This book 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. They had traveled on spring break to a beautiful winery owned by one of the girl's families - enjoying a week of endless wine and escapades. They never imagined only four of them would return from the fateful trip. It's now decades later and Emily is a sitcom writer who deserves more credit than she's given for the work she does. Now more than ever, she's dying to tell the story of what happened to her - her close friend, Vanessa, going missing while away on a girl's trip? It would be exciting and award-winning, Emily just knows it. But convincing the others to take part won't be so easy.

She's able to, of course, and the story takes off. It's told in an unusual way - there's the typical narration by Emily, but every few scenes it unfolds in movie script form. It's a bit tough to get used to at first because you read the script chapter thinking that's what's happening in the past, and then you get Emily's narration which tells a similar story, but with clear differences. So then as the reader you're thinking "What's really the truth?" And I'll tell you, by the end, I still wasn't really sure! I mean, you think you have a handle on the story, and it has great twists that you may not see coming which is awesome, but then..is that the reality or the movie script? Or are they both the same?!

So whether you understand afterward or not is almost irrelevant because the way the story unfolds is just so good. I kept racing through the pages needing to know who was responsible for what and if they would ever discover what happened to Vanessa. You'll have to read this intriguing and captivating book to find out!

This is a solid 3 star read. Parts of the relationship dynamics felt a little unrealistic, but the dynamic descriptions of the location(s) were great. While the pacing and tension build-up are well done, the resolution felt slightly rushed and left me wanting more. Overall, a solid read for anyone who loves a good mystery novel."

Scenes of the Crime by Jilly Gagnon is a locked-door adjacent mystery in that there is a group of 5 women, college friends, who were present when one disappeared, but the mystery of her presumed death is unsolved. That is until 15-years later when one of the five, Emily, requests the group reunite for closure around the death. The setting is a winery along the ocean, and the story is told from Emily’s perspective. Emily has had success as a Hollywood writer, but her career is stagnating, and she wants to pursue her dream of writing a screenplay to give it a jump start. The style of the book is chronological with memories of 15-years ago included in dialog, but the chapters alternate with a screenplay, written by Emily. The reader doesn’t initially know if the screenplay is what actually happened, or Emily’s crafting of a new story to sell in Hollywood.

This book has some reasonably clever twists and turns, but like many “thrillers,” I felt it relied on a lot of tricks vs great characters and storyline. For one, I found it overly dependent on the physical characteristics of the winery and its location by the ocean to stay with the nuances of the tension-causing scenes. I wish the author simplified the physical descriptions so there were not so many unique and special doors, tunnels, access points, staircases and landings. I could not get the full impact of what the author was trying to convey of the physical space the way it was written. Maybe an image of the winery included in the book would be helpful?!

I also found the screenplay sections to be a little distracting. I would have preferred no major reveals in the screenplay until already disclosed in the real life action. There was some inside-school lingo like “O.C.” which it took me about 5 chapters to realize meant off-camera (I think, lol). Seems unnecessary and confusing for most readers.

Lastly, these ladies, and the related family members (Grandmother, for example) did not seem like any college friend groups I know or had. They were very dissimilar, catty and kind of unlikable across the board. I think the story could have been much more nuanced with more likable and relatable characters, with a single primary reveal that no one ever saw coming to make it a really smoking story. I always find the best mysteries are those that the reader can almost imagine themselves in, or falling prey to, because you never saw it coming. With the group in this book, one can image all kinds of not great things lol. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3. Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me early access to this book to read and review.

I’m a sucker for any book about a girls getaway gone wrong! This time four friends get together to find closure in the disappearance of one of their friends from college. And then weird stuff starts happening! One friend is writing a screenplay and we get to read the book and also the fictional screenplay she is writing. This was a fun read!

I received an advanced copy from Netgalley but all opinions are my own.

Emily Fischer is a Hollywood screenwriter, with a lucrative but unfulfilling gig on a network sitcom. She's struggling to come up with an idea that will break her out of the rut she's fallen into when she sees a woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Vanessa, a college friend who disappeared decades before. Emily organizes a reunion with thee other friends who were all there when Vanessa disappeared.

One feature of this book that I enjoyed was the author's use of a script format for parts of the story--it provided a different perspective that really worked. She also did a great job of setting the scene--a remote winery on the Oregon coast. I also liked how she teased out the secrets each woman held, The characters weren't particularly likeable, which is usually a big negative for me, but the pace of the story moved along so quickly, that it was easy to overlook. Even though I didn't necessarily care what happened to the characters, I really wanted to find out what happened next!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
This book was not for me. I struggled to finish it. None of the characters were very likable. The hardest part was figuring out what was the screenplay and what actually happened. Especially at the end it got even more confusing. Not at all what I was expecting from the description of the book.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for sending me an ARC copy for an honest review.

Emily’s friend Vanessa disappeared 15 years ago on a trip to their friends wine house. Years later her friends and her come back to remember Vanessa, but secrets start coming out.

Was this a great thriller in my own opinion no. It wasn’t very dark and the twist was just ok. Some stuff like I wish was drawn out and more dark was just quickly skimmed over. Then there were parts I just wanted to skip over. I got bored some parts and would have to put the book down to read something else.

Once it finally got going about 80% then it started getting good. I did enjoy the parts that were written like they were a movie script. The ending was a great tie up to the story as well.

Emily is a successful screenwriter living in LA but is still haunted by the disappearance of her friend Vanessa 15 years ago. When she sees someone who looks eerily similar to Vanessa in a cafe one day, it sparks memories of her past and a desire to finally figure out the truth. Emily and her college friends Brittany, Paige, and Lydia, have a girls trip reunion at Brittany’s family winery, the last place Vanessa was seen alive, to find closure regarding Vanessa’s disappearance. Emily uses the information she learns from her friends to write a screenplay to tell the story of what really happened 15 years ago.

I was immediately intrigued by the premise of this book and the main character being a screenwriter. The story is told through Emily’s POV but after each chapter there are excerpts from the screenplay she was writing about the disappearance of her friend Vanessa and I thought it provided a unique structure for the story. But while this was an interesting element, it sometimes got a little confusing keeping track of what was actually happening and the excerpts interrupted the flow of the book at times. I thought the writing was great but the characters weren’t fleshed out enough and I found it difficult to connect with any of them. I didn’t love the reveals or the ending, which brought my rating down, but I am interested to read more from this author in the future! I recommend this book for readers who enjoy popcorn thrillers, toxic female friendships, and books featuring writers.

**Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this eARC!**

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Bantam and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this eARC!

I read Jilly Gagnon's first adult book "All Dressed Up" through NetGalley as my first eARC and was thrilled to get the opportunity to read her second early as well. This thriller was twisty and played up the ominous elements of the cliff that the 15 year old crime and the current events took place on. I found the story to be overall well paced and the motivations of the characters kept me guessing throughout. I found it interesting that a good portion of the story was told through a film script and while I found it mostly clever and fitting (especially due to our MC) it did become distracting at times. I believe that Gagnon was using it so that we as the reader would be second guessing what was fact and fiction, a theme that played out til the end, but I'm not sure if it worked completely. Overall I found this thriller to be a good friendship thriller that got a bit repetitive at times, but kept me reading til the end.

Awesome. Hooked me from the first chapter. Great plot, characters, storyline, everything. So so good. Highly recommend. Thank you NetGalley for this ARC

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

I’m kind of oscillating between 3-3.5 stars honestly. I LOVE the idea of the screenplay in between the chapters. However I did feel like the story was a bit simplistic sometimes? Character motivations felt very weak and I didn’t really buy into their decisions. This book is quick and pretty straightforward though, and the characters gave me a big White Lotus vibe while I read, so I think fans of the show might enjoy this story.

Emily dreads signing off to write for another year of a mind numbing show and thinking writing a screenplay might be her ticket out of her seemingly dead-end job. She is convinces her old college friends to reconvene at a remote winery to discuss the disappearance of the 5th friend, Vanessa. Vanessa was the step sister to the very wealthy Brittany and her appearance now might cause some issues with wills.... It's a perfectly spooky story with the women sniping at each other and clues from the fifth friend appearing without notice.

Is Vanessa still alive? A great little twisty thriller!
#RandomHouse #ScenesoftheCrime #JillyGagnon

How many whodunit books have a group ìsolated in an eerie place where someone is the killer? Plenty. But this one is different. First, all of the ladies at the winery have plausible back stories, and could easily be the guilty party. And then there's the fictionalized version of Emily's screenplay interspersed between the factual parts that makes it even more fun. It was a quick read for me, because I got caught up in the flow of the story.

The title, cover, and plot of this book were intriguing and I liked the idea of old friends having a reunion with mysteries and secrets. This is a decent read but not as good as I hoped it would be. I would recommend this for mystery/suspense fans, but particularly for fans of screenwriting. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Holy smokes, I banged through this in one day!

A very twisty thriller told in a few timelines that merged spectacularly. I love books about friends with secrets that come back to bite years later and this one was done superbly!

Five stars...all day!

A group of five girls go on spring break one come back with four. After the tragic disappearance and presumed death of their best friend vanessa, the four remaining girls start to drift apart, haunted by their own secrets and the worry that they played a part in vanessa’s death. Fifteen years later, Emily is working as a writer in Hollywood on both a dead end sitcom and a dead end manuscript about what actually happens that night, and decides she needs closure and to get to the bottom of it so she can finally piece it all together. The four former friends return to the cabin for a weekend and everything starts to unravel for everyone.

Overall loved this. It felt very Ruth Ware/Gillian Flynn with all the suspense and interpersonal drama. Especially liked the tie in with Emily including snippets of the script, and did NOT see the ending coming in that last paragraph. I think Lydia’s character could have used a little more development and explanations on all the girls relationships with vanessa. 4.5/5

Scenes of the Crime by Jilly Gagnon started slowly for me and it took until the 3rd chapter to get my interest.
The storyline became more interesting, as it became more complex with Emily, Brittany, Vanessa, and Lydia, the main characters.
It wasn’t until the middle of the book that I became invested in the story, and was reading each page with anticipation.
The devil is in the details at the Scenes of the Crime, of how one of them was killed, and which one might hold the key to why.

I was a big fan of All Dressed Up so I was excited to get an early copy of the authors new book. This novel also has a gimmick (which I don’t intend perjorarivitly). Each chapter begins as traditional narrative but ends with a version of the same story being told in script form.

The story centers around four friends reuniting at a winery 15 years after their college friend disappeared mysteriously. Emily has gathered them together for ‘closure’ or maybe just to find inspiration for the scripts she’s writing? It took me a little bit to get into the book, but I did enjoy it. It was fun to see two versions of the story play out and the commonalities between them.

I do admit to having some questions about the one particular point of view based on the ending, but it didn’t hold me back from liking the book.

4 ⭐️

This is a very fun and fast thriller about old friends coming together because a friends that I thought was dead might not be *wink* *wink* ( I thought I was hilarious).

Are main characters a screenwriter so half of the book is told through screen plays retailing what happened in the past, which was an aspect that I’ve never seen in books but I love. The only downside is I was enjoying the past more than the present until a certain point. at the end of the book I was really into what was going on but at the beginning I did not care about the story as much.

No matter what this was still a book that I read in one day and I would recommend it for anyone asking for a recommendation for thrillers. I’m excited to read more from this author.

Thank you so much to the publishers and NetGalley for allowing me too read this book early.

thank you to Random House/Ballantine for sending me an arc of this in exchange for an honest review.


This is basically like an adult version of Pretty Little Liars and i couldn't put it down. I loved every character and how each of them were toxic and the writing was fantastic. this story is told in a mixed media kind of format so you get the basic book format and then the "script" format that the main character Emily is writing.

I highly recommend this!