Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur for giving me access to the early digital and audio versions of this new book! I absolutely loved Mack’s first Vacation mystery and this one did not disappoint! I absolutely love Eleanor and her “breaking of the fourth wall” to talk to the reader! It’s brilliant in both formats—footnotes and the side talk presentation of them in audio. This mystery had an amazing cast of characters, a story that just didn’t quit, red herrings and twists and turns. I didn’t want it to end! Seriously so fun! Don’t miss this new book!

Eleanor is such a fun, relatable heroine. I had no idea how a murder investigation during a wedding weekend would play out, but Catherine Mack wrote an incredibly fun, cozy, light hearted weekend read. I immediately told my sister to put this on her TBR list!

I just really adore this series (especially on audio!). The Vacation Mystery series centers on Eleanor Dash, a bestselling author, who keeps finding herself in the middle of murder investigations. In this follow up to, Every Time I Go on Vacation Someone Dies, Eleanor is celebrating the wrap on the screen adaption of her best-selling book. The whole cast and crew are swept away to a luxurious resort on Catalina Island for the surprise wedding of two cast members when a hurricane, death threats, and violence erupt. Eleanor must race to uncover the murderer before it’s too late!

I love the wit and unique voice of Eleanor; she breaks the 4th wall and frequently talks with readers in a fun way! The setting is dreamy, fun twists and secrets, and a perfect balance of laughs, mystery and romance. Audiobook narrator, Elizabeth Evans, delivers another hilarious and nuanced performance of Eleanor and her misadventures. From commuting or doing my daily walks, I breezed through this fun mystery in no time, and think it will be another smashing success!

This book had me hooked from word one to the end. I don’t realize till almost being done with it was book 2. But I was still able to follow along and keep up easily with what was happening. I also laughed in parts of the book.

Thanks to Netgalley and Minotaur Books for the #gifted copies of this book.

Summary: In book #2 of this series, Eleanor Dash hopes just to enjoy being a guest at her best friend's wedding. But luck is never on her side as it seems she needs to become a detective to solve a murder...again. To make matters worse, there is a huge storm headed right for Catalina Island, where the wedding is taking place. Battling a storm and rushing to figure out the mystery, Eleanor must team up with Oliver to follow the clues and catch a killer.

My Thoughts: I just love this series. Eleanor is so funny as she takes us through the events at the wedding on the island. I love how all of the characters were back from the first book and how they meshed well with the new players on the board. As always, this book had me all over the place with my theories. I'm happy to say a few of mine were correct, but some parts just shocked me! I love that the relationship between Eleanor and her sister Harper continues to grow, despite their setup as assistant and writer. And of course, I was ecstatic that Oliver was back to help El walk through all the details together.

Read if you love:
🔍Mystery
🏝️Island Locations
💍Wedding Events
🎢Twists and Turns
😂 Laugh-out-loud dialogue

I really enjoyed this book, more so than the first one. Many of the same major players are back, and chaos ensues. The story was well-crafted and it was just FUN. As with the previous book, I loved the cheeky footnotes and thought that they added a lot to the story. I'm excited to continue on with the series. This is a perfect beach read!
I will definitely recommend this to others.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Press|Minotaur Books for the ARC!

Rounded up to 4. An entertaining addition to <i>The Vacation Mysteries</i> series. The core menagerie of characters return along with several new colorful additions. Eleanor's latest adventure unfolds on Catalina Island during wedding festivities for her actress best friend--all while a potential hurricane approaches. Loads of twists and turns--some foreseeable and some surprising.

I'm still loving the footnotes that Mack incorporates into each chapter, which often break the fourth wall and provide insights, backstory, and miscellaneous asides.

Will definitely continue on to Book 3 when it's available.

Thanks to #netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC ebook.

Available May 13, 2025

Eleanor Dash is back in No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding.

"Eleanor's best frien since childhood, Emma, is starring in a movie based on Eleanor's first book, When In Rome. After filming wraps everyone travels to Catalina Island for the wedding of Emma and Fred, her costar. Everything is going great until Emma gets a note - "Somebody is going to die at this wedding" And oh yeah - a hurricance is headed their way. Eleanor will do everything she can to uncover the murderer so true love can prevail."

The voice of Eleanor makes this a fun book. Her sarcasm and sense of humor keep you chuckling all the way through. She continually breaks the Fourth Wall so it feels like you're having a conversation with her the whole time and that you're there with her every time she stumbles over a body. There's still the tension between Eleanor and Connor and Ollie - not really a love triangle but enough sparks flying to make you wonder. Lots of red herrings and misdirection. The hurricane gives it the feel of a locked-room mystery. Big surprise at the end - didn't see that coming.

Fans of cozy mysteries and destination weddings will love this.

This book follows up every time I go on vacation someone dies, and has Eleanor at the wedding of her best friend. Eleanor is a likable character and her footnotes add snark. This book didn’t grab my attention like the first one and it was less engaging.
I read the physical book, I do think this would be really enjoyable as an audiobook.

This is the second book in the Vacation Mystery series and made for a super fun read!

I like how the story breaks the fourth wall making me feel like I’m involved in the plot and adventures.

I enjoyed following up with characters from book one while meeting new people also; I feel the universe of this series growing bit by bit which again, makes me feel like I have a front row seat to the action as it’s happening.

The only thing that drove me nuts was Eleanor (and others) believing she has some sleuthing skills due to being a writer yet she points the finger at literally everyone, lol! It seems she merely uses process of elimination when finding “whodunit” and is constantly putting pieces together that just don’t fit.

But this was a quick, fun, and I’d say cozy, mystery that I enjoyed reading then listening to. While I LOVE the ease of having so many books on my e-reader, I still find that I’m more engrossed and engaged when I listen to books. When I have the opportunity to listen to an amazing voice actress or actor, narrating the story it’s just so so magical to me!

Thank you NetGalley, Catherine Mack, St.Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to read and listen to the book, ahead of the May 13, 2025 proposed release date, in exchange for an honest review! It was a delight!

It was fun to jump back into things with this hilarious and quirky bunch of characters. I appreciated that this book picked up right after book 1 ended and we continue to hear all of Eleanor's antics as she gets herself wrapped up in a murder again. Overall, I enjoyed the book, however not as much as the first. I found the plot pacing good until the final 20%. At this point, I found the writing got fast and a bit chaotic as characters started discussing info about who what where and when. This left me feeling like info was being thrown at me to finish things instead of the reader piecing the mystery together.

I never win at guess who was the murderer. It was funny, entertaining and fun trying to solve a murder mystery while attending a wedding in an island. Jealous Oliver is my favorite Oliver. Every character has a purpose and they fulfilled it to perfection. The Connor and Oliver rivalry is a favorite mostly because Connor has no boundaries.

Okay, this book was fun, but it was a bit too much chaos. There is definitely mayhem, and reading book 1 is a must. 2 love triangles, debts to be paid, past love affairs, murders and Hollywood glam in the middle of a wedding. I liked it but was confused at times.

#NoOneWasSupposedtoDieatThisWedding #NetGalley

Just what I needed after a completely crappy start to the week — No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding was a breath of fresh air. Sometimes I just crave a really solid whodunit, and this series has not let me down yet. The concept is so fun, and the wild twists and turns had me hooked the whole way through. It's sharp, funny, and honestly just a good time. Huge thanks to @macmillanaudio & @minotaur_books for the chaotic, twisty, murder-filled ride.

Eleanore and most of the crew from book 1 are back to their sleuthing ways for an island wedding happening during Hurricane Isabella - and if you don't know why that's humorous, please go read Every Time I Go On Vacation, Someone Dies.

El's best friend, a movie star named Emma, is using the cover of making the movie version of El's book "When in Rome" to get married to her leading man, Fred. The book 1 folks are all in some way apart of the movie: El & Harper are extras (and of course, El wrote the book the movie is based on), Connor has been hired by the producer to investigate Fred, Allison has a part in the movie & Oliver is back as well, not in the movie but still dating El.

Things begin going wrong right from the start of the wedding weekend - ominous notes, vaguely threatening tweets, changes to the schedule, a hurricane that is not heading out to sea, death traps, all eventually culminating in a dead body and a mystery with many more twists than book 1. This ending was far more of a surprise to me than the first book.

I really appreciated that the footnotes were toned down a bit. I liked them in book 1 but thought there were just FAR too many, this time around they felt more reasonable, I think there was even a chapter or 2 with none! Though there was also no 4th wall breaking chapters which I really enjoyed in book 1. Maybe book 3 will find more of a balance. My other issue was El's feelings for Connor. I get that at 25 she was taken in by his charm, but she's 10 years older (hopefully wiser), and in a solid relationship, why he continues to creep into it as a foil for that is a bit much for me. Otherwise, it was a strong second entry into the series, with a lot of twists and turns to keep the reader engaged.

I loved the first one in this series for its originality, humor, and well-crafted mystery; this one is just as good, if not a little better! The series on the whole is a lot of fun and the characters are just as entertaining. The mystery itself left me guessing until the very end; I had no idea how this was going to play out. The writing, particularly the banter between Eleanor and the other characters as well as her inner monologues were witty and humorous. The ending is perfectly set up for the third, which I cannot wait to read.

Another ridiculous, campy mystery that hits all the right notes for contemporary cozies. This time we’re surrounded by Hollywood elites, with one going so far as to stay in character from his film persona the entire time, so it’s impossible to say who is telling the truth and who is putting on the performance of a lifetime, leaving the audience guessing until the very end. One thing I had a hard time keeping track of is there are a lot of group scenes and dialogue bouncing back and forth between group members, but no dialogue tags to say who is actually speaking. This book has a lot of dialogue and when it’s one on one, you can drop tags as they go back and forth to show it’s zippy, but when three or four people have already had lines on a page and suddenly there’s zippy, untagged dialogue, I have no idea who’s saying what.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc.

Additional note: due to the heavy use of footnotes in this series, I highly recommend reading a physical copy if you can, the formatting for footnotes on kindle is weird and you’re constantly having to tap in and out of them to read them, and if you’re like me and use the kindle stand with page turn clicker because of chronic pain in your wrist and elbow, it’s not just tiring but painful to be tapping in and out of these footnotes, and they really do enhance the story so I wouldn’t recommend just skipping them. This is just a kindle formatting thing so it does not reflect in my rating.

This was such a fun, lighthearted murder mystery! I loved the first book in this series, but I have to admit this one fell a little flat for me. The pacing near the middle was uneven compared to how fast the second half of the book was. It was challenging for me to keep track of all the characters, especially since this book was 90% dialogue. If it had some more prose and descriptive language, I think it would’ve been a much better reading experience for me — all the dialogue made it read more like a play than anything.

Special thanks to St. Martin's Press, NetGalley, and Catherine Mack for the advanced copy of No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding. This is the second book in The Vacation Series—I enjoyed the first and found the second just as entertaining. I absolutely adore Catherine Mack’s writing style; her books are witty, clever, and full of charm. I'm eager to see where this series goes next!

Publication date-May 13 2025
#NoOneWasSupposedtoDieatThisWedding #NetGalley

I loved the first book in this series and gave it 5 stars, but unfortunately this follow up was not as successful for me.

All the things I remember loving about the first book (the quirky voice, the breaking of the fourth wall, the characters) all came off as annoying and flat for me in this story. Because it's been a while since reading the first, I can't remember if something has changed with the books or if it's just my preferences changing over time, but writing "Ha ha." as a full sentence was nooooot working for me and the story felt cringey to me.

I didn't find the mystery compelling and as bodies hit the floor I wasn't finding myself getting more invested. None of the characters felt like real people to me either, which is odd to experience in a second book in a serious after liking the characters in the first? This is what I mean - I don't know if it was me or the book, but it was a weird time.

I'll be hesitant to continue in the series now, but if the next book sounds interesting I might give it a a go.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions remain my own.