This is my first time reading Olivia Waite. Her historical, sapphic romance series, Feminine Pursuits, has been on my to be read list for more than a year. Upon finishing this, I'll definitely be moving that series up the list! This was great fun. I'd love to see this become a cozy mystery series.

This takes common sci-fi tropes such as a generation ship and temporary bodies to a different place. The HMS Fairweather is an intergenerational ship on route to a planet in a distant star system. The passengers are surviving in bodies that can be replaced aboard ship endlessly. This is a thousand year voyage during which the passengers can live and age normally. Upon death, they are loaded into a recreated body and get to do it all over again. Bodies won't be permanent until the ship arrives at its destination. If a person is overwhelmed by life, they can choose to take a break between death and reloading into a recreated body. This is just what our protagonist, Dorothy Gentleman, had chosen when she was rudely awakened by being thrust into someone else's body. Dorothy uses her skills as a ship detective to figure out what happened and why. This is a delightful novella that I hope will be followed by other stories set on this ship, in this world and solved by Dorothy.

This audiobook is masterfully narrated by Blair Baker. She uses slight changes in pitch and tone to voice the other characters. Her voice is light, allowing the story to shine on its own merits. Beautifully done.

Thank you to Olivia Waite, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. All opinions and viewpoints expressed in this review are my own.

A cozy sci-fi murder mystery novella? Yes please!

This was short and interesting and just fun. I hope we get more and would even love a full-length novel in the world. The way memory is stored and transferred is super interesting. Highly recommend!

This is the best quick read you could find if you’re looking for a fast mystery in a cozy sci-fi setting. I love a great sci-fi concept and this story has it all: an interstellar ship, new bodies for passengers to start new lifetimes, a library that contains your memories and experiences to upload into new bodies, and a mystery that begins when the ship's detective wakes up in someone else’s body.

For a very short read, the pacing is incredible. This looks like it will be a series so I cannot wait to see more of the characters and hope that we get to know them a little better each book as that is the downside to a book of this length.

FOUR AND A HALF STARS

While traveling through space in a interstellar generational ship, society has found a unique way to preserve the lives and knowledge of its inhabitants by downloading their memories into "books" which can then be uploaded to an individual's rejuvenated clone. When Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that is not her own, she is determined to understand how this could have occurred. In her investigation, we are introduced to an elaborate criminal scheme, and an interesting cast of characters. This book felt like the first installment to a very promising world and I cannot wait to read what I hope will be the next in many installments.

Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite, brought to life by Blair Baker's amazing narration, is a great cozy SciFi Mystery. My one pet peeve in an audio is when a narrator has such a narrow range that you cannot distinguish the different characters in a book. Baker's ability to give each character a distinct voice made it easy to identify the characters in this audio version of the book.

Finally, if you liked The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal or The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei then this is the book for you.

Thank you Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook. All opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick read! I liked the main character and scene setting. Will this one become a series? It seems like this world should be written about more. I would be willing to read another book by this author!

What a delight! Miss Marple in space! All the elements of cozy mystery are there, except we get a sci-fi setting made cozy by tea, knitting, and furnishings that feel as cozy as any cozy fantasy or holiday romance. Olivia Waite KNOWS cozy mystery. The murder happens off page in what could be a small country village, but Waite brings something new to the table in the WAY she uses sci-fi. Very clever. Will recommend and gladly have her on the podcast if she wants to discuss it.

A sci-fi cozy? Sign me up. This was a quick listen and I could definitely have listened to more. It reminded me of Andy Weir’s Artemis but on a ship in outer space instead of the moon. I hope this becomes a series.

This was a fun short story. Such an interesting look into a sci fi murder mystery. I did not know it was a short read until I started but I am glad it was. I was all for a plot that was straight to the point.

A futuristic way of looking at how life could turn out. Being able to reuse your mind/brain just in another body was so interesting and really fun to listen to. The narrator did a great job as well.

5 out of 5 stars!

Thank you to netgalley and Macmillan audio for allowing me an early copy of this to read!


This was such a fantastic and fun cozy mystery. I loved that it was set in the future. on a ship and yet it felt homey. I loved Dorothy and all the other great characters. Olivia Waite was very successful at weaving an intriguing and fun mystery in such a short amount of time. Blair Baker did a wonderful job of narrating. I can't wait for a sequel, there must be a sequel.

What a FUN book! It was a quick, cozy sci-fi mystery. Because of its brevity, the scientific component was simple and the way the mystery played out was REALLY interesting! Thanks, NetGalley!

This was a quick, easy read that I thoroughly enjoyed. I loved the vibes this book had with the knitting murder solving aunt. I also thought the concept of uploading memories to a database was really interesting. I’m impressed by how complete the story was and the punch it packed for being so short. Also, cozy sci-fi murder mysteries may be one of my new favorite genres. I read this via audiobook and really enjoyed the narration. Baker did so well in capturing the vibes of this story, and I would recommend experiencing this novella via audiobook.

📖 Am I glad I read it? Well, Olivia Waite has certainly piqued my interest and snared my attention with this blend of sci-fi and noir detective story that is cozy enough to be a fun treat but not so cozy as to veer into twee territory. My favorite parts were, unsurprisingly to me, the world Waite constructed about the generation ship HMS Fairweather, particularly the concept of the memory library and the literal preservation of memory via books, and the memory cocktails. Tons of fun, super interesting, and, delightfully, subtly political.

Narrator Blair Baker was a pleasure to listen to, engaging and animated. Their voice was nicely suited to the character of a nosy, no nonsense auntie mysteriously stuck in a 27-year-old's body and, as a pleasant bonus, made for an amusing portrayal of the Fairweather ship itself.

I can't say that cozy mysteries will ever be my favorite subgenre, and with the book being as short as it is, the likelihood that I would be nail-bitingly engrossed in the mystery itself wasn't particularly high, but here's what I can say: I'm pretty much always down to read something that can be described as sapphic [INSERT DESCRIPTOR HERE] set in space, and I'll be pleased to read the next book in the series. Especially if we get some more action with a certain intriguing, sexy knitter.

📖 Rating: 👍🏼 (liked; 4.25 stars)

This was a quick fun read, the author did a great job with quickly developing the world and establishing the stakes, it was a fun read

Cozy sci-fi mystery? On a spaceship? What is not to love. I wish this was a full length novel because all I can say is I want more. It feels like an episode of a TV show and I want a whole season. I loved Dorothy and the drunk sounding AI.

Wow - this was a fantastic, tight mystery jam packed with interesting technology, an immersive world, and queer characters! So much is fit into the book in such a short span of time. I definitely recommend for a quick read if you're into Sci-Fi *or* mysteries. I felt like I was in the world immediately, had a sense of all the characters and place. The read-a-like for Becky Chambers is definitely apt, and I appreciated that knitting was brought in too.

I listened to this as an audiobook and really loved the narrator as well - she helped me get into the characters and the feel immediately, which is so important for shorter books.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and to MacMillan Audio for the advanced copy.

This is a great light sci-fi cozy mystery. Olivia Waite knows how to draw you into a character, even when the character isn't even in her own body. I loved a lot about this and would love to read more in this generational ship!

I feel like my review should be taken with a grain of salt because I initially wasn't aware this was the beginning to a series. I thought at first it was kind of lacking a lot of depth, but now knowing there is more to come, I completely get how this was kind of like an extended prologue.
I enjoyed getting to know the characters and the setting and look forward to the next book!

I'm personally not a big genre romance reader, so while I've been aware of Waite for a while now, this was my first time reading anything of theirs. I was intrigued by the pivot to science fiction and I'm happy to say I wasn't disappointed. I love the growing cozy fantasy & sci-fi movement! This was a cozy, quick, and queer read with a simple but intriguing enough mystery at the centre. I read it in a sitting and it's short so there's not much you can really say, but I'd love to read more in the series and I hope Waite continues to explore the ideas and technology around memory and life because those were so interesting. I think this easily could've been a longer novel because of them, but the concepts are rich enough that there's lot of opportunity for future instalments too. The narrator was great too! The perfect amount of quirk and direct to reader type sass!

Detective Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in an elevator aboard the HMS Fairweather—but she’s not in her own body. The luxury interstellar generation ship has bent a few protocols to bring her back after an electrical storm, because it desperately needs its best detective on the case. A murder has been committed, and worse, someone is permanently erasing minds from the Library, where passengers’ memories are preserved between lifetimes.

This sci-fi mystery novella is a delightful mix of noir detective work, interstellar travel, and meddling auntie energy. While many comparisons to Miss Marple have been made, I don’t think they quite fit. Aside from a shared love of knitting, Dorothy Gentleman is no amateur sleuth—she’s a seasoned professional. Readers expecting a cozy, accidental-detective story may be surprised by the more hard-boiled investigation at play here.

The HMS Fairweather is a rich, intricately imagined setting that begs for more stories. The concept of storing memories in books and inhabiting fresh bodies opens the door for endless possibilities—especially on a ship traveling through deep space for centuries.

Blair Baker’s narration is spot-on, fully embodying Dorothy Gentleman and bringing her wry intelligence to life.

While the details of the mystery itself became a bit murky toward the end, the characters and world kept me engaged. I had a great time aboard the Fairweather and look forward to future investigations with Detective Gentleman.

Murder By Memory is the first book in the Dorothy Gentleman mystery series by Olivia Wade. It focuses on people who live on a spaceship and they could store your memory in the library and even put you into a new body, which is the situation Dorothy has found herself in. Her first contact is with the drunk sounding ships AI Ferry., who lets her know there’s someone on the ship no longer producing signs of life. being the ships detective Dorothy gentleman, despite being in a new body must do her job, but first she has to determine how the woman died. this is a very intelligently written, snarky, cozy mystery that I really enjoyed. I really loved Ruthie and his partner and thought Dorothy gentleman was such a great character. it’s also a quick read, but has lots packed in from missing memories to ship secrets, and even the spark of a romance I cannot wait to see what Dorothy gets into next. Also, what a great name for this detective Dorothy gentleman. I want to say I listened to the audiobook and I found the narrator had a superb voice and did a brilliant job narrating this book. Unfortunately they didn’t put her name and although I have tried to look for it elsewhere, unfortunately I cannot find it hopefully though this is the only audio version because she is truly an awesome, awesome performer. #NetGalley, #McMillanAudio, #TheBlindReviewer,#OliviaWade, #MurderByMemory, #TheDorothyGentlemenMysteries,