Murder in the Dressing Room by Holly Stars introduced me to a new world with interesting characters I knew nothing about. When drag queen Lady Lady is murdered in her club, Misty, her protege is accused of her murder. In the process of finding out the real murderer we are introduced to both sides of their lives. This is a well written introduction to the Drag world and the lives of the people inhabiting this world. I hope there are many more Misty Devine books to come.

The premise was fun, but the writing completely threw me off while reading and made it not very enjoyable. It felt very flat, full of unneeded descriptions and more telling than showing. I will say though that I liked the slightly over dramatic, campy tones that were used at times.

It seems like this is set up to be a series and I'd be interested to see how the author's writing improves, but I can't say I'm necessarily anticipating the next book.

On the other hand, I really loved that the main character was non-binary! Gender and drag have complex nuances - it's not always just gay men dressing up as women. There are so many levels to it and I'm really glad the author chose to include a non-binary drag queen, as well as drag kings as side characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group for the eARC!

The premise and the characters of the book were intriguing and the setting is attention grabbing but the plot was flimsy and the writing lacked any sophistication. I liked the characters, but they need to be better developed.

We loved the idea of a Drag Queen solving a murder and having a deeper glimpse into drag culture.
While it was a good read, it fell flat in a few key areas; plot flow, character personality and writing style. I want to note that I enjoyed the dramatic and campy flow of the writing style, what I did not love was how much was told and not shown to us. I felt like we didn't get enough characters speaking in the book. Onto the character personality of Misty, they didn't feel fully complete to me. They felt like they lacked some personality and were more of the eyes of the reader than a main character should.

All in all, it was a good read, if it becomes a series I do feel like this book will be my only venture into it.

I know that I read this (because it is marked as read on my shelf), but I honestly have no memories of reading this one. I'm sure it was great, but it just didn't stick for me.

At first I felt like this campy cozy was a bit over the top. Then I realized that Drag is all about being over the top, larger than life, and full of life. That made it perfect.

#murderinthedressingroom
#hollystarr
#mistydivine
#cozymysteryseries
#slayqueen
#netgalley