This was my first murder mystery in a while, and I loved it! Annie’s great aunt Frances was murdered, and Frances spent 60 years trying to prevent her own murder after having her fortune read as a teenager. Annie uses all of the clues in Frances’s home to discover who murdered her great aunt. There were tons of twists and turns, and it felt like I really got to know all of the characters of Castle Knoll and really solve the puzzle with Annie. I did not guess the ultimate ending, and the actual twist had me shocked! I loved the twist and the ending showing the aftermath of the discovery. Definitely a must read!

I really enjoyed this book! It was always hard to put down but towards the end it seemed to leave out some information that might have been helpful to readers. I wasn’t expecting what happened at the end but it felt rushed and like lots of missing pieces led to it. Overall a good read though!!

Thank you to Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

First off I’d like to thank NetGalley and the author for allowing me an early copy! This book instantly gave me Agatha Christie vibes and I was loving it!
You are following 2 timelines in this story, there is Frances in 1965 that had received a note telling her about her eventual death/murder and then you follow her great niece who stumbles upon her murdered great aunt in the mansion in the future.
Then you follow both as her great niece is trying to find her great aunts murderer while Frances is doing everything in her power to stop the person that will eventually murder her. I loved the vibes of this book and the back and forth of trying to figure out who the culprit was and I wasn’t expecting the ending!
Can’t wait to read more from this author!

In the captivating novel "How to Solve Your Own Murder" by Kristen Perrin, the reader is transported to the quaint English village of Castle Knoll in 1965. Frances Adams, a vivacious teenager, has her life turned upside down when a fortune-teller makes a chilling prediction: she will be murdered. Driven by this ominous prophecy, Frances embarks on a lifelong quest to solve a crime that hasn't happened yet. Decades later, in the present day, Annie Adams arrives at Castle Knoll to attend the reading of her wealthy great-aunt Frances' will. However, she soon finds herself entangled in a web of secrets and lies when Frances is found murdered under mysterious circumstances. Determined to uncover the truth, Annie delves into her aunt's past, unearthing a trail of hidden motives and long-buried grudges. As Annie delves deeper into the investigation, she stumbles upon a cast of quirky and suspicious villagers, each with their own connection to Frances. The endearing yet eccentric residents of Castle Knoll become potential suspects, leaving Annie questioning whom she can trust. The line between friend and foe blurs as Annie navigates a labyrinth of deception and danger. With each step closer to the truth, Annie realizes that she might be inheriting more than just her aunt's fortune. As she inches closer to unmasking the killer, she finds herself in the crosshairs of a ruthless murderer. The past and present collide in a heart-stopping climax, where Annie must confront the darkness at the heart of Castle Knoll and fight for her own survival.

3.75 stars

I loved the dual timelines and the murder mystery, but it took a while to get going and it was kind of slow at times. It took me a while to get rolling and get attached to the characters.

Thanks NetGalley and publisher for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

I can see why this book is getting so much buzz - what an entertaining read!
This book does an excellent job of striking the right tone for a true whodunnit - it's a little bit campy, and while it certainly doesn't make light of the death of the victim, the focus is more on solving the crime and untangling decades of secrets and lies while doing it.
A wealthy widow spends much of her life obsessed with a fortune given to her at country fair that predicts her murder, and goes about trying to solve it before it finally happens. After her fortune comes true, her grand-niece arrives and is given incentive to find the killer.
Annie and Frances are both great protagonists - the author perfectly captures teen politics in Frances's world, and navigating early adulthood in Annie's. Both are interesting, smart and resilient and have multiple dimensions.
I was particularly impressed by the world-building here - Castle Knoll and its residents really came alive on the page, and given the care that so clearly went into that I certainly hope there will be more stories that take place here - I sure wouldn't mind adding it to the list of countryside towns like Three Pines or Cabot Cove with endearing residents and a disproportionate murder rate. This is a great adult debut from Kristen Perrin!

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is apparently the first book in a series -- Castle Knoll Files. It is set in a small town in rural England and has dual narrators along with dual time frames. Frances is 17 years old in 1965 and has her fortune told at a local country fair -- "...All signs point to your murder." Her story is told through her diary. Annie is 25 years old in present day and is summoned to a meeting with Great Aunt Frances to discuss her role as sole benefactor. She arrives only to discover that Great Aunt Frances has recently been killed. The details of her will require that either Annie or nephew-by-marriage Saxon to solve her murder within one week in order to inherit the estate.

The plot itself is intriguing and had potential, but didn't live up to my expectations. The story was not as fast-paced as I would like. There are too many characters, especially multiple generations of families to keep track of. Red herrings abound, along with dangling plot lines and unresolved situations. For those readers who may have gotten bogged down by the many characters and muddled details, everything is pretty much explained in one of the final chapters.

It was an entertaining cozy mystery, but readers must pay close attention to the various characters and situations in order to follow along with the plot. I'm not sure that I can recommend this book, and will probably not be reading the sequels.

Many thanks to NetGalley for an advanced reader copy and an honest review. The book is due to be published March 26, 2024

Read more of my reviews at https://thegoodreader13.blogspot.com/.

Thank you to netgalley and Penguin group dutton publishing for the arc.

Now, Okay, this was like a solid and very HIGH 3.5⭐️ read for me so close to 4. Funnily I have been looking for a good whodunit mystery and this checked off so many boxes and it was definitely like a knives out esque plot. Like, The beginning was a little slow but I wasn’t bored I was just like okay what’s going to happen and when things started going oh they went! I was completely enthralled by the aunts teen years and the mystery behind emily and all their friends and then you get the present of who killed great aunt frances? and Genuinely I did not NOT know. I pride myself on always being able to know who did it very early on but this was threw me for a loop. And even the question of what happened to Emily. I hadn’t guessed that at all and it was just so good to finally get it unraveled.

My only cons were:

- A lot of characters. A lot of relations I couldn’t keep track of and still aren’t sure about (though in a big game of clue like this had been it works because there’s a lot of red herrings and it throws you off track)

- I think the wrap up could’ve been a little more clear like maybe a separate scene itself because it felt a little odd placed where it was and there was so much information and people it was like okay I see but then again do I?

- Personally I liked the story of Great Aunt Frances as a girl more than the present story only because it was just so dark at times and felt so strange with the relationships she had with her friends. But that present story was still such a ride.

Overall this is a good murder mystery and has you guessing until the end.

A classic whodunit involving 2 crimes, a long ago missing friend and a dire fortune teller's prediction. There are essentially 2 main characters. One is the rich old aunt in her youth before she spends most of her adulthood obsessing over her own future demise. The second is her great niece who is tasked with figuring out the great aunt's death. There are twists abs turns and danger and a love interest. And everything ties up in a nice bow at the end. In short, a fun read

There are a couple of hints towards the end of this book leading me to believe that this need not be our last interaction with Annie Adams and her new found friends and enemies in the sleepy village of
Castle Knoll. Seeing the entry for How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files #1) in GoodReads gave me more concrete hope. I will be looking forward to more installments with our queasy writer turned amateur sleuth. This is no hard-boiled detective. Annie has a tendency to faint when finding a body or being confronted with a killer. That doesn't stop her from putting the pieces together to solve the mystery of her great aunts demise in brilliant fashion although with a great deal of humor along the way. This book is funny, fast-paced, suspenseful, eery, and sometimes oogey, with enough read herrings to keep everyone guessing. I look forward to more!

Thanks to NetGalley and Dutton for making an advance copy of this title available for an honest review.

Annie always heard how her great-aunt Frances learned from a fortune teller that she’d be murdered, turning Frances paranoid as she tried to avoid her fate. Annie can inherit her great-aunt’s money if and only if she solves the murder. This fun mystery jumps back in time to Frances’ life when she first heard the fortune, leaving clues for who would eventually kill her decades later and exposing the eccentric characters of her local village. An intricately plotted debut with likable characters for fans of "The Thursday Murder Club."

The story takes place during two time periods. One is written through journal entries from Frances in the mid 1960s. Frances visits a fair with her friends where the fortune teller predicts her murder. Frances spends her life obsessed with solving the mystery of her own murder before it happens. In present day, Frances' grand-niece, Annie is called called to her estate for a reading of her will, when France is found murdered. The will stipulates that whoever solves her murder, will receive everything. The race is on to see who can solve the mystery first.

This mystery just didn't quite do it for me. The idea was an interesting one and had a lot of the pieces of a good mystery, but it didn't quite read as I'd hoped. I enjoyed going back and forth between present day and the diary entries to reveal the answers. There were too many characters in the book that I didn't feel like I understood well enough to connect with. It was hard to keep track of at times.

Wow! What a fantastic book. It completely drew me in and had me totally eager to solve the murder... someone predicted her death 60 years in advance, and the poor woman lived in fear her whole life. Nearing old age, she decides to set some traps, knowing the killer will strike soon. Which family member of friend had a grudge they couldn't let go? Chapter by chapter, I kept thinking... this is a 5-star book... I'm loving the mystery, the suspense, the drama. And as the details drew to a close with the extended family and the secrets from 60 years ago, things looked highly promising. A second body is found, and a mysterious disappearance is solved, but who would go to lengths to keep anyone from finding out so many years later? Had me until the end, and then it teetered a bit on not strong enough for all the previous drama and scenes, so it's more like a 4.5 star-book. Still totally worth reading! Can't wait to see more from the author too.

How to Solve Your Own Murder starts with the premise of sixteen year old Frances hearing a fortune teller tell her she will be murdered. What she doesn’t know is it will take 60 years for the forecast to come true. The title is a bit of a misnomer, because the way Frances sets up her will, it’s left up to her relatives to solve her murder. Whoever solves it first stands to inherit everything. If they can’t solve her murder within a week, or if the police solve it before one of them, everything will be sold off.
The story is told from the perspective of Annie, her great-niece, in the present day and from Frances’ journals from 1965-66. The journals detail the time leading up to the disappearance of Emily, one of Frances’ best friends. Despite being told in the present day, this definitely feels like an old school mystery - a small village setting, inheritance issues, plenty of suspects, everyone with a secret of some sort. It was fun and entertaining.
Annie is an engaging character, hoping to become a published mystery writer, and young and brash enough to take some crazy chances. Perrin also did a good job of fleshing out Frances. Not as easy to do as everything we learn about her is through her journals, her files and others’ memories of her. The plot moves along at a brisk pace, with Annie trying to determine who she can trust while staying one step ahead of both her competition and the detective on the case. I’ll admit to being flummoxed and not figuring out the culprit before Annie. The ending was well thought out and not rushed.
I’m not sure the comparisons to Knives Out or Thursday Murder Club are apt. Don’t go into this expecting lots of humor.
My thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Group Dutton for an advance copy of this book.

This book was a classic whodunit. I really enjoyed the flashback elements of the book from a different perspective. It felt like a fun game of clue. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys murder mystery books.

This was a very middle of the road mystery novel for me. It checked off a lot of the standard boxes - mysterious death, sketchy relatives, red herrings galore. The overall concept grabbed me before I began. It just didn't play out in a way that quite worked for me.

I felt like the flashbacks dragged the story down at times and would've preferred not to have so many of them. I liked the present day parts and found myself skimming the past bits a lot.

I didn't have the ending all figured out by the time I got there, but it was still a bit of a letdown. I was expecting something more epic, given the scope of the tale. I did enjoy the story's cozy vibe though and would be interested in seeing more mysteries in that setting.

I read an ARC of this book from NetGalley. All comments are my own.

How to Solve Your Own Murder is a cozy mystery that takes place in two time periods. In a modern time where our protagonist, Annie, is competing to win an inheritance from her great-aunt Frances by solving her murder. The other period is 1967 in Frances' diary which Annie is using to help solve the murder.

This was definitely a small-town, cozy mystery and if you are a fan of either of those, this is right up your alley. This is not a typical read I would choose and I would not really compare it in any way to Knives Out. Even though cozy mysteries are not what I normally enjoy, I did like this book. It was a bit slow to start and I wish there had been a list of characters because there were so many that sometimes it was hard to keep track of who was who.
I really did enjoy it after around 40% and I found the solution and ending really creative! I enjoyed both perspectives in the book and I never guessed whodunit.
One thing I want to note is that the protagonist has a realistic reaction to death and dead bodies which I very much appreciate!

Overall, I enjoyed the book despite it not being what I thought it would be. This is for the cozy mystery girlies for sure.

Thank you to Penguin Group Dutton and NetGalley for the ARC!

Fun, engaging debut with a great premise – I finished reading it in one day! Great Aunt Frances is such a lively presence even though she gets murdered before the main events of the novel.

A weak point of the novel was the blandness of the main character, Annie... We know that she wants to be a murder mystery writer, but she's not particularly interesting, and she acts in kind of incomprehensible ways. If you think you've found the murder weapon, why would you pick it up, put it in a plastic bag, and carry it to the police station instead of having detectives come take a look? Especially if you're supposedly interested in how murders are solved! Jenny, Annie's best friend, is introduced in the beginning and seems like she'll be important, but honestly she could have been edited out completely.

The revelation about who killed Emily feels like it comes out of left field... we see the murderer acting like a major creep (in flashback/diary entries) a few pages/chapters before we find out they're the killer, but the creepy behavior doesn't seem to be there from the beginning, so it feels like a very abrupt change. That being said, the book does a great job showing why Emily got killed. Her behavior was SO awful in 1965/66 but so in line with how a troubled and insecure teenage girl might act; we can see how she could have changed if she'd been given the chance.

Overall a really enjoyable read with a few areas that could have used further revision. I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who's looking for a fairly cozy mystery from a new writer!

This was an interesting concept, especially with the back and forth of the timelines. I just personally had a hard time connecting to the story.

What would you do if a fortune teller predicted your murder? For Frances Adams, that meant not going down without a fight. Complete with her very own “murder board” full of connections and clues, Frances set out to solve her own murder before it happened. When she is found dead, her great-niece Annie soon discovers a life of paranoia and evidence gathering has made her aunt no shortage of enemies, and therefore potential suspects. Tasked with solving the murder, Annie goes down a path of discovery. Old journal entries connect events and mysteries from the past and present and give us glimpses into Frances and her ultimate search for justice. The book takes you on an adventure with Annie and she quickly realizes that nearly everyone in town has some sort of motive. Who can she trust? What are the unanswered questions? Is it greed, revenge, passion or self-preservation that led to Frances’ murder sixty years after that fateful fortune-teller’s prediction?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It had several twists and was a fun read. Each chapter I was suspecting someone new and not sure who to trust. Annie was a relatable character who seemed to be finding her place in the world (her family, her writing career, her home). It seemed as though Annie was intent on solving this mystery not just for her Aunt Frances, but also for herself and as proof that she can cut it in the murder writing world. It’s easy to root for her to solve the case. Frances completely steals the show though, both from her journal entries and how she was told through the eyes of the community members. She comes off as the feisty, eccentric aunt you always wanted. Not afraid to be herself and stand up to her friends, but also with her own insecurities and fears that ran her life. Just like Annie, I felt the sense of loss of not getting to know her in the present.

If you’re in the mood for an escape to a countryside estate to solve a current murder and past disappearance, this book is the perfect getaway! A classic cozy mystery!

Thanks Netgalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the early read!