A write lr showing up at her ex’s deportation wedding??? What could go wrong? A murder maybe??? The author does a fantastic job of bringing the reader in and helping the reader feel connected to the characters. I enjoys the pieces coming to together a little at a time.

Kate Valentine, a bestselling mystery author who finds herself at her ex-fiancé’s destination wedding. (Yes, you read that right.) There’s champagne, tension, unresolved feelings, and a dead body. Oh, and her ex-crush, Jake, just so happens to be there too. The setup is great, but the delivery is more Hallmark-channel-meets-summer-beach-read than true crime podcast. This book sounded like it had all the makings of a juicy, page-turning mystery: Isolated private island, Wedding drama, and a body turning up where it definitely shouldn’t be

And yet… instead of the high-stakes thriller I was expecting, I got something closer to a cozy romcom with slight murdery vibes. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just wasn’t what I was craving when I picked this up.

While I loved the banter, quirky characters, and the romantic tension between Kate and Jake , the actual mystery fell a bit flat for me. I never felt the “can’t put it down” urgency I look for. The pacing was a little slow, and the tension never fully built to the payoff I hoped for.

That said, if you’re looking for something fun, light, and perfect for reading poolside, this definitely fits the bill. The writing is charming, the dialogue sparkles, and the island setting gives it major escapist vibes. Ideal for fans of cozy mysteries, enemies-to-lovers tension, and a bit of humor with their homicide.

She Doesn’t Have a Clue is out now. Huge thank you to Minotaur Books for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion. If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my Instagram @speakingof.books.
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𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁:

I love a good cozy mystery and this one has plenty of twist and turns to keep me engaged. I love the trapped on the island for a wedding vibes and all the family drama. I loved seeing a second chance romance subplot. Plus it was fun to see the FMC being an author and embracing her FMC energy. What a fun read and the narration was fabulous.

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬:

Kate was invited to her ex’s fiancés wedding on a private island in the San Juans, WA. She didn’t want to go but she got a personal note asking her to come from the monarch of the bride to be’s family, so call her intrigued. It would be great material for her next book.

The week started off with Kate almost missing the boat to the island and she literally landed on Jake, the hot Australian. So things didn’t start great, then she finds out the bride made Jake her plus one and they will be sharing a room.

Then the bride ends up poison Loretta ed and on the wine cellar stairs and Kate’s the one to find her. Somehow she finds herself playing the main character in a plot right out of her own book! So she has to embrace the “What would Loretta do” mindset to solve this real life murder.

𝙁𝙖𝙫 𝙌𝙪𝙤𝙩𝙚:

“I don’t want to embrace the chaos… I want to organize the chaos.“ - Kate

“That’s what I love most about you Katie cakes, your unshakeable belief in your organizational skills.” - Jake

𝑳𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝒀𝒐𝒖’𝒍𝒍 𝑭𝒊𝒏𝒅:

* Author FMC - She Writes Murder Mysteries
* Australian Pro Surfer Turned Travel Guide MMC
* Destination Wedding - Private Island San Juans, WA
* Forced to Share an Attic Room
* Second Chance
* Forced to Embrace Her FMC Energy
* WhoDunnit Mystery - Twist & Turns
* Secrets, Revenge, Mole, Inheritance
* Single POV w/ Spice

🌧️🍾😵🔎🌧️🍾😵🔎🌧️🍾😵🔎🌧️

While described as a mystery romcom, I’d flip those two descriptions as this came off more romance than mystery but fun nonetheless.

Kate is really not all that good as an amateur sleuth and I’m not sure if that was intentional. But probably was based on the book title. I spent a lot of my time double taking what she does but her goofiness and quirkiness ended up growing on me.

I liked the book in a book and how Kate, a mystery writer by trade, would jump in her character’s head to try and figure things out.

I found myself more invested in the romance between Jake and Kate. They had quite a bit of chemistry and I found myself quite quickly rooting for them.

Sarah Mollo-Christensen as narrator just added to my enjoyment. She captured the fun and ease of the novel and the quirky nature of Kate.

It’s a light listen that kept me enaghed from start to finish.

I mostly enjoyed this lighthearted romcom with some mystery elements. It was a fun, quick read for me. I also loved the destination wedding setting of a private island off the coast of Seattle.

The main character, Kate Valentine, is a mystery author. In a way, Kate uses her fictional sleuth, Loretta, as a way to help solve the murder.

While this book had some funny moments, it veered into slapstick territory when Kate knocked over the bride…twice! Plus, it had a few Weekend at Bernie’s elements with dead bodies.

The audiobook narration was excellent, and I thought the MMC‘s Australian accent was performed perfectly!

Wedding weekend murder mystery? Yes, please! She Doesn’t Have a Clue was a fun story - where the FMC is a mystery author and she’s caught up in a wedding weekend on an isolated island where people keep showing up poisoned for dead.

There was a lot of set up, luckily the author gave it to us in pieces that rather info-dumping on us. The wedding is for our FMC’s ex-boyfriend, and she was invited personally by his mother-in-law to be.

3.5 stars really. Really fun, cute romance mystery. The humor is super cringe, to the point where i had to take long breaks. The development of the romance is not great, and the hero is way too mean to the heroine in my opinion. I liked the quirky humor and the setting a lot, but there was a little too much winking at the camera. Also, how is this woman so insecure??? Anyway, yes to more cozies like this, maybe tone down the Bridget jones.

"She Doesn't Have a Clue" is a cleverly handled murder mystery, set on a private island during an exclusive wedding held in the home of a wealthy heiress. Unfortunately, Kate has been invited, even though six months earlier, the groom was her fiance--not someone else's.

When crazy things start happening during the weekend getaway, pulled straight from the pages of Kate's wildly popular Loretta Starling mystery series, Kate becomes the primary suspect for an attempted murder of the bride.

In a race against time, she becomes determined to uncover the killer and clear her name. But with a house full of people who could potentially want the bride dead, it may be a bit more than Kate can pull off on her own. And where's Loretta when you need her?

As a fan of cozy mysteries, I really enjoyed the sleuthing part of the story. There is a romance element too that is open door, which I was not expecting. I much prefer closed-door romance, so the open door aspect (in wildly inappropriate places) detracted from things for me personally, and my rating reflects that.

It also wasn't very hard to figure out "whodunnit," but I still enjoyed the wild variety of potential suspects, and the story being set in an hold mansion with hidden passageways.

Thank you to Jenny Elder Moke, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

Thank you, Netgalley, the author, St. Martin's Press, and MacMillan Audio for the gifted e-book and audiobook! ❤️ #gifted. My review is comprised of my honest thoughts.

Read this book if you like: Private island, fake dating, forced proximity, slow burn, author

I enjoyed this. I read it as an ebook and listened to it. Both were great. I enjoy the mix of romance and thriller. It was very entertaining.

Cute romantic mystery taking place during a wedding weekend. A mystery author keeps falling into situations straight out of her novels. Who is trying to set her up?

This book is so... spongy!! I can't think of a better word... The whole book is weird like a sponge but you can’t help getting satisfaction from squeezing it… Kate is... a lot. She is a walking catastrophe. I seriously don't understand why she went to the wedding of her ex.. And that was the least bad idea she had in the whole book.

So Kate is an author and her ex is getting married in a lavish affair on a private island… It gets worse when the bride-to-be is poisoned and all signs point to Kate doing it.

She can’t help trying her hand at amateur sleuthing. The characters are all insane… They are all really colorful. I think the best part of the whole book is how well all the characters were written. I can see where the book was going with the sleuthing and romance but it was all a bit awkward haha. It was a train wreck of a book but I couldn’t help clinging on for dear life and wondering what was going to happen next.

The writing was awesome. I shook my head at how dappy Kate is and I wish I had connected with her a bit more, she felt like the kind of person I would avoid haha but I actually enjoyed the heck out of this book. The audio narration was quite brilliant. I have never read a book quite like it and I definitely need more of it. It was an epic debut novel.

4.25 stars

Yeah I’m still thinking about this book so you know it’s gotta be your next book!

Thank you @netgalley and @macmillanaudio for my gifted ALC

Out now

A fun combination of romance and mystery. I had a hard time following sometime between what was in her head and what was actually happening on the page which made it harder to get into. The characters were fun though! Narrator did a great job and the Australian accent really added to the fun of the story!

Title:She Doesn't Have a Clue
Narrated by Sarah Mollo-Christensen

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐️/5

A fun, entertaining whodunit with a touch of romance.

My review:
Thank you to the publisher, the author, and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I love a good whodunit with a romance, and this was a quick, enjoyable listen. While I prefer closed-door romances and skimmed past the sex scenes, I still appreciated the balance between mystery and romance.

The narrator did an excellent job capturing the different characters, which made it easier to follow the story. I especially liked how the mystery and romance intertwined, with the suspenseful moments naturally leading to romantic ones.

Overall, this is a great choice when you're in the mood for a lighthearted mystery that’s engaging and entertaining without being too heavy.

What I disliked about the book:

Open-door romance (a personal preference)

Too much language; if this is going to be labeled a cozy mystery, it needs less

Macmillan Audio ALC
I love a good whodunit with a romance, and this was a fun, quick listen. It does take a while to get to know all of the characters, but after figuring out who was whom, I was good to go. And I think the narrator did a great job at handling this cast of characters and capturing each one individually, which helped me figure that out quick enough. I thought the romance and mystery were nicely balanced, and I loved how the mysterious situations encouraged the romance ones to happen. And I loved how this was second chance which I think works well with a mystery. This is a fun mystery when you're wanting something not too serious, yet completely entertaining.

Cozy mystery plus romance? What’s not to like? This was a fun book to read and left me trying to solve who was the culprit along with Kate. I wasn’t right of course but fun nonetheless!

Thank you to @macmillanaudio for the gifted copy!
This was so much fun! A cozy mystery mixed with a romance- I am the ideal reader. My two favorite genres. This did not disappoint! The mystery was interesting, there were a lot of potential ways it could have gone, and it ended satisfactorily. I could absolutely see this as a series and I hope we get more! The romance between Jake and Kate is electric - their chemistry was excellent. The narration was superb. I ate this up! Fans of Finlay Donovan & Everytime I Go On Vacation Someone Dies will love this!

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for sending me a copy of this audiobook! All opinions are my own!

This was a very fun read full of mystery, drama, and the cutest romance. Our FMC can be a tad annoying at times with how much of a clue she really does not have, but then you remind yourself that's the beauty of the story. She is funny, quirky, and has a spirit that lights up the whole book.

I really enjoyed the romance of this book, particularly that it wasn't a insta-love situation and that they were people who truly knew and saw one another. It was sweet and sometimes hilarious and rarely made you want to scream to get a clue about it all.

The mystery was intriguing and left you wanting to know more immediately. I did enjoy the aspects of the plot twist and the way everything wraps up, but you'll have to see for yourself.

If you're looking for a fun mystery read, this is the book for you!

I love tropey books and Jenny Elder Moke's adult debut, She Doesn't Have a Clue is full of them in the best way.

Kate Valentine is a murder mystery author invited to her editor/ex-fiance's private island wedding. The weather? Dark and stormy. The perfect setting for a mysterious death, family infighting, and a shocking inheritance-based reveal. I expected everyone to have a motive. I expected a end of act one body drop. I expected an end of act two body drop. The secret passages and unraveling backstory, putting a bullseye on multiple characters and suspicion on even more were excellently paced but again, expected. This book did everything right and hit every beat I want out of a murder mystery. What I didn't expect was to also enjoy the other genre the book was written with in mind: romance.

From the classic 'oh no there's only one bed' romance trope to competing exes and years-old miscommunicated feelings, Kate Valentine may have a sleuthing sweater and a mind for murder, but she doesn't have a clue when it comes to relationships. Fortunately, she's a bit more successful as an author and live-action crime solving sleuth. This book is a little mystery mad libs (at times it felt like we were spinning a wheel of random things to throw in and landing on ideas like loose deadly cougar and prohibition) but it all worked for me.

My only complaint is that the chapters are interspersed with chapters from Kate's own murder mystery books, which was a bit confusing on audio, but once you get used to it the book flies and you're left asking why this was an adult debut to begin with. I want more Kate Valentine!

Thank you to @netgalley and @Stmartinspress for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to @macmillian.audio for a free download of the audiobook.

"She Doesn't Have a Clue" offers a fun blend of murder mystery and rom-com, set against the backdrop of a chaotic, high-profile wedding. The premise is intriguing, with Kate Valentine, a mystery writer, finding her own life mirroring her fiction.

The potential suspects are suitably shady, and the romantic tension between Kate and her past flame, Jake, is enjoyable. However, the pacing felt uneven, with moments dragging as I waited for Kate, a supposed expert in mysteries, to connect the dots. While the banter and romantic missteps were charming, I sometimes wished for a more proactive protagonist.

Sarah Mollo-Christensen's narration is a definite highlight, bringing the characters to life with distinct voices and capturing the tonal shifts seamlessly. Ultimately, the story was entertaining, but the slow burn of the mystery and some character inconsistencies kept it from reaching its full potential.

3 stars

#books #bookishlife #booklover #readingisfun #iowabookstagrammers #iowabookstagram #netgalley #stmartinspress #macmillianaudio #shedoesnthaveaclue #smpinfluencers

I think I have a new favorite author guys, and the best part is that she's a local one!! She Doesn't Have a Clue is Jenny Elder Moke's adult debut and I couldn't have loved it more. It's a romance wrapped up in a cozy mystery and once I started, I knew immediately I would finish it in one day and I did. I loved the setting on a private island off the coast of Seattle (I literally just read another book set on a private island so that’s a theme), and I instantly fell in love with Kate and all of her quirks. The romance between Kate and Jake is quite hot, and there are a couple of rather spicy scenes in the book as well.

The audiobook is narrated by Sarah Mollo-Christensen, and I have to say she did a fabulous job. She really brought Kate’s character across and her Australian accent for Jake was perfection. I would fully recommend the audiobook knowing that Mollo-Christensen made me love the book even more than had I read it because she was so perfect as the voice of these characters. I did not have the whodunnit figured out and loved that there were plenty of suspects and family drama. This brought to mind a game of Clue which is my favorite game, and I think it would be awesome to see onscreen!

Read this if you enjoy second chance romance, hidden rooms in a lavish location, and lots of characters!

My Spice Rating: 🌶🌶
Audiobook Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐