I’m a long time fan of Laura Lippman and this book just seals the deal! I totally enjoyed my voyage with Mrs Blossom. What a fantastic character. I definitely relate to her age and size. Refreshing read start to finish.
Thank you NetGalley, Laura Lippman and Harper Collins/William Morrow for the opportunity to read and review this absolute gem of a book.

Overall, I loved this story. The body size inclusivity was amazing. I guess the small gripe I have is the random use of really complicated words (they felt forced). I still overall enjoyed this story throughly!

while it's nicely written, I found the inner dialogue of Mrs. Blossom, the central character, rather annoying and misplaced. Not my cup of tea.

[author:Laura Lippman|60459]

Mrs. Blossom is an older woman who’s widowed and now her daughter is moving to Japan leaving her behind to find her own way. She finds a lottery ticket that changes her whole life! She plans a dream vacation but now when someone ends up dead and Mrs. Blossom is one of the last people mentioned in his texts, it starts a vacation she didn’t bargain for! I love watching Mrs. Blossom …well blossom! She meets some interesting characters but who to trust? You will just have to read to find out.

I recieved an advance copy of this book and am leaving this review voluntarily.

This was a cute cozy mystery about Muriel Blossom who goes on a cruise in Paris. Even though there is a murder, this is not a thriller like other books by Laura Lippmann. It is a daily story of Muriel and the people she meets in Paris and on the cruise. It’s very easy to read and entertaining. There is a good ending to the story and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a follow up book to Muriel’s life in Baltimore.
Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for my ARC ebook.

A sharp, engaging mystery with great characters and plenty of twists. A fun, suspenseful read overall.

Laura Lippman has written one of my all-time favorite novels: Sunburn. That is why I was thrilled to be able to read an advance copy of her latest: Murder Takes a Vacation. In this, we have a completely different kind of mystery novel: the cozy mystery. Not only that, it is a character study of an all-too often forgotten and invisible type of person: the middle-aged overweight woman. Sunburn was pure noir and this is about as far from that as you can get.

Our main character is Muriel Blossom, a delightful widow who is on a luxury vacation in France. Newly rich due to a winning lottery ticket, she discovers that she has the fortitude to set out on her own after the loss of her beloved husband. No cozy mystery would be complete without a cast of quirky characters who may or may not be who they purport to be, and of course, there will be murder and mysteries to solve.

Blossom was a character in Lippman’s Tess Monaghan series but this novel works as a standalone. Lippman’s note on why she wrote it was very touching and heartfelt. However, I just didn’t feel compelled to turn the pages the way I did with Sunburn. I am not a fan of cozy mysteries, having overdosed on Agatha Christie at a young age, but I think this will be enjoyable for many who are.

A review from Fantastic Fiction:
Meet Mrs Blossom. . .
A widower who has never left the US
A grandmother with a knack for blending in
A lottery winner with an unexpected fortune
Determined to finally see the world, she's starting with a cruise along the Seine.

Just twenty-four hours into Mrs Blossom's trip, however, a man is dead, a precious artefact is missing, and a mysterious stranger is claiming her life is in danger. Surrounded by luxury food, quaint towns and people with staggeringly high net worths, she has no idea who she can trust.

But maybe blending into the background has its perks - whoever is responsible will never see this most unlikely of detectives coming.

Readers loved Murder Takes a Vacation:

Laura Lippman’s new book is a departure from her most recent books. I have always enjoyed her fiction and nonfiction. This book is no exception.
It is different in tone, and reminds me of mysteries from the past. Muriel Blossom is the star of the show, and she is quite the character. The story revolves about Mrs. Blossom going on a cruise which is anything but relaxing. There is mystery in the story, but it’s really about Mrs. Blossom and her life. The choices she’s made and regrets she has. She is complex and struggling with how she wants to live her life. The mystery she gets entangled in comes to a satisfactory conclusion. I recommend this book for people who like mysteries with good character studies.

I am a fan of Laura Lippman, so that may color my review. Murder Takes a Vacation, a cozy mystery, is a departure for her. I liked the light story, the international setting and the protagonist. Agree with other reviews that Mrs. Blossom focuses on her weight a bit too much and hope that the next in the series lets that go a bit. Recommend for something light.

If you want to read a book that keeps you in the dark and utterly confused about what in the world you are even reading until at least 2/3 of the way through, add this to your TBR. Otherwise, just pass.

Thank you #NetGalley for the eARC of #MurderTakesAVacation by Laura Lippman

Murder Takes a Vacation is a globe-trotting whodunit starring the unlikeliest of heroines: Mrs. Blossom, a widowed grandmother of 3 with a winning lottery ticket and a yearning to see the world before it’s too late.

The premise is as clever as it is heartfelt: Mrs. Blossom, having just won the lottery (found a winning ticket in a parking lot), books herself a luxury cruise on the Seine. She’s ready to indulge in life, not realizing her trip will turn into a whirlwind of murder, missing art, suspicious men, and more flirtation than she’s seen in decades. When a stranger she meets on her journey turns up dead in Paris her vacation takes a sharp turn into the realm of mystery.

Mrs. Blossom is unsure of herself at times and she second-guesses whether she deserves this new life. But, she’s also observant, warm, and unexpectedly daring. Fans of classic cozy mysteries will appreciate this book as well as its modern take on aging, body image, and the invisibility of women past a certain age.

Mrs. Blossom is taking a trip of a lifetime with her best friend Elinor. In her 60s and widowed, Mrs. Blossom is ready to start a new chapter in a her life. But a series of mishaps and unlikely coincidences leaves her wondering if she can trust any of the people that she meets on her vacation. A fun, cozy mystery with a lovable main character. Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC!

I've loved everything I ever read by Laura Lippman, but my very first love was for the Tess Monaghan series set in Baltimore. It's been a decade since the last book in that series came out, so I was thrilled to see Murder Takes a Vacation--while it's not a book in the series, it is series-adjacent! One of the people Tess sometimes worked with, Mrs. Blossom, is the star of this fun new mystery.

When working for Tess, Muriel Blossom used her older, non-descript appearance as a key skill to help as she followed suspects or others. In this book, Mrs. Blossom has won the lottery and is using some of her new money to take a river cruise through France. Her husband has passed away, her daughter and grandchildren have moved to Japan, so Mrs. Blossom invites her friend Elinor to join her.

The mysteries in the book start quickly. On the flight to London, Mrs. Blossom meets a man. A nice man, who helps her manage her trip, including finding her a hotel room and escorting her around London when she misses her connecting flight to Paris. But who is this man? Did Mrs. Blossom really sleep through her connection? And a bit later, how did this man end up dead in Paris?

The descriptions of Mrs. Blossom in Paris and on the cruise are wonderful, part travel guide and part humorous examination of how people with money travel differently than the rest of us. As a newly wealthy woman, Mrs. Blossom is acutely aware of the differences, and her reactions and thoughts are funny and astute.

But of course the key focus is on the mystery. People seem to be following and watching Mrs. Blossom, there is a valuable artefact that has been stolen, and of all the people around Mrs. Blossom, who can she really trust? One person is Tess, who is back in Baltimore but does make some appearances in the book. (Note: This book is entirely standalone from the series, so no worries if you haven't read the Tess Monaghan mysteries--but you should.)

This is a fun and delightful book as Mrs. Blossom slowly moves away from her nondescript self and begins to figure out how all of the pieces fit together, and to solve the mysteries surrounding her.

Lippman keeps all the balls in the air until she is ready for them to fall into place. A fun read.

The plot was interesting. Unfortunately, the author spent more time writing about The spent more time on the main character’s weight, age, and wealth than she did on writing a plausible plot. The ending was good. The book was a bit slow for me. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced free copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this free early review copy.

This was a delight! It teeters back and forth and finally strikes a wavering balance between being a standard detective murder mystery and a cozy.  Mrs Muriel Blossom is a wonderful modern homage to the always unexpected Mrs Pollifax.  There’s nothing really deep or thought provoking here, it’s just solidly good entertainment.  I suspected a few of the answers early in, but I did not figure out the s true mystery until it was revealed.  Perfect! 

Mrs Blossom is a senior citizen, and a fat women, and I am also a fat woman (although not a senior citizen, not quite yet), and I thought this book did a great job of fairly presenting a fat woman’s POV.  Yes it’s mentioned a lot, but I do think about it a lot, when I’m in a small airline seat, when I’m squeezing between tight tables in a restaurant, when I’m eating in public, when I’m huffing and puffing with exertion from walking up flights of stairs, etc.  Based on the author's note, apparently Lippman was accused of being antifat in the past, and I believe it, because one of the things I didn't like about her first Tess Monaghan book was how judgy Tess was about all the other female characters.  But Lippman did the right thing, she listened, she studied, she learned, she improved.  As a fellow fat woman, I say she did right by Mrs Blossom in this book.


I really liked Mrs Blossom, I had never encountered her before since I have only read the first Tess Monaghan mystery, and I had no idea when I started this that it was a spinoff from that series.  And I really liked Danny Johnson.  I’d love to see more mysteries featuring both of them. 

(I'd also love to take a cruise up the Seine and visit Giverny, so this book delivered on that front as well. I did wish for more descriptions of the gardens at Giverny, but that's probably just me.)

This was a fun read and Mrs. Blossom is a good character.
Mrs. Blossom has been an assistant to Tess Monaghan. But everything changes when she finds a winning lottery ticket in a parking lot and decides to finally see the world.

A cruise through France aboard the MS Solitaire seems the perfect start—until she meets charming Allan on her transatlantic flight... and discovers him dead in Paris the next day, a city he wasn’t supposed to be in.

Now, aboard the ship, Mrs. Blossom suspects everyone—especially Danny, a mysterious man who keeps appearing whenever something goes wrong. He claims Allan was smuggling stolen art, and Mrs. Blossom may know more than she admits.

As the Solitaire glides down the Seine, so do the questions. Who was Allan really? Why was he killed? And why do these dangerous men keep flirting with her?
Take a ride with Mrs. Blossom to Paris. You won't be disappointed.
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This was only my second Lippman novel and my first introduction to Mrs. Blossom, so I was probably not the target audience for this novel. Knowing that, it is not surprising that what I enjoyed most about the book was the setting. It was neat to read a mystery set in Paris and on a Seine river cruise. Mrs. Blossom was a likeable character, but I have read other mysteries featuring older main characters that I enjoyed more.

I appreciate the intent with this story but unfortunately it was a bit lackluster and dragged on for me. I was expecting and hoping for a more complex storyline with the mystery part of it but instead I was reminded about Mrs Blossoms weight and self doubts constantly.

An absolute gem of a book. Great characters, familiar but quirky enough to be interesting. A perfect escape.