Absolutely loved this book! My first 5 star read in a while. I couldn’t put it down. Holds your attention from beginning to end. This book will make you cry and will make you laugh. Quite an imaginative storyline and it amazes me what this author came up with. I will recommend this book to everyone I know!!

📚 Book Review 📚

Don’t Tell Me How To Die by @marshallkarpauthor
Publisher- @blackstonepublishing
- Pub Date - 3/4/2025

Maggie is forty three, married, has two kids and just found out she has 3 months to live. She carries the same deadly disease her own mother died from.

She wants to find the perfect woman to take her place and care for her family.

@marshallkarpauthor has crafted some of the best characterizations here! The family bond and the relationship between the two sisters are so strong. I just loved Lizzie and Maggie so much! I was definitely emotionally attached to them that’s for sure.

One thing to note is that this story unfolds as a domestic drama. Fans of Sally Hepworth will love this one too. There is a shocking twist towards the end that blew me away!!!
4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Out 3/4/2025

Massive thanks to @blackstonepublishing @marshallkarpauthor for the gifted copy!! Grateful to be a part of #blackstoneinsiders

Alright, let’s talk about Don’t Tell Me How to Die. Honestly, I was a little skeptical when I first read the synopsis. But that title? Totally irresistible to me!

So, here’s the deal: we know right off the bat that Maggie Dunn, our FMC, is dealing with a terminal illness and has a timeline for her death.

I thought I was signing up for a dark, non-emotional thriller, but then I found myself having all sorts of emotions. First, the main character: Maggie is super relatable and definitely has her flaws. There were times when I wanted to yell at her, “Just tell them you’re freaking dying already!” But I think Karp did this on purpose to make us feel all the feels. It got me thinking about life and death and sparked some deep convos with my husband about what we’d do if we had to say goodbye (lol, it got deep 🫠).

What blew me away was how Karp mixes dark themes with humor. This isn’t just another heavy read; it’s light-hearted in a way that makes you laugh even when you’re crying. Words will not do this book justice, but in a nutshell, this book was such an original take on the psychological thriller genre, and it’s one plot I can safely say I’ve never read before.

There’s a reason this book is getting consistent 5-star ratings: it’s unpredictable, relatable, and super entertaining. The characters’ backstories are so well done; they feel real and add so much depth to the story. I LOVE when a book’s characters are WELL COOKED 🤌🏼

This is a must-read that absolutely deserves a spot on your TBR list - and I mean ASAP!

***

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the ARC! Wouldn’t have found this gem very early otherwise 🫰🏼

This was a fun original - twisty story. Twenty five years later Maggie is diagnosed with the same disease that killed her mom. Now she needs to get ready to pass on and prepare her family in advance.

It's main character focused (female) and the male author did a great job of that. I seldom cry at books but this one came close.

This book is more than a "thrilled". It's a look at family and love and loss and grief. And definitely some family drama on the side. All of which is told well. And an A+ for short well written chapters.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC. I truly enjoyed this book.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Blackstone publishing, and the author for giving me this book. With that being said, this is my unbiased review.

Don't Tell Me How to Die lures you in with the perfect hook, line and sinker. Poor Maggie is worried about dying of the same disease that took her mom from her too early on in her life. She is the mayor of her small town dealing with a lot on her plate. To top it off a dead body was discovered on the news, and it was none other than her husband's arch-nemesis.

This story quickly sucks you in with that first chapter and then you are transported back to the childhood of Maggie and Lizzie. The story continues from there to focus on growing up after their mother passed from her fatal blood disease and trying to fulfill her last wishes of looking out for their dad. This book continues to transport you from the present to the past and so forth bringing you along on this mystery that ever so slowly plays out in front of you. This is definitely a slow burn mystery that leaves you guessing on what is coming next the entire time. At times, the story gets a little too slow with a bunch of filler. However, you can't help but continue to think about how that first chapter played out and who ultimately did it. Which really keeps you pushing through. This book was a 3 star up until the end where it ultimately left me at giving it 4 stars because I was not ready for that ending. I highly recommend picking this book up! You will not be disappointed with the constant twists and reveals that take place.

5/5 STARS! This is one of the best books I have ever read! Funny, witty, sharp, humorous at all the right spots....these characters grow on you & become your family in the end. I was laughing and crying & totally stunned at certain chapters. What a whirlwind this book is. It's super quick paced & quite addicting! I found myself not being able to put it down. The big twist was one I did not see coming & I'm still in shock. This is a MUST READ!

Marshall Karp has struck gold with the absolutely amazing book. He has found the sweet spot with a twisty mystery/thriller and a deeply emotional family drama. The story opens with a body found in a small town lake, but the bigger problem is who that person was when they were alive. The story unfolds in alternating timelines giving us the details of our narrator, Maggie’s life. As a teenager she is a straight A student, who takes a turn down an unruly path while trying to cope with her mothers impending death. Her mother has a rare blood disorder and with what little time she has left, she wants to leave her daughters with one task, to make sure their father marries the right person after she is gone. She also leaves them with the potential time bomb of inheriting the same disorder. Once every year Maggie and her sister Lizzie have their blood tested, but on the day that the body is found Maggie’s doctor orders a second blood test, sending Maggies world spinning. Now Maggie is in her mother’s shoes, and she wants to ensure that her husband finds the right next partner, someone with good intentions that will take care of her twins and the life she has carefully built. As we learn more about Maggie’s past and she rushes to plan for her future, the pace quickens and takes some crazy turns. This book isn’t structured like your typical page turner, but i found myself unable to stop reading. I cried more than a few times and audibly gasped quite a number of times as well. What seems like a simple character driven story explodes into something amazing. I feel like this is the book that would make Gillian Flynn fans very happy. If you are looking for a something dark and cozy to wrap yourself up in, this is the book for you.

Dammmmmmmn. I read this just to enter to win free audiobooks from Blackstone Audio but I do not regret it. I was kind of iffy about a good portion of the book, was thinking 3 stars for awhile, but then my jaw dropped when some stuff happened and that boosted my opinion a lot. Things I was not expecting AT. ALL. Whoa. I still don't love how the male author wrote his female characters but the story was a RIDE.

Editor's note: This review will appear in print and online with the March book roundup at www.cullmantimes.com

Marshall Karp, of NYPD Red series (aka, co-conspirator of James Patterson) fame, offers a taut, sharp and on-target psychological thriller in “Don’t Tell Me How To Die” (Blackstone).
Told in parts, past and present, Karp crafts a evolving storyline centered on 43-year-old Maggie, a woman who is not only diagnosed with the same deadly disease that claimed her mother but vows to not recreate the adolescent hell she endured because of the passing.
Seeing firsthand her dying mother’s warning that, once she died, women would flock to 17-year-old Maggie and her sister’s father “like stray cats to an overturned milk truck” and that it would be up to girls to protect him. Which they do, admirably — until one slips through their gatekeeping. …
Determined that the same thing won’t happen to her own family, Maggie devises a plan to find a perfect match as wife and mother … before she dies.
If this was all to the plot, the storyline would be worth an afternoon, but in succeeding parts of the novel, Karp continuously turns everything upside down, projecting surprise after surprise in a trope-laden, over-blown style that works perfectly for a main course instead of the appetizer it would have been coming from a lesser pen.
Karp is a veteran in keeping the cinematic action going and the shocks coming — both of which are abundantly on display in his latest.

Maggies mother is dying in her 40s of a fatal blood disease. She does everything she can to prepare her 2 teenage daughters for what’s to come, but still a woman coming into their father’s life almost ruins it. Years later, Maggie, around the same age, gets the same diagnosis and decides she will find her perfect replacement in order the prevent the same type of tragedy for her husband and children.

The story is told in 3 parts, so much of this book takes place while Maggie is 17 and dealing with her mother’s death. This section of the book is very literary. I believe it’s necessary for us to learn about Maggie and her family. Just when it starts to feel slow, we are thrust back into the present and Maggie’s current situation. From this point on, the story is fast paced and very twisty! While I did see some things coming, at one point I laughed out loud at myself for not realizing something before. This was a pretty unique concept and it really feels like more than one story. It is difficult to even place it into a genre- it’s literary, thrilling, and there are some mysteries to solve. I enjoyed the journey!

I did have one issue with the book… While I understand that teenagers have sex and smoke, I felt like the way it was portrayed in this book was slightly excessive. Reading about 17 year old girls being intentionally promiscuous and then laughing about it as adults (using the word slut) was uncomfortable. An aunt in her 40s offering to write a prescription for her 15 year old niece and nephew was uncomfortable. It took me out of the story a few times. This is my first NetGalley review and I want to be honest.

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to read and review an early copy of this book!

Thanks to Blackstone Publishing for gifted access via Netgalley. All opinions below are my own.

This one starts with a dead body, a grudge over a new hospital building and a terminal diagnosis.

Maggie has always known there would be a chance her life would be cut short, her mother died young of a heriditary disease. So when the diagnosis comes, she is ready with a somewhat insane plan to find her husband the right replacement wife. There's a reason this is her motivation and the first half of the book skips us back to her childhood / teen years to fill in the gap. I'll admit, while reading that first half, I went back to the outline a few times and thought, this is a thriller? It read more like Tracey Lange, an Irish family with lots of love, a tragedy where they must learn to deal with their grief and find purpose again.

But thriller readers, don't turn away... the second half of the book is for you. I would say this is akin to Gone Girl where you don't even know the dominoes have been set until they start to fall, and then you're like WHAT? The second half of the book I read in one sitting. I was invested in the first half but thought it was a little slow and more emotionally focused than I usually feel in a thriller. But what that did was have you so much more invested when the action happens. It definitely didn't go the way I expected at all, every new domino was a fresh surprise.

These are the kind of thrillers I want to read: complex, psychological and genre bending.

Unbelievably Good! I know it’s a little early in 2025 to be claiming this is the best book I’ve read this year, but this one has set the bar!

It’s listed as a psychological thriller, but it’s not. It’s an amazing work of contemporary fiction that is a deeply emotional and heartwarming story of love and life and death and family. Until it’s not. The transition from heartwarming and emotional coming of age, unputdownable story to twisty, unputdownable, I don’t even know what hit me story is seamless. There are twists, some very minor, but for me they were so unexpected that they still thrilled me.

I read this one based on positive reviews I’d seen talking about the twists, and while I do love a good twisty thriller, even the parts of this that weren’t twisty were incredible. I absolutely loved so many of these characters that I would’ve given this book 5 stars if there wasn’t one single twist in it. Luckily for me, this one gave me the best of both worlds. This is definitely a unique hybrid sort of story, giving you two different genres of fiction in one perfect little 5 star package.

So excited i got to read this book! I really enjoyed reading this book! It kept me engaged the whole time and wanting to keep figuring out what was going on when I went in completely blind which was fun! Definitely a different experience for me but it did not disappoint. If you are looking for something to make you be like, wait what? This. Is. It.

This book was a slow start but still very addictive!
I couldn't guess the endings countless twists! Woah

Wow!!! I was given this book by NetGalley for an honest review!!
I absolutely devoured this book!
A great husband, two children, and then a message from the doctor saying I’m going to die- I’m only 43. My mom died young and the women were all over her husband upon her death- so I want to pick my replacement. I was voted the most likely to kill someone to get what I want in high school. Suddenly fate enters the picture - now what? This was a page turner for sure!

Well there’s always that one person… 🤷🏻‍♀️ There’s lots of hype surrounding this book right now, lots of five-star reviews. I will say this book was good, but it didn’t have me crying like most people stated (I think I’m heartless, or just had my mind mentally prepared for what was coming). I also didn’t find this to be a fast-paced thriller. This book read super sloooow, in which I had to take several breaks before I could pick it up again. I also feel that I had to wait too long for any of the twists and reveals to take place (nothing happens until Part Three of the book).

This story basically focuses on the life of Maggie. Maggie’s mother died at the age of forty-three from a fatal blood disease (HLH). Maggie and her sister Lizzie were on a mission after her mother’s death to vet all the single women away from their father. Of course, her father would still pick the wrong one…

Twenty six years later, Maggie learns that she has the same fatal blood disease as her mother. How can that be? Maggie is now the mayor of the city she grew up in, the wife to a successful doctor, and she’s a mother to two wonderful children. Maggie decides that she is now on a mission to find the perfect wife for her husband, so he will have a good woman once she is gone.

I personally felt like this story had lots of unnecessary details/filler in it, and once again the twists took too long to take place. This is a good story with some “a-ha” moments, but if you’re looking for a fast-paced thriller, then this isn’t the book for you.
(3.5 stars, rounded down)

I would like to thank NetGalley, Blackstone Publishing, and the author for a DRC of this book which I had the pleasure of reading. All opinions are my own.
Publication date: March 4, 2025

A thriller about a ticking clock and a woman with a mission leads to an incredible book that is hard to put down. This is my first time reading a book by Marshall Karp, and I was not disappointed! This book was intelligent, gripping, fast paced and full of all of the best parts of a thriller with no lulls.

GO and buy this book NOW!! You won't be disappointed. Also, calendar a day or two to devour it. I read it over a weekend and I don't typically read anything near this pace. This book has it all; laughter, tears, and pure shock! Fresh and original story. I fell in love with the main character right away and was invested in the emotional rollercoaster the whole way through. Great relationships between sisters and friends. This book was so relatable, until it wasn't!! You will enjoy this one! I am recommending to all my friends. Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for access to an advance copy!

I went into this relatively blind, expecting a run-of-the-mill thriller and that was NOT what I got! I’m pleasantly surprised by this book. I came for the thrills, but stayed for the emotional and heartwarming family drama. And the writing? Chef’s kiss. My eyes were glued to every single page.

Don’t Tell Me How to Die is broken into three parts. Each part vastly different but ties together so well. The first part (45%) dives into the past of our driven main character, Maggie, as a teenager losing her mother to terminal illness. This part shapes our character’s future and provides backstory while introducing our key players. Part two takes us back to the present as Mayor Maggie navigates her own bad news. At this point, I began to wonder when the thrilling portion of this book would start. And boy, did it! Part 3 is full of twists and turns as all the threads of this story finally weave together. So satisfying.

Overall, totally recommend if you’re a fan of uniquely told thrillers and enjoy family dramas with morally ambiguous/gray characters. You will be hooked!

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Marshall Karp and Blackstone Publishing for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.

She had everything she could have wanted: a husband worth bragging about, two kids who were as helpful as they were agreeable, and a legal career that was taking off. Maggie only saw that come crashing down at age forty-three, when she was given a medical diagnosis that would ensure she did not see her next birthday.

Maggie’s mother suffered from the same illness and died at the same age. Maggie cannot help but remember back to that time, when she was seventeen. Memories of the pain, the pity of others, and that other women would flock to Maggie’s recently widower father like flies at a picnic subsume her. When it happened, Maggie and her sister had to watch the horrible things happen to their father. Could this be the fate that Maggie is leaving for her family?

Armed with three months, Maggie sets herself a mission, not only to ensure her family is taken care of, but to settle scores and leaves this world on her own terms, at least as much as she can.

In a story that bounces between past and present, the reader sees just how determined Maggie can be to get her own way and to rid herself of those who did her harm. With little to stop her and a determination to get it right, Maggie has a plan and is ready to conquer the world, leaving no one in her wake. A few mysteries leave Maggie’s final months anything but predictable. Karp delivers a great thriller that pulls on the heart strings with every page turn!

I have long enjoyed the work of Marshall Karp, both as a standalone author and in his collaborative efforts. This novel is a great piece of individual work and keeps the reader on their toes. Balancing two time periods, the story progresses well and keeps the reader wondering what is happening. Both storylines are solid and create a much-needed foundation for how things progress in the larger piece. Great characters add depth to the story and keep the reader feeling as though there is a great flavouring to the piece. Plot points deliver the essential twists that provide a pivotal amount of intrigue and tension, which mounts with every passing chapter. Marshall Karp knows what he is doing and does so well, while keeping the reader highly entertained.

Kudos, Mr. Karp, for a great thriller!