After reading Sulari Gentile's The Woman in the Library, I was excited to get a chance to read The Mystery Writer. A few pages in, I realized that the book is set in Lawrence, Kansas, a town I have some familiarity with. It took me a bit to get into the tale, but once I did I was hooked. Theodora Benton leaves her home country of Australia to live with her brother Gus in America. Her reasons for leaving are unclear, but Gus welcomes her into his life. Her attempt to write a novel leads to her involvement with a seasoned author. The story takes many twists and turns and makes the reader think it is going in a variety of directions. I won't say much else to prevent spoilers, but know that this is a fun read. Gentill creates likable characters and situates them in middle America. If you are looking for realistic fiction, you may need to let that go a bit, but jump in and enjoy this entertaining tale.

I love books about writers, and The Mystery Writer was no exception! A slow burn mystery, Theo was a great protagonist with depth and intrigue. This book has many layers, and great character development. The story really picked up for me towards the end as everything starts to be revealed, and I could not read fast enough.

This book definatley started off strong for me, and I was massively intrigued. However, I did feel like the last half or so of this book felt a little off. It went a bit too quickly, and personally didn't work well for me. I still enjoyed reading it though.

I liked most things about this thriller. I liked the main character and her relationship with her brother. I like the relationship between Thea and Mac. Mac's family seemed forced into the story and, yes, they served a purpose, but it just didn't really make sense within the context of the story as a whole. I guessed what happened with the literary agent and figured out the ending, but overall this was a good read.

Theodosia “Theo” Benton drops out of law school in Australia with aspirations to become a writer. She hides out from her parents at her brother's place in Kansas while she figures out her next steps. Unfortunately, a new friendship ends in murder and conspiracy, with her being the primary suspect.

I really loved The Woman in the Library, so I requested this one without spending a lot of time reading through the summary. I found that I didn’t like this one anywhere close to The Woman in the Library. Theo finds herself in the middle of some kind of literary conspiracy, but this is really hard to follow and didn’t make a great deal of sense to me. The story was probably longer than it needed to be and Theo just kept making a lot of questionable decisions for someone whom everyone already thought was a murderer. Plus, there were a handful of red flags that she blatantly chose to ignore. She is young, however, with her being a law student, you'd assume she'd have some level of logical reasoning. Her brother Gus and his associate Mac were the best characters in the book (Mac's prepper/survivalist family included) however, the pacing and repetition of Theo getting herself into trouble and the other two having to rescue her, overshadowed the brilliance of Gus and Mac. As for the ending, there are a few time jumps that were jarring and felt unnecessary. It took me longer than usual to get through the book because I could just not see where the story was going and ended up not being all the interested in the reveal.

THE MYSTERY WRITER is my first book from Sulari Gentill and it won’t be the last! This book was intriguing and had a lot of layers. The narrative has a lot of drama and was very engaging. The last quarter of the book felt a little slow, but had a great ending!

I LOVED The Woman in the Library. Sometimes that’s the kiss of death for the next one. I wanted another one like that and this one was fine. The characters was not super likable (which is not always off putting for me.) There just wasn’t enough here to keep me coming back.

Wow. I really wanted to like this book. It started out really good. I liked the parts of the online group’s chats. But then it all got way too complicated with WAY too many characters. It could’ve been pretty good if it wouldn’t have been such a complicated story line.

3.5
The majority of this book was bingable and intriguing though I thought it suffered from a few pacing issues in the last quarter or so with some time and location shifts, and some wild and a *bit* out of the blue reveals. Overall though as quite an easy read I enjoyed it.

This was a great slow burn literary thriller. The characters were well developed and I enjoyed the plot. The ending tied everything up really nicely.

I was really into "The Mystery Writer" by Sulari Gentill because the plot sounded so cool and I was hoping for a well-crafted mystery with some unexpected twists. Unfortunately, I found the main character, Theo, to be kind of overly naive and hard to connect with.

On the upside, I thought the side characters were interesting, especially the dynamic between the adult siblings even though they didn't grow up together. I also liked how the story was set in Tasmania and how the conspiracy theories and preppers added some extra spice to the story.

But, there were a few things that didn't work for me. The time jumps near the end made it a bit confusing and disorienting making it hard to follow the story. The book was already pretty long, but the plot got super complicated and over-the-top towards the end - pertaining to my own taste, making it hard for me to appreciate about the final reveals. Overall, I'd give "The Mystery Writer" three stars for its cool premise and likable side characters, but I just couldn't get over the implausible plot and too many details.

The Mystery Writer follows Theodosia Benton as she leaves law school in Australia to pursue writing while living with her brother, Gus, in Kansas. She becomes entangled in a conspiracy when her new friend and renowned writer, Dan Murdoch, is murdered after reading her manuscript.

The premise of the novel is compelling and I loved Sulari Gentill’s unique cross-cultural blend of Australian characters in an American setting. I was able to enjoy a different, sometimes humorous, perspective on what is considered “normal” in American life, even during the book’s darker moments. The conspiracy setup is intricate and has enough potential to kick off a multi-book series if Gentill wanted.

Theo, while endearing, is sooooo naive from beginning to end. Her unwavering belief in the goodness of others, even when faced with clear danger, detracts from her character development, (view spoiler). Thank goodness for Gus and Mac (Gus’ PI friend), whose well-developed, more serious characters provided a bit of sense and safety where Theo saw none.

While the overarching plot twist is predictable, the smaller twists and turns maintained my interest and suspense. Additionally, I paired this read with the audiobook and the narration by Katherine Littrell is captivating. She does a great job bringing the characters to life throughout the book!

What happens when an aspiring writer shares her manuscript with a best-selling author and that author ends up dead? How did Theo, the writer, get involved, and how can her lawyer-brother help? This storyline has many twists and secrets are uncovered as the mystery around the author deepens. I liked the premised of this book and some of the events were shocking.

Last year I read Sulari Gentill's The Woman in the Library, which I absolutely loved! It started with a murder in the Boston Public Library, and I couldn't turn the pages quickly enough to find out what happened!

This book deals with Theo, a law school dropout who moves from Australia to Lawrence, Kansas to stay with her brother Gus, a lawyer. She decides to focus on writing a novel instead and immerses herself in the literary community. There's a murder, actually several murders, of people she has come in contact with.

The plot is fast-paced, but I didn't think it was nearly as compelling as the previous book. I really couldn't identify with Theo. She was very impulsive and made a lot of poor choices and decisions. Luckily Gus and his co-worker Mac were there to keep bailing her out of trouble, and I loved their camaraderie. The story surrounds conspiracy theories and also focuses quite a bit on guns, gun ownership and gun violence. My suggestion would be to read The Woman in the Library instead.

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this advanced reader copy.

This book was different than I expected but definitely worth the read.

I liked Theodosia’s character. She is an aspiring writer who ends up in the middle of a murder investigation. And her brother gets dragged into it also. I was completely invested in the story and needed to know what truly happened to Theo’s mentor.

Thank you Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for my ARC of this book.

It's quite a fussy book. It feels unnecessarily complicated in places and the mixed media parts aren't always easy to read on an ebook. Parts of the story were well written, other parts felt rushed. I'll not be rushing to grab their next book, this was a disappointment.

2.5 stars, rounded up. Over-the-top thriller featuring a chick whom all adult men seem to fall in love with ridiculously quickly, shifting viewpoints sporadically and with little purpose, and a writing style so simplistic the plot has to be deviously complicated to somewhat make up for it.

Wasn’t much of a fan, but I think the plot-readers might be into it.

Well this was not what I expected at all! Highly unbelievable BUT what a really fun read. This is why I enjoy fiction. Books like this allow me to get lost in a story of mystery, murder and good writing.

I was hooked after the first couple of chapters. Loved the characters and the flow. Easy to read and hard to put down. Highly recommend this one.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley! This was enjoyable and I am glad I got the chance to read and review this one.

I went through a phase of loving crime mystery years ago but after too many bad reads lost interest. However, I kept reading great reviews about award winning writer @sularigentill and I loved her backstory on becoming a writer and she’s an Australian writer and relatively local, living in the NSW Snowy Mountains. I’m all for supporting local!

‘Theo has one dream—to become a bestselling author. Determined to make her mark in the literary world, she heads to the US on a whim to stay with her brother Gus and focus on her writing. But her plans take an unexpected turn when she befriends a famous author, Dan Murdoch, at a local bar—and then he turns up dead.’ [Synopsis from @ultimopress]

Gentill’s latest novel did not disappoint.
It is a page turner and while a bit more violent than I was expecting, fulfilled my expectations and I am definitely keen to read her other books.

Thanks to @netgalley and @poisonedpenpress for the ebook in return for an honest review. 3.5⭐️

I think I might have had my expectations set too high for this book because I always hear about how much people love this author's writing. I did still really enjoy it and I thought it was fun to see how someone from another country sees Americans and the American police and justice system. I do think that there were a lot of "gun tote'n American" stereotypes that were a bit unrealistic but the cops being corrupt and shooting innocent people was spot on. I thought this book would be more of a mystery (because of the title) but it felt more thrillery at parts and more like a regular contemporary at others. While I did like the writing and do plan on reading other books from this author, I think I will need to lower my expectations for the future so I won't get disappointed like I did with this.