These are not likable characters. They are each self absorbed. I don’t want to say too much and ruin the book for anyone. The main character is a screenwriter and the book would go back and forth between telling the story and Emily’s screenplay. Then towards the end they switched from the screenplay to what happened that we didn’t see. It got a little confusing for me. It was a good book, I just wish the author chose one way to tell the story and stuck with it. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced free copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

This book was too slow for me. It really picked up near the end, and I enjoyed the twists along the way, but overall I found it hard to connect (or like) any of the characters. While I feel that JG wrote the characters the way they were intentionally and the toxicity did add to the premise of the book, it just wasn't for me. I enjoyed the past and present timelines, but the screenplay portion sometimes made this even more confusing, but that was the format I enjoyed the most. Overall, a great plot, but the story didn't keep me on the edge of my seat like I want a thriller to.

I loved the concept of this locked room thriller. I struggled through the first half. I loved the setting, the descriptions of the winery were rich and vivid. I could smell the salt air and feel the chill of the wine caves. I did not connect with the characters. They were quite one dimensional cliches; the rich bitch, the jock, the smart one with money problems, the tragic, magnetic beauty and the peacemaker. The second half was better, more engaging, a sense of urgency and the characters started taking shape. I wish the screenplay had been at the beginning of the epilogue. It was somewhat distracting and hindered the flow of the first half of the book. The twist was a surprise! Loved it! Didn’t see it coming! I hope Julia Whelan narrates the audio version. I could hear her as Emily while I was reading. Overall, a good book that could have been great.

I loved Jilly Cannon’s debut novel, All Dressed Up, and so was super excited for her new release! This time, we are learning of a girls’ trip that is meant to solve the disappearance of one of a group of friends, with some hidden intrigues lurking behind the scenes. A jewel of a read!!!

I absolutely loved her first novel, "All Dressed Up" and this was did not disappoint. I would give it 4 stars. I love dual timelines when executed properly. It was not difficult to keep the timelines straight, which I very much appreciated. It definitely does belong in the thriller genre, as I was hooked from page 1. The reason I didn't give it 5 stars is due to the characters in this novel. They were all incredibly frustrating and together, were not a great group of people I would want to be around.

The ending was satisfying and I can't wait to read Jilly Gagnon's next book.

Thank You NetGalley and Random House, Ballantine & Bantam for this arc.

“Scenes of the Crime” is a thriller by Jilly Gagnon. This book has a dual timeline - one 15 years ago and one in present day. The book follows four women and what happened at a girls’ trip.

This book was an odd one. I believe that the relationship between all the women was toxic to degrees that seemed plausible but rather frustrating at the same time. I never felt reading this book that any of these women had any depth. I don’t think I’ll remember much about this book in about a week - other than it taking along the Oregon coast and winery caves with passages to the ocean (that part I found rather interesting, must admit). I did like the parts that were written as a screenplay - including the reader’s comments. I’m going to give this book four stars because it did hold my attention, was an easy/quick read, and I did like the overall style, but it’s really more like a 3.5 star read for me overall.

I was so damn excited to start this impossible to put down mystery.

Scenes of the Crime by Jilly Gagnon is a suspenseful, compelling, and an unforgettable mystery.

I was invested in this story from the first chapter.
This story was written with a unique and fast-paced voice.
I absolutely loved it. I couldn't put this down. I read it on the edge of my seat.
It was so breathtakingly intense that I was absolutely spellbound by the crazy mystery and interesting characters.
The plot was intriguing and kept me guessing until the very end.
The characters were well-developed and complex, and I found myself invested in this story.
Overall an adrenaline fueled thriller of a disappearance by re-creating their fateful final girls’ trip in this riveting locked-room mystery.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank You NetGalley and Random House, Ballantine & Bantam for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

I loved it! This author really knows how to spin a tale! This is a great mystery that reveals its characters in the present, the past, and in a screenplay format. Every single one of them in this group of friends has a deep dark secret that they never told each other let alone the police. Very jittery. Very nice descriptions as well.

This is the story of a group of friends from college reuniting 15 years after the disappearance of one of their own under suspicious circumstances. The main character Emily writes for a popular tv show and convince the remaining friends to meet so she can get details as she wants to write a script on the disappearance. Honestly, this was very hard for me to get into. The relationships were pretty toxic (which we all know can be with women). Maybe mid way through a few thing happened that hooked me, and I ended up finishing the rest of the book that day. I didn’t love the way that it ended but overall once it got fast it was an easy read. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for sending me an ARC copy for an honest review.

Very well written. The author grabs the readers attention right away and makes it hard to want to put the book down to enter the real world again 😁. Great who done it story that has you guessing the whole time.

Told between the past and present perspective and using a screenplay to add a little twist, Jilly Gagnon takes you back to the scene of a crime that happened 15 years prior.

15 years earlier on Spring Break, a break that should have been perfect Vanessa goes missing and Emily believes she was the last one to see her alive. After seeing someone who looks like Vanessa 15 years later Emily tries to get the girls back together again so she can finally figure out what happened to Vanessa and so she can finish a screenplay that she is trying to write about what happened that night.

Overall, this story was okay. The back and forth and the inclusion of the screenplay scenes took some getting used to and most of the characters were quite unlikable. I did enjoy the mystery and the final outcome, but it was a little tedious getting to that reward.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book.

Scenes of the Crime - Jilly Gagnon

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.

A screenwriter who can't seem to write a screenplay about a pivotal event in her life (when one of her friends went missing) gathers her old gang back together in an attempt to gain motivation to finally write the screenplay.

This novel just didn't do it for me, although the premise was interesting I found my mind wandering. I just couldn't engage with the characters enough to care who went missing and why.

I loved this book so much! I really didn’t know what it was about when I started reading it, but I quickly was obsessed! The characters are well developed, and I couldn’t help but love them all!

Overall this was an OK read for me. It was a bit of a slower start but I kept going and it picked up a bit more for me. I'm glad that I got the chance to read it early and will probably pick up another book by this author at some point. I enjoyed the characters the most. Thank you to the publisher for my early copy of this book!

Scenes of the Crime is just full of surprises! The premise is simple, four friends who went to school together are meeting up to reenact a trip that they went on years ago where the fifth girl in their group disappeared. The author did a great job of setting the scene in a a remote winery on the Oregon coast. I found this thriller to be a good friendship thriller that got a bit repetitive at times, but kept me reading til the end. An advance reader copy was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I will be honest - I DNF-ed this book at 50%.

I adore the writing style and loved the prose-like way Gagnon writes. It felt like I was reading classic literature with some of her descriptions, which I love. And the setting! A breathtaking winery backed against the sea sounded so gorgeous and relaxing, and every time she peppered in a new detail about the setting, I found myself wishing I could vacation there.

So why’d I put it down? Two main reasons that weren’t my cup of tea: the pacing, and the characters. At 50% of the way in, I still felt like nothing had happened to advance the plot. Normally I’d keep going because the characters make me want to know what happens, but I found this group of women insufferable. All they seemed to do was make snarky comments to each other, and it was exhausting to read the long threads of dialogue that was mostly insults.

I would definitely give her other books a chance; she seems like a very talented author and I loved the alternating screenplays sprinkled in between chapters. Definitely very unique! This one sadly just wasn’t for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in exchange for an honest review! This book will be available everywhere in September 2023.

Scenes of the Crime by Jilly Gagnon.
It is a little wordy for me so it is a slow start.
Emily is a successful sit-com writer/producer but hates it. She is also haunted by a tragedy 15 years earlier during Spring Break at college. A friend went missing. She doesn’t remember if she was involved because she was so drunk and it has been haunting her. She sees someone who looks so much like the missing Vanessa that it starts her down a path to find the truth. The four remaining friends (not so much anymore) get together at the same location where Vanessa vanished to remember her but Emily has an ulterior motive - she wants to find the truth. And write a book about it.
Each chapter opens setting the stage like a script…not sure I like that. It can be a little confusing.
The characters are hard to like - so self absorbed! Even Emily who is writing the story just want to know what happened because she wants to write about it to jumpstart her career.
I was glad I stuck with the book because it has interesting twists and turns but I would have enjoyed it better if I had liked any of the friends. Even the author calls the relationships toxic in the acknowledgments. Worth reading.

None of the characters are likeable and it didn't get interesting until about the last 30% of the book. The whole movie script vs. what actually happened was a good idea I guess but I also think it made it more confusing. I get why it was set up with it interspersed throughout the story, but I almost would have liked to see the movie version as it's own (shortened down) epilogue.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a pretty good story. I liked how the phone ships were incredibly multifaceted and showed that women can both love and hate each other at the same time. The writer definitely threw me off with the ending, I wouldn’t have expected that in 1 million years! I love that the women had a history together and that history impacted the present. All in all, a solid suspense book!

Emily has worked her way up to being a producer on a TV show. The show, she feels, is trash. Very successful trash that has run for several seasons, but trash none the less. And while she sits in her favorite coffee shop editing a script for the show she sees a ghost. Not the transparent kind or one that goes ‘Boo!’, but a ringer for one of her college roommates who disappeared 15 years ago, never to be seen since. And part of what rattles her so is that she, Emily, was so drunk the night of her friend’s disappearance she has no memory of what actually happened but she fears she may have drunkenly killed her friend.

For quite a while Emily has been working on a screenplay about her friends disappearance hoping that it might jog her memory. But after seeing her ghost she decides to gather her college roommates at the country house where they were when the girl went missing and see if they can find any clues.

The story is well told skipping back and forth between screenplay and current events cleverly keeping reader interest. I will be looking for more of this author’s books.