Lucy finds out that her fiance is cheating her on her and accepts a mysterious job she sees advertised for a "Bearer of Bad News." This requires her to fly to Italy to deliver a message for to the sister of the eccentric woman who hired her, even though the details are vague to say the least. She ends up involved in a mystery involving stolen jewels dating back to World War II. This was decent, but I had a lot of trouble following the jewel-related backstory for some reason, and I didn't really like any of the characters much. 3 stars

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this ARC publication for an honest review.

This was absolutely not what I expected...in a good way!

Such a unique plot with our lead, Lucy, being hired as "the bearer of bad news" after her current life implodes.

Dual timelines blend together as mysteries are revealed. There is plenty of comic relief as well as suspense throughout as Lucy tries to do her job...find the client's sister and reveal the news. Of course, there is more than meets the eye. Plenty of suspects and twists and turns...

Solid read! My only slight complaint is there were two potential love interests...I felt the relationships were kind of underdeveloped. The one who she hooked up with especially. I understand the need for the "mystery" and there was an opening of perhaps something more could happen with the ending. However, the other choice had more of a connection in my opinion then taking things to the next level just didn't happen. I wish the author had focused more on one or the other in the romance department.

I still enjoyed the book!

4 stars

This was wonderfully written! I went in blind expecting a rom com and I was pleasantly surprised by this WW2 mystery woven into a modern woman’s falling apart life. I loved the slow unraveling of who was who between the written communication and the present. I recommended it to my book club!

After discovering her fiance has been cheating on her, Lucy needs to pivot in all parts of her life, so when she saw an ad for a bearer of bad news she grabbed it. Working for bizarre heiress Taffy has her in a small town in the Italian Dolomites, looking for Taffy's sister Coco, but with very few details on which to base her search. While looking for Coco, Lucy ends up in a world of stolen jewels and family secrets - and her own connection with them.

This was such a cute and fun read and it got me out of my I'm too sick to read funk. I loved the interesting WWII aspects that are sprinkled throughout the story, and I do have a strong interest in locating lost art stolen by the Nazis or through duress during the war (my grandfather had to trade his bar mitzvah ring for some food while in a POW camp). This one had a twisty plot while remaining somewhat light. It seemed like the ending left it open to be a series which I would absolutely be on board for; either way I am looking forward to the author's next book.

Thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for the ARC to review

When Lucy's life in Las Vegas takes a nosedive - her fiance is cheating, she can't pay the rent - she decides to shake things up and takes on a very odd sounding job, "Bearer of Bad News," which will at least get her a free trip to the Italian Dolomites and well out of her current life. But her instructions are vague to say the least, and there is a very long contract with an attached NDA that practically demands her firstborn and permanent servitude if she ever breaths a word to anyone. So she goes off on thinking she merely needs to find the client's sister and relate a message, but events, well, evolve, and a World War II era mystery comes into play, in ways more personal than Lucy could ever imagine.
This is a fun and often whacky story of a fish out of water; poor clueless Lucy is literally making it up as she goes along. There are interesting characters along the way including a social media darling you will want to nudge off a cliff. A bit of romance, a nice dose of history and mystery, and complex family relationships. Lots of good elements stirred into a bubbling plot. Very enjoyable.

Thank you, @ElisabethDiniAuthor and @GalleryBooks #partner for my free books!

📚 #BOOKREVIEW 📚
Bearer of Bad News by Elisabeth Dini
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / Pages: 352 / Genre: Fiction
Release Date: April 29, 2025

Lucy Rey’s fiancé just left her for a guy in his improve class and stuck her with an apartment she can’t afford. On a whim, she answers a job ad for a Bearer of Bad News. A woman is offering to pay her $25,000 to go on an all-expenses paid trip through the Dolomites in Italy, track down her sister, and give her a message. It sounds too good to be true, but she has nothing left to lose. What she gets instead are answers to a family secret she never knew existed.

This book absolutely delivered on a fun and intriguing adventure in Italy. Lucy, her friends, and all the people she meets along the way are quirky and engaging. There’s also quite a backstory on her great grandmother’s family history, stolen jewels, and a missing baby. While I’m not a fan of historical fiction, the way this was written kept me fascinated the entire time. I loved it!

Lucy Rey doesn't fool herself. She knows that she's not a great hairdresser. Just like she wasn't a great any-number-of-other-jobs-she's-tried. She's trying to stick it out though because she's just changed towns to follow her fiance. That would be the same fiance who Lucy has recognized in someone else's social media photos. And they don't just look like platonic friends.
After consulting with her best friend, Lucy decides to take on a job she saw in a pop up ad. She's not exactly sure what a "bearer of bad news" will do but it can't be worse than sitting and contemplating her own life choices. The job will take her straight into danger (including an influencer that seems to have it out for her) but it also shakes the very foundation of Lucy's own personal history.
I liked the character building in this book and the writing overall. I'm not a huge fan of stories where past and present are interwoven and it was especially jarring in this book as there were at least 3 timelines and they didn't always align well. I also wasn't sure about the department of returning lost things and wish it had been explored more. This story wasn't for me but I think I might enjoy others by this author.

Three and a half stars
This book comes out April 29, 2024
ARC kindly provided by Gallery Books and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

this one was really fun and compelling. world war two mystery books are liable to feel very trite and done, but the writing style of this one really brought it to life.

I was hooked from the beginning!!
It was amazing and engaging.
I was instantly sucked in by the atmosphere and writing style.
The characters were all very well developed .
The writing is exceptional and I was hooked after the first sentence.

This one was more of a journey of self discovery rather than a adventure. BEARER OF BAD NEWS had Finlay Donovan vibes and at times it was slower paced. I enjoyed the slow unraveling of secrets. Thank you Simon Audio for my copy.

Such a neat premise for a book and a career! I hope this becomes a series with our MC delivering bad news and getting into new problems. This book is the perfect mixture of history, romance, and women's fiction.

Bearer of Bad News is like saying yes to a free vacation and realizing halfway through you’ve accidentally joined a European scavenger hunt… with emotional baggage and stolen jewels.

Lucy Rey, a Las Vegas hairdresser freshly cheated on (by a guy from his improv class, which somehow makes it worse), is broke and desperate for a change of pace. So when a very wealthy stranger offers her an all-expenses-paid trip to the Italian Dolomites to deliver some “bad news,” Lucy figures, hey—at worst, she gets pasta and a new passport stamp. What she actually gets is an avalanche of secrets, a trail of WWII-era drama, and a personal connection to the mystery that no one, especially Lucy, saw coming.

The setup is promising: a quirky heroine, a glamorous setting, and a puzzle rooted in family secrets. But somewhere between the hair salon and the high-stakes espionage, things get a little… tangled. The tone bounces between cozy caper and international thriller like it can’t decide if it wants to sip espresso or jump out of a moving gondola. And while Lucy is charming in her fish-out-of-water way, it’s hard to stay grounded when plot twists keep flying like confetti at a surprise party nobody asked for.

There are some lovely moments—touches of humor, friendship, and self-discovery—but they get lost in a storyline that tries to do just a bit too much. It’s not a bad book, per se. It’s just one that didn’t quite live up to its (very cool) premise.

Read if you’re in the mood for a lightly mysterious, occasionally chaotic European getaway—with a side of “wait, what just happened?”

Parts of this book I really enjoyed and some dragged. I enjoyed when Lucy is in the Dolomites and trying to find figure out the mystery of the necklace. However all the case files in the middle of these chapters ruined the flow of the story for me.

This is such a unique book! The premise (not to mention the cover!) immediately captured my attention. Lucy is a down on her luck hairdresser who, after some relationship heartache, takes a chance on a job in Italy, with the adventure that follows involving a mystery, drama, humor, and so much more.

I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like it, and I especially enjoyed the woven in hints at the end of the chapters related to the mystery. I can’t wait to see what Dini does next!

This was a prescient, timely, must-read dual timeline WWII story debut that was able to take on the genre in a fresh and unputdownable way. This book is the NEEDED-reminder that history always repeats and being indifferent leads to evil leaders. Drawing on the wisdom of philosophical greats like Plato, who said lines like "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men," Dini reinforces just how IMPORTANT it is for present day citizens to stand up against tyranny and racism. 10/10 recommend this debut that was fantastic on audio narrated by Carlotta Brentan. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy @simon.audio for a complimentary ALC in exchange for my honest review! I really hope we get more books about Lucy and her new 'Bearer of bad news' profession.

After finding out her fiancé is a cheater Lucy Rey is down on her luck and money. She is willing to do almost anything for a job including reusing to a posing requesting someone be a Bearer of Bad News. The job will send her on an all expenses paid trip to the Italian Dolomites just to locate an individual and deliver a message. What Lucy doesn't realize is this job is about to get far more complicated than she could have dreamed.

I had a really great time with this book. I was expecting a lighthearted cozy style mystery but this also had a very interesting historical aspect to it. Lucy was a lot of fun. She is smart but also not afraid to make some wild moves in her life. I loved how the mystery came together in the end. I'm not sure if this will be a series but I would love to read more stories involving Lucy. This was my first Elizabeth Dini book but will not be my last.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of The Bearer of Bad News immediately grabbed me — a young, unemployed hairdresser taking a job to deliver bad news to an estranged family tucked away in the Dolomites? It sounded quirky, adventurous, and full of potential.

Unfortunately, the execution didn’t live up to the promise. What started off light and intriguing quickly got bogged down in a convoluted plot involving feuding sisters, a WWII Nazi-stolen artifact, and an all-expense-paid journey that felt more muddled than thrilling.

The story jumps between two timelines, and while dual narratives can be great when done well, I found the historical sections confusing and hard to connect with. The modern storyline wasn’t much better — between our hairdresser heroine and her aging movie-star grandmother, I struggled to find anyone I truly cared about.

A little mystery and misadventure is what you’ll find in this story of Lucy, a barely adept hairdresser who lands an obscure job after her life implodes. Not exactly sure how one decides to apply for and accept a job that requires you to sign a NDA and track someone down to deliver them a message, but Lucy’s kind of desperate. She travels to Italy, where things go upside down, and she inadvertently stumbles upon a mystery.

The story is kind of goofy, and also has a serious undercurrent to it with parts of it being told through letters written during WWII, and other parts told as secret reports. Suffice it to say that there are connections and eventually Lucy stumbles onto them.

Highlights:
* Single POV, mystery, epistolary
* Down on her luck FMC, accidental spy
* Italy, Dolomites

This was an interesting bit of storytelling. Dini reaches into her former career as a prosecutor to inform the historical aspect of the story. I thought I was getting a rom com, and got something else entirely - a curious mystery where the FMC just stumbles upon things. If you’re up for something a little quirky, I’d say pick this up!

Thank you @gallerybooks for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the cover and I was sold with the Elinor Oliphant comparison- but in the end, I don't think this really loved up to either point. It's a quirky story of a millennial woman trying to find herself post-breakup, and it was okay. It felt like it jumped around a lot, and I drifted a lot as I read.
Not my favorite book of the year, but not my least either.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, in return for an unbiased review.

This debut novel is an interesting attempt to defy genres: Not "yet-another-white-millennial-girl-who-acts-like-a-teenager" romcom; not another "women's historical fiction" retread (meaning another romance set in WWII); not a mystery; not aspirational travel fiction. It's kind of a mix of everything...and while I appreciate the innovation and creativity, the book didn't really work, IMHO. Why not? To me, it felt as if I were reading two entirely different books simultaneously, as the voice and narrative changed from "white girl has hijinks on holiday" to "epistolary historical fiction" for the last portion of every chapter. And aside from the whiplash of storytelling format, there were just TOO MANY CHARACTERS, with far too much complexity than necessary. So! On the plus side, I would have enjoyed these as two separate books; the characters were entertaining and the settings were interesting. But as a whole, this wasn't my thing.