This was a fun book. The writing style was a bit out there, and I don't know how I feel about that. I enjoyed the humor that was put in there, and the storyline was fun as well.

I'm afraid this book wasn't for me which is a shame as I had been looking forward to reading it. I found it difficult to get into and it ended up being a DNF.

Sorry.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

A classic locked room murder with a twist. It was a locked english mansion, but all the inhabitants were locked in with a massive snow storm as the bodies pile up like cord wood. Snarky and sassy dialogue gives the reader a glimpse into the unusual characters as they argue, plot and try to figure out who the murderer is and why they were killing.

Really didn't like this book. I didn't like the way it was written or the voice of the narrator. Struggled to finish this one.

Ursula's mother drags her on the annual Book Club retreat. Though like most book clubs, meetings mostly involve wine.
This year Ursula's mother, Pandora, booked an old country estate house. After dinner, the offer of fortune telling is made and accepted. Several women meet with the mysterious woman.
Over the night, a massive snowstorm began - the women search for a way to leave. Only to discover the fortune teller's dead body. And the murders begin.

The dark sarcasm was much appreciated, as well as the glimpse of dark humor. The relationships between the women were dark, negative and complex. They didn't really get along, some nasty interactions. They were bitter and mean with each other.

As for the mystery- I failed to guess the culprit and motive.

The story kept me entertained though squeamish - the interactions were quite dark. I did finish but at times struggled to motivation to keep reading.

I liked this story but it started to drag in some spots. The characters were pretty realistic and the interaction was about as expected. A group of women take their book club on the road to a spooky out of the way mansion . The ladies never get to discussing the book as murder's become the focus of their attention. Hyped as Agatha Christie and didn't quite hit the mark but a fun and good read. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Honestly this book wasn't for me. From the start only it was too boring and even into the story I was kinda okay type.
It was grimly funny, and I do love a dark comedy. Unfortunately the pacing felt off, the descriptions were a bit much sometimes and made me feel like I was being dragged along, although It's still can be good for many

A locked room mystery where everyone in the room hates one another with passion and drive…

‘Don’t judge book by the cover’. This rule was made for this book and vice versa. It looked like a nice cozy mystery with the cover of lampshade and nice colours. However, it turned out to be anything but…

I am yet to read a book where I did not like a single character. A bunch of middle-aged women and a twenty-something daughter of one of them, butler and housekeeper, fortune teller and even the dog – they were all antagonising to say the least.

I even wanted them all to be killed one by one just like in Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’ but…

This book reads very smoothly and very quickly. It is not a light read and is full of deep passages and places that are worthy of a quote or two. But it reads well and is mysterious and suspenseful not to be put down until the end.

Secrets, lies, cover ups, misplaced trust, childhood trauma, rotten and vengeful characters, greed for money reader will get a taste of it all. The ties, knots and break ups of relationships, mother-daughter warpet relationship and daughter’s bottomless depression aided by secret in the Bible will keep you guessing and trying to pin your allegiance to the very end.

Author has done an amazing job with the setting. The house and the grounds are so murky, cold, dusty and hungry (yes, even house seems hungry for blood), isolated and encapsulated that nothing light, bright, positive or life-affirming can happen there. There is not enough food. And food is far from being nice and ‘country manor’ like.

This book-club weekend where the rule of the book club is ‘you do not talk about the book’ and where participants hate each others guts is just what doctor ordered in the time of quarantine and isolation. You are going to feel better no matter what (anything is better than to find oneself in that house).

Five stars from me.

'Never stay in an isolated country house with a disparate group of possible sociopaths.... or a book club.

Well, this is exactly what a group of women, who DO fall under the title of 'disparate group of possible sociopaths' decide to do....that is come together for a book club weekend retreat at an isolated country house where they find themselves snowed in with no phones and no internet service.

This group, which consists of Pandora Smart who is hosting the book club, her sister Charlotte, her 'friends' Mirabelle, Bridget alongwith her dog Mr. Bonjangles, Joy (Less) Cowdale and her daughter Ursula who decides to crash the get together, CAN'T STAND (or more precisely LOATHE) one or more of each other. They are more than happy to spend their bookish weekend being sarcastic, snide and snarky with each other complete with murderous thoughts rather than discuss their chosen book. Until actual dead bodies start piling up. Who is on a killing spree? Is it one of the group or someone else entirely? And why? Are the victims being randomly selected or is there a link to them? The remaining survivors (headed by Ursula) now need to work together to solve these questions, with no tools at their disposal except their own power of deduction before they become the next victim..... while still maintaining their snarkiness with each other.

The things I liked about the book were the snarky dialogues between this crazy group of women. Honestly, considering how much they despise and loathe each other, it's baffling these ladies haven't wacked each other off already! The chapter headings (disguised as rules on how to survive and solve a murder mystery) were also clever and witty.

My thanks to NetGalley, the publisher Joffe Books and the author Victoria Dowd for an e-Arc of the book.

Entertaining little mystery which humour thrown in for good measure.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is such a fun cozy mystery set in a manor home . Its very atmospheric much. like the great Agatha Christie would transport you to a specific group of people trapped in a manor home by a snowstorm . I loved the setting, the charcters and the sleuthing. Thank you to Net Galley and to the publisher for this opportunity. My review opinions are my own. I highly recommend this book for your reading enjoyment.

Ursula has decided to include herself in her Mother's book club in a manor home. The group of charcters are comical and all long time friends and relatives. When they are snowed in a murder occurs. Soon they are all suspicious of each other and much hilarity ensures as well as a very complex great sleuth.

This is a fun cozy mystery read with great charcters and a prefect mysterious setting. I loved this book. This would be a great movie.

The Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder is what And Then There Were None might have sounded like if narrated by a macabre and self-consciously posturing teen (I couldn’t help thinking of Lydia Deetz as we meet her at the beginning of Beetlejuice).

Sure enough, Ursula, our narrator for the events of the story is my favourite kind of unreliable narrator, flatly stating that things are one way whilst giving the reader enough detail to clearly see for themself that the facts are otherwise (as an example, she is continually telling us that her mother feels one way, when her actions express the opposite). But who is she fooling? Herself, or us? Or does she actually believe her own double-think version of reality? It doesn’t take long for it to become clear that Ursula’s health issues affect her perceptions, perhaps as much as her personal biases do, and that some of her quirky mannerisms can find an explanation in her attempts to portray herself as ‘the normal one’.

A similar duality can be found in the tone and style of the writing, which swoops into high flights of overblown literary description, only to be brought back to earth with a bump as soon as the characters interject with their very modern, acerbic and acidic dialogue. Poor Ursula’s pretensions stand no chance when up against Pandora, Aunt Charlotte and Mr Bojangles!

The plot is a golden-age murder mystery classic trope: a disparate group of characters find themselves cut off from the outside world and then picked off one-by-one as they respectively attempt to deny, avoid or investigate strange occurrences. There was quite a lot of repetition when it came to both the investigation attempts and Ursula’s repeated health problems (the characters comment at one point on their repeated visits to search certain rooms in something of a meta moment). It did slow the story down a bit to keep looping back in this way, but it also neatly reflected Ursula’s scattered thought processes as she attempts to lay out the narrative for us.

I found things became a little confusing towards the end, and the climax was (deliberately, I felt!) anti-climactic, but none of this affected my enjoyment of this unusual and witty mystery read, and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for a sequel!





We looked at Angel in bewilderment.
He continued unperturbed. ‘She does a little fortune telling, tarot reading, matters of that nature. Many of the guests adore it. I can inform Mrs Angel if you have a preference for this.’
‘Well, I’d like to know when we’re going to start discussing the book,’ Bridget said sourly.
‘Not now, Bridget,’ Mother sighed.
‘Oh, I think it would be wonderful to invite the spirits in!’ Less held up her arms and the intricate system of bangles and charms stacked from her wrist to her elbow slid down, creating the very unflattering impression of a shower hose.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Less.’ Aunt Charlotte regularly said this to Less. It still didn’t stop her being ridiculous.
Less widened her mineral black eyes before carefully and coldly adding, ‘I’m a very spiritual person. I just can’t help it. It’s the way I am.’
‘Shall I enquire if she is available for this evening, Madam?’
‘Oh let’s! Please, Pandora? Oh, say we can?’ Less often adopted this annoying demeanour of a small Enid Blyton child – the kind you hoped would fall down a well.
Mother sighed. ‘Let’s just let her have it.’
‘I would if I had my twelve bore,’ Aunt Charlotte muttered.

– Victoria Dowd, The Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder

Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog

The entire time I was reading this book, I kept thinking it would make a fantastic movie! I enjoyed this one a lot. Interesting characters. Engaging plot. Kept me guessing to the end.

It's terrible. Don't do it, you have better things to do. The dialogue is stilted, the characters are cardboard.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters were interesting and the plot kept me guessing. I found Victoria Dowd's writing style quite refreshing.

Worth a read.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was an okay-ish read for me! Honestly I had way more expectations from this one! the thing that made me pick this book was the title first and then the blurb! I am a sucker for a smart woman book that is written in a non stereotypical way and when there is murder combined, what could go wrong!
It was not a great read for me, even when the story-line was super interesting because of the unnecessary backdrops. They literally ruined the characters for me. I somehow finished reading this book but I did not feel the thrills that I was supposed to feel when I first read the blurb!
The overall writing was great though, the author has used easily understandable language, so that beginners could read it easily,the words flowed smoothly wit context if we exclude the time the back stories were being established!

I struggled with this book. After reading rave reviews, I was anxious to get reading. I loved the description so it was a surprising disappointment. The storyline was engaging. How can you go wrong with a women's book club gathered at a country mansion for a nice retreat and that retreat turns into a nightmare as bodies start appearing? Unfortunately, something went wrong as I continued reading. I began to hate all of the characters. Maybe there was supposed to be some wry humor, but I just didn't get it. I still managed to finish the book. But the ending was a bit of a let down. It was unexpected, but I guess my interest was lacking to the point where I just didn't care?

Honestly I didn't love this book - but I am notoriously picky when it comes to thrillers.

This definitely became more enjoyable once you start imagining the characters AS characters - slightly over the top stereotypical murder mystery participants. It was grimly funny, and I do love a dark comedy. Unfortunately the pacing felt off, the descriptions were a bit much sometimes and made me feel like I was being dragged along, although I did genuinely enjoy the ending!

A fine debut!

It took me sometime to get into this book. The characters are all mad, bad and dangerous to know but far from engaging for me as the reader. There was too much made of how much everyone "disliked" Ursula and, indeed, how much she herself set out to be disliked. The narrative got a bit lost in the constant "blacking out" of Ursula. Whilst it is far from comparable quality the mystery reminded me of The Mousetrap or another of Christie's books And Then There Were None. I have read other reviews of this book which suggest it is laugh out loud I completely missed this humour if indeed it was there. For me whilst it was not a dreadful read it failed to really create any continuity in its narrative line. I did quite like the labelling of the chapters as a sort of Murder 101 / guide on what not to do. Unfortunately the author has in some ways ignored her own advice. I am willing to give the author another try in the future so its not all bad

I really enjoyed this book. At first, I was a little confused as to whether it was really a dark comedy, or a comic thriller. And whether the behavior of the characters was a joke, meant to be over the top, or if I was just not getting "the twist" yet...but once i got into the groove of the story and started thinking of them as caricatures of all the stereotypical "murder mystery" characters, it was a really good time. The author wove in all the expected elements of the classic "manor house in the country, isolated from the world" plotline. But it all felt fresh and interesting and kept me guessing until the end. I *loved* the running gag about the book club reading only Gone Girl, and never actually discussing the book. Overall, well done and I hope Ms. Dowd writes more like this! Thank you for the opportunity to read this in advance of the release date!