of drinking, Vanessa texted Emily to meet her down at the beach. After that, Emily has no memory about what happened, but Vanessa was never seen again. Did she meet with a terrible accident? Did she go missing voluntarily? Or was someone responsible for her disappearance – possibly Emily herself, since she can’t remember anything that happened after receiving Vanessa’s text? Emily hopes that by drawing everyone together again, she can finally work out what happened to Vanessa, while at the same time crafting the story into a potential blockbuster of a screenplay.

The story alternates between the events happening in the present with the four women gathered at the winery, and the screenplay that Emily is writing. The screenplay's version of events doesn't always match up to what is actually happening in the story, so there were a few times I had to go back and make sure I knew which was which! There were plenty of twists and turns that made this a real page-turner!

Wow, I was not expecting any of this to even happen in this book, lol. It went by really fast and before u know it over and done and I am still left with the “WHAT?????” Emily is a screenwriter and using the story leading up to her best friend’s disappearance as inspiration. It’s been 15 years and she’s still left wondering on what really happened to Vanessa. She reaches out to the other girls and decided to make it into a girl’s weekend. They will stay at the family vineyard where Vanessa was last seen, now that’s creepy AF.

I loved how parts of the book reads like a script, I felt like I was auditioning. Anyway, there are some twists and every one of these women have secrets about what happened that night and I was loving all of that, until everything came crashing down. The story didn’t end the way I thought it will, these are the biggest group of toxic women I have ever met. I felt like there was more missing in this book, especially towards the end.

I want to thank Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

I was given access to this early via Netgalley & the publisher.

This was my first book from the author. The premise sounds really great. We are following 15 years after a tragic event happened in Emily’s life. Her friend Vanessa disappeared while they were on a weekend away, present day the rest of the group is getting back together at the same location.

This is a story of twisted friendship, romance, and mystery-ish. I was disappointed because the premise was promising and it just ended up being slow and pointless. I wasn’t interested or invested in the story. I am sad to say that I probably won’t be picking up another book from this author.

I liked the plot to this one but I did feel like it dragged on more than it needed to and some parts became redundant. There were a lot of times I thought things were happening that just didn't add to the plot and caused me to fight the urge to skim.

I loved how this was written. It alternated between normal book writing and screen play writing. Great use of tools. Good mystery.

I was super into the Oregon setting but sadly this one just didn't work for me. This format is problematic and I honestly just hate toxic female friendships with secrets and backstabbing. I think other people will dig this one, but it was just not for me.

I was drawn in by the Oregon winery setting but sadly this one just didn't work for me. I found the format to be clunky and the characters to be grating - maybe I also just need a break from the trope of toxic female friends that reunite with a secret as another reviewer noted. Hopefully others have better luck!

The motives in this book truly made no sense to me, both as college students and later as adults. It was confusing how it jumped between the past (maybe?) and present with the screenplay, the timeline was never consistent. I liked this author’s first book but this really didn’t work for me and I skimmed the majority of it.

Thanks the Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I guess the title should have been a clue that this was written in scenes, but I was unprepared. I did not enjoy this format at all and felt like it took away from me enjoying the book. It was disruptive and unnecessary in my opinion. I liked the idea of the book, but the execution needed work!

On the fence about this read. Parts of it I could not put down while others dragged. I did enjoy the screenplay addition…great connection to Emily’s back story. I found myself wanting to know more about each of the girls as I was reading but finally realized that Jilly Gagnon was controlling and releasing the information as a tool to ratchet up the tension. The dual time lines in the screenplay definitely contributed to my understanding of their back stories.
The girls were each so manipulative that I found myself disliking each of them. Brittany’s mother won my wrath in the way she treated Vanessa. The setting of a beautiful secluded Oceanside vineyard with underground tunnels added to the suspense and set the tone. I think those sections were my personal favorites. The ending was predictable but also satisfying.
Many thanks to Jilly Gagnon, Bantam Dell, and NetGalley for affording me the opportunity to read an arc of Scenes of the Crime, to be published on September 5th.

Scenes of the Crime
Written By Jilly Gagnon
Publisher Random House Publishing Group/Ballentine Bantum
Release Date September 05, 2023



Characters: 4/5
Plot: 3/5
Pace: 4/5
Suspense: 4/5
Overall Enjoyment: 4/5

Fifteen years ago a group of friends visited a winery and one friend, Vanessa, went missing. She was presumed dead as her body was never found nor was she found alive. Present time….the friends again decide to visit the same winery to gain some type of closure. While the Emily swears she has seen Vanessa at a local coffee shop and decides that she wants to write a screenplay using the disappearance of her friend. She is a well known screenwriter now and wants to investigate what may have herself. This story is told in flashbacks between present time and past tense.
While the writing is well done, I cannot say much for the premise of the story. The blurb made it sound like a really great thriller but there were too many issues with the characters and how they treated each other and how the banter went between them. There was so many accusations and conflicts between them that it deterred me from having any type of connection to them. This story premise has been done many times and while this is a tad different, I was hoping for something more. I do want to say that the authors writing was perfectly written and made it easy to follow the flashback style of this book.


4 stars

Thank you to NetGalley as well as the author and publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my unbiased and honest review.