When Great Aunt Francis updates her will to include her grand niece, Annie Adams heads to the English village of Castle Knoll to an important meeting with her aunt. An aspiring mystery writer, Annie doesn't expect to play detective in a live mystery after her aunt is found dead. Annie learns that old family rumors are true that her aunt spent her life obsessed with a fortune teller’s prediction that she will be murdered. Now that she has, it’s up to Annie to solve it to claim the estate. But will she live long enough to become the rightful heir to the country estate? A cleverly styled and fun mystery!

How to Solve Your Own Murder is a quirky and fun murder mystery. Annie must solve the murder of her great aunt Frances, who just happened to have spent the majority of the last 50 years proactively trying to solve her own murder after it was prophesied by a fortune teller. Pretty much every character in the story is a potential suspect for Annie to consider.

I liked the way the story was told between Annie’s pov and great Aunt Frances’ journal, however I thought the pacing was a bit strange between the two POVs. It felt weird to me that Annie wouldn’t have prioritized reading the whole journal on the first day after seeing what kind of information it contained. This led to some of the conflict feeling contrived since it would have been irrelevant if Annie had just stayed up late one night to finish the journal.


I also enjoyed all the different characters, but there were quite a few situations and details that arose as a red herring for the reader. Some of these details were left unresolved and felt like loose ends because at one point they were suspicious enough to suspect that person of murder. I would have liked to see the red herrings connect a bit better into the storyline instead of being fully irrelevant in the end.

Overall, this was a fun read and I enjoyed Annie’s journey to find her great Aunt’s killer!

This was a pretty good mystery. It fits well in the cozy mystery genre. I'm a bit prudish in my reading, so I could have done with out some of the cussing and I skipped over a few pages that were a little too descriptive for me. I think it would have read well without these things, but that is apparently just my taste.

I loved the premise of this book. As a teenager, Frances goes to a fortune teller and becomes fixated on the future foretold. Enough so that she becomes wary of every one and everything. Fast forward many many years and Frances summons the great neice she has never met to discuss her will.

This story is told in dual time lines, Frances in 1965 where the story begins and Annie in current day. This was a fun take on a cozy mystery.

There were a lot of interesting elements that were hinted at but not thouroughly revealed. I wish there had been more revealed, more show and less tell.

Overall a fun read.

* I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this book. All thoughts are my own.

I was a bit underwhelmed by this book. I was expecting a fast paced murder mystery and was surprised when it started off slow and didn’t really pick up any speed. Even when pieces started “falling together” I didn’t really see it; it was like they all happened off page but you were supposed to follow at the same time. I also didn’t really care for Frances’ diary entries. I didn’t feel like I got much value out of them. I also thought the characters were fine but nothing special. Also, Frances spends her whole life supposedly trying to “solve” her own murder but we really see none of that other than maybe a couple files about potential suspects? But I would have expected to maybe have more journal entries as the years went on.

I wouldn’t pick this book over others of the same genre but I also wouldn’t tell anyone not to read it. I just think the description sets a different expectation.

Frances Adams was given an ominous fortune when she was a teenager, which resulted in her spending her whole life trying to escape her murderous fate. In a cruel twist, though, she succumbed to her fortune sixty years later. In her attempts to escape fate, she has accumulated impressive files on those around her to try and determine who would ultimately murder her in the end. In her final twist, Frances built in the solving of her murder as a stipulation in her will in order to inherit her fortune. Annie, France’s great-niece, is determined to solve the murder and claim her inheritance. Annie will quickly learn, though, that not everything is as it seems, and when trying to solve a murder, you put yourself in their crosshairs.

Perrin’s How to Solve Your Own Murder was a fresh take compared to the murder mysteries I usually read. I loved jumping between teenage Frances and present day Annie to piece together the clues of not just one mystery but two. I actually really loved going through the diary entries and would read an entire book based on the antics Frances and her friends got up to. There were times I was sad to be brought into the present time because I wanted more of Frances’s story. For a mystery, there were plenty of clues and misdirections to keep you guessing on who the culprit was. There were several times I thought I had the mystery solved, only to learn a new clue that eliminated the theory. I’m hoping there will be future sequels as Annie discovers other diaries belonging to Frances or mysteries embedded in the files she has on everyone. There were too many hints dropped that not everything is as it seems in Castle Knoll. I’m really hoping for diaries, though, to continue the dual timelines. The only drawback for me was that it took a while to get invested in the characters. After that point, though, I was hooked. I would recommend picking this up if you enjoy a good mystery.

Overall Rating: 4.5⭐️

thanks to NetGalley for the eARC

⭐️=3.75 | 😘=3 | 🤬=2.75 | ⚔️=4 | 🍺/🚬=1.5 | 14/15+

summary: switches between present day murder of MC’s great aunt and 1960s murder of great aunt’s best friend. a mysterious fortune predicting the death of the great aunt! a fancy old estate!!!!! a random hot detective!!

thoughts: overall I liked this a lot!!!! everything one could want from a cozy mystery/thriller. my main issue is that the whole fortune thing was not resolved?? like is there a supernatural element to this fortune or just an obsessed old lady??????? but like if you kind of ignore that aspect of the story’s basic premise and pretend it resolves itself somewhere it was pretty good! we LOVE a mysterious inheritance from a great aunt. you could make a great screen adaptation of this—the 1960s flashbacks, the English countryside setting, like the vibes are all so on point.

How to Solve Your Own Murder is a new mystery about a woman who was haunted by a fortune when she was 17 that said she was going to be murdered. When her great niece is called to her house for the reading of her will, things quickly spiral. We hop between the 60s and present day.

This mystery reminded me of an Agatha Christie novel. The mystery was interesting and kept me guessing. I liked the different timelines as well. However, I had a hard time connecting with the characters and I didn’t really like anyone. I think the book was pretty good but I didn’t like the characters so it’s hard for me to give it more than three stars.

I would be interested to read more from this author in the future! Thanks so much to netgalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you, NetGalley and Dutton, for providing me with this arc. I enjoyed this story a lot. I have been digging dual timelines in books lately. The dual timelines in the story work well. The characters in this book were all well-developed. Frances and Annie are two sides of the same coin, and it was nice to see how diligently Annie works to figure out what happened with her aunt. Frances, for how eccentric she was, was a great character. She was intelligent and determined. I wish there were more of Frances in the book. I devoured this story over two days; I can't wait to read more of Kristen Perrin's works.

I really enjoyed this book! It is a fast-paced murder mystery set in the English countryside. Seventeen year old Frances receives a fortune that she will be murdered. She spends her whole life trying to prevent her murder, just to have it come true sixty years later. Enter Annie, Frances’ great-niece, who finds herself trying to solve the murder while also uncovering secrets of the past.

This premise alone is so interesting and unique. It’s a classic whodunnit-style book, and I had no clue who the killer was until the very end. There are probably 30 characters introduced, which got a little confusing at times, but I enjoyed the main characters of Frances and Annie. I also liked how the story was told in dual-timelines between present day and Frances’s journal from the 1960s.

If you like classic murder mysteries with a little bit of modern flair, I think you’d like this one. The way the book ended, it sounds like this may turn in to a series as well.

I loved this book!!

How to Solve Your Own Murder is a murder mystery set in a small town in the English countryside. Annabelle "Annie" Adams travels to see her great aunt Frances, at her aunt's behest, in the town of Castle Knoll. Annie has never met her great aunt but has heard many stories of Frances' obsession and paranoia with a fortune she was told at 16 years old. The fortune foretold her murder and Frances was determined to avoid it all cost, leading to her investigation of all the townspeople around her to find who might murder her. Annie unfortunately never gets to meet Frances since she arrives at her aunt's home only to find her dead at her desk while in the middle of flower arranging. A whirlwind adventure ensues where Annie investigates who could have murdered her aunt with the help of a local detective and a journal 16 year old Frances left behind which Annie believes coincides with present day events.

Perrin writes so well and this is the most delightful and not cheesy small town murder I've read in awhile! All of the characters are well fleshed out and it's difficult to figure out who would murder great aunt Frances. We'll definitely be ordering this for our library and I'm excited to read more in this series!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Three teenage girls have their fortunes read at a county fair. The narrator tells us that the fortune teller is a 20-year old young woman who has added a rasp to her voice to make her persona seem legitimate. Two of the teens take their fortunes as a lark, in the spirit they were meant to be taken. But one takes her’s seriously and spends her life trying to solve her predicted murder. When Annie is named in her great-aunt’s will as her beneficiary. She arrives for the reading of the will only to find her aunt has been murdered. As Arthur Conan Doyle would say, the age is afoot. It’s a fun book but I would have liked it a little better if it hadn’t tended to go round in circles.

This is a cozy mystery where you follow Annie & Frances with a dual timeline. Overall I thought it was a quick paced fun read. I think the title is a little misleading, but I won’t spoil it.

I will say I almost wish there was a family tree illustration at the beginning because it was difficult to follow all of the characters. A lot of them were only mentioned a couple of times and didn’t help in driving the plot forward.

Between the two MC’s Francis seemed a little more complex and intriguing than Annie. Kind of shocking considering Francis is a teenager in her POV. We didn’t learn much about Annie really so it was hard to make any type of connection with her.

This story had me hooked until the whole Emily storyline started and then I started to lose interest. I don’t really understand why that storyline needed to even BE a thing. It seems this genre can’t help but stick to those things to help drive a plot and use them as twists, turns, and shock factor. I honestly don’t think it was needed. Kind of cheapened it. The story could have just been about three friends and two of which were obsessed with the one, without involving the boy/man drama. But that’s all to say I still think this was a great read, even if that plot point was definitely not for me.

This was a super fun, cozy mystery set in present day, with insights from journal entries from 1965. It was an engaging page turner that kept me guessing and staying up too late trying to puzzle out the answers.

How to Solve Your Own Murder

This book has been swimming around in my brain ever since I first read it back in January. The moment that I sat down to read it, I was immediately hooked. The premise of this book is that Annie is invited out to Castle Knoll by her great-aunt Frances who she’s never met; turns out she’s been obsessed with discovering who her own murderer is, and partially as a result of that she’s designated Annie her new heir. However, by the time Annie arrives, Frances is dead, and Annie must find out what happened to receive any part of her massive fortune.

I loved that we got to see both main character’s perspectives, but I definitely enjoyed Annie’s over Frances’. I was suspecting literally everybody as the book went on. I could imagine myself in Castle Knoll.

I would recommend this to anybody who’s looking for something to get them out of their reading slump, or anyone looking for a book that they won’t be able to put down. Personally, I’ll probably be running to get a hard copy to read again when it comes out.

Unfortunately this book just wasn’t for me. Perrin’s novel is set in the English country side and revolves around Annie who has just been named benefactor of her Great Aunt Frances. When she goes for a meeting she discovers her great aunt is dead after having believed all her life she would be murdered. I couldn’t connect to the characters or the storyline but I can see how others would enjoy this cozy mystery!

First I need to say that this title is catchy. I would definitely pick this book up if I saw it in a bookstore. Secondly, this was the perfect cozy mystery. If you love Agatha Christie, you need to pick this one up.

Frances Adams spends her entire life trying to prevent her own murder, which was predicted by a fortune she received. Her body is found in her estate the same day she was to announce changes to her will. Annie Adams, an author and great niece to Frances, was summoned to the estate to hear of the will changes and was in a state of shock at the discovery of France’s body, whom she had never met.

During the reading of the Will, it is learned that whoever can solve Frances’ murder will be the sole beneficiary of the entire, massive, estate. Annie is at an immediate disadvantage since she did not personally know Frances, but her luck turns when she discovers Frances’ diary written the summer she received her I’ll fortune. In the face of death threats, Annie continues to put herself at risk to bring justice to not one, but two murder victims.

Who can be trusted? Who has the most to gain with the murder of Frances?

I was elated to see this marked as “Castle Knoll Files #1” on Goodreads because I need more! So many characters were likable, and I feel there is much more story to tell. This one I truly could not put down.

This was such a fun book! I loved the murder mystery and it kept me guessing the whole time. It had a little 0f everything - mystery, humor and intrigue. The comparisons to Knives Out are spot on. I look forward to reading more from this author and in this series. Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review! 

Frances Adams is told as a teenager in 1965 that she would be murdered one day. She then spends the rest of her life trying to prevent it and figuring out who would kill her. Decades later, Annie Adams is summoned to Castle Knoll to meet her Great-Aunt Frances. Instead of finally meeting her reclusive relative, she finds Frances dead. When Frances’ will is read, Annie learns that to inherit everything Frances left behind she must compete against the nephew of Frances’ late husband to uncover the murderer. If neither is successful in solving the crime within the time frame, the estate will be sold to a developer. Annie is at a disadvantage since she is an outsider, but she stands a chance since Frances spent her entire life finding and documenting the secrets of all the residents of Castle Knoll.

I loved the quaint setting of Castle Knoll. I also loved Frances’ journal entries and seeing the past unfold. The main problem with alternate viewpoints/timelines is that one is usually going to be better than the other. And for this book, the journal entries ended up being more intriguing than following Annie.

Thank you to the author and publisher for providing me with a digital ARC of this title via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

This was a title and author that I had never heard of before, but was intrigued by the title and the summary. I wasn't sure what to expect, and kept being surprised by the book. It was a lot of fun to read and fun to play along trying to solve the murders. Enjoyable, quick read. I would happily read more in the series.