The 'Smart' Women are back.

Ursula books them all on a survival course. The rest of the family are not impressed. It is not their idea of a vacation and as the story progresses it isn't Ursula's either.

Then they get shipwrecked and end up on an Island with a murderer.

It was lovely to meet up with these unique characters once more. The humour and originality each bring to the story makes for a gripping read.

The suspense builds from the very first page and as the story progresses we learn that people are not what they seem. All appear to have secrets and that makes for a large helping of intrigue.

A very gripping read culminating in an ending that is totally unexpected.

I am looking forward to more books from Victoria.

Good stuff. This has great characters and an engaging plot. It also has some nice twists, and it is very well written, with an enjoyable style. Recommended.

I really appreciate the review copy!!

I read, reviewed and really enjoyed the first book in the ‘Smart Woman’s Mystery’ series, which was called ‘The Smart Woman’s Guide To Murder’. When I heard that Victoria was due to release a second book in the series I knew that I just had to read it as soon as I could. Well ladies and gents, the wait is over as ‘Body On The Island’ was released on 23rd February 2021. It is another corker of a read, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading but more about that in a bit.
It’s no word of a lie when I say that I became addicted to this story from the moment I clapped eyes on the synopsis. As soon as I started to read that was it- I knew that I would find it extremely difficult to put the book to one side. I think part of the attraction of the book was the fact that the characters were a wacky bunch. My Kindle wasn’t exactly glued to my hand but it might as well have been because it travelled everywhere with me. I didn’t want to miss a second of the story. I became so wrapped up in the story that I lost all track of time and just how quickly the pages were turning. All too soon, I reached the end of the story and I had to say farewell to the crazy bunch.
‘Body On The Island’ is extremely well written. Victoria certainly knows how to grab your attention and draw you into the story. I particularly liked the fact that Victoria combines the drama with some pretty dark humour, which I found refreshing. I found that I kept chuckling away to myself practically all the way through the book. Reading ‘Body On The Island’ was like being on an unpredictable rollercoaster ride with a fair few twists and turns along the way. I found ‘Body On The Island’ to be a thoroughly enjoyable read, which kept my attention throughout and it certainly kept me guessing.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Body On The Island’ and I would recommend this book to other readers. I will certainly be reading more of Victoria’s work in the future. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.

"Lies can find a way through the smallest of cracks and when they do, they take root."

Body on the Island is a deliciously witty and gruesome whodunnit which will entertain and engross you to no end. From the beginning to the end i couldn't stop chuckling and biting my nails at the same time.

They are called the Slaughter House five, but they have dubbed themselves the Smart Women.
Now they have signed up for a survival course in the Outer Hebrides to better their survival skills.

What could possibly go wrong?

On their way to their destination their boat capsizes and they find themselves on an abandoned island.
An island of the faeries and witches. An island more for the ghosts than the living.
In the middle of which there is a deserted house, an old burying ground and a dilapidated Chapel.

"There be monsters here."

Then the bodies start piling up.

Thanks to the author, Joffe Books and the NetGalley for providing me with a copy of the book.

Ever since I had the pleasure of reading book one, The Smart Woman’s Guide To Murder, I have been looking forward to meeting this fabulous family of quirky characters again and I most certainly was not disappointed!! After their terrible ordeal in the aptly nicknamed Slaughter House, Ursula decides they need to toughen up a bit and so she books a family survival course on an island in the Hebrides. The trip is arranged for Ursula and her mother, snippy snobby Pandora, (pseudo-names we understand) together with Ursula's wonderfully confused and vague Aunt Charlotte, and Mirabelle, Mother's large best friend who clings to Mother like a limpet and staunchly defends her against everyone, Ursula in particular. At least the book club has been disbanded (after all, there were five deaths last time they met) so thank goodness they won’t have to put up with the highly irritating Bridget and her yappy dog Mr Bojangles this time. What they don’t realise is that, very soon, they will find themselves shipwrecked and most of the group will not survive! The party lands at Stornoway on Lewis and they travel onto the Isle of Harris. It all looks a bit bleak outside as the bus takes them onto their final destination which looks even bleaker. Much to their dismay, they find Bridget and dog waiting for them, determined not to be left out. This will definitely be a survival course in more ways than one!! The first day is bad enough, culminating with the demise of Mr Flopsy, and the following morning they board the boat taking them to their new home for the next week. Together with the captain and cabin boy, and instructors Spear and Nell, also on board are a couple of vloggers, Ryan and Jess, and a strange young man called Angel. Not a great omen, considering what happened to the last Angels this little group encountered! There’s a storm brewing too. The boat capsizes and the survivors are washed up on an uninhabited island. Not everyone makes it and the body count starts to grow as they are murdered one by one. It’s up to the Smart women to find the killer in this marvellous take on a locked room murder mystery, reminiscent of the wonderful Agatha Christie books of yesteryear.
There is oodles of superb wit and deliciously dark humour throughout this book, in fact I’m still thinking about Sir Nigel Havers’ plums! The characters are all somewhat larger than life, giving it a great feel of comedy and I would love to see these books being brought to life on television, such were the fantastic descriptions of the people in it. The scene is set and the main players introduced before the plot commences and the killings begin, and the reader is gently led through a cleverly written trail of clues and red herrings to a super and satisfying conclusion. This is an excellent modern twist on the old classic style and I sincerely hope there are many more to enjoy! 5*

Ursula Smart is back with her mother, aunt, and a few other familiar faces after surviving a book club retreat gone wrong in The Smart Woman’s Guide To Murder.

“People died in a variety of gruesome ways. Book club stopped after that...Perhaps ours ended in a more dramatic fashion than most but you’d be surprised the tales people now tell me about their book clubs.”

The slaughter house left many for dead, and now Ursula has nightmares. She decides survival skills are just what she, her mother, and aunt need, and signs them up for a lovely weekend of foraging and camping in the forest...and learning how to survive. Unfortunately, others members of the ex-book club are taking the trip as well.

What’s even more unfortunate is that the boat they are on capsizes. They end up on a desolate island with no food, no WI-FI, and bodies dropping like flies.

I enjoyed the first book in the series (solid 3 stars, maybe 3.5). While it wasn’t groundbreaking, it had some biting dialogue, laughs, and some nice “locked-room” vibes.

There are things I enjoyed about this one too. The biting dialogue is still present, and the setup is very intriguing. However, I started losing interest in the second half as things became complicated (maybe convoluted). The new characters were odd and not too enjoyable, but they were necessary to add to the body count and suspect list.

By the time all was revealed, I was over it.

And yet, I’m glad to have read this. I needed something amusing and on the lighter side to reset my reading batteries. While I’m not sure I will continue the series, I can appreciate the subtle entertainment it provides. I also chuckled at a few nuggets like this one:

“Mother...doesn’t like surprises, not since Dad bought her a Segway for her fiftieth instead of a Steinway. She doesn’t play the piano but an interior designer friend had said they were that season’s must-have photo shelf. Mother doesn’t have any photos either and didn’t warm to my suggestion that she could maybe take a few shots while she was touring around on her Segway.”

2.5 stars. Available now.

TW: Poor rabbit. You can skip Kindle location 849 (14%) without missing anything...although there are a few brief references to this scene.

Thank you to Joffe Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Review also posted at: https://bonkersforthebooks.wordpress.com

In a greatly over-crowded genre Victoria Dowd's talent shines like the brightest star in the night sky. Filled with the tropes of a century's worth of great crime novels Victoria has still permeates every page with a sparkling originality.
If you thought the Addams family were a bit strange wait till you meet the Smart women. The dark humour is delivered with aplomb.
An outstanding novel, right up there with the very best of anything by Agatha Christie.

After what happened in the Slaughter House where four people ended up dead Ursula is determined her family will not be caught short again - it's time for survival training! Her family are not impressed with their latest adventure and even less so when things go from bad to worse.

This was just brilliant! I loved A Smart Woman's Guide to Murder so when I discovered our ladies were back with another adventure I couldn't wait to get started! Set in the picturesque, yet freezing cold, Scottish Highlands it's hard not to be up there with them - especially when the group remind me of my own family!! The comedy of the characters is like nothing else - I literally had tears streaming down my face from laughing! With tales of mermaids, witches and ghosts mentioned throughout I did get a little bit nervous reading this in the dark! But it's okay, it's not any ghost or siren - it's just cold blooded murder! 

So if you enjoy a main character prone to fainting, an auntie who is as dotty as they come, a mother who thinks she's in a circle of hell and a dog with a hilarious name then you need to get Body On The Island!

After the deadly events of book one, The Smart Woman's Guide to Murder, Ursula Smart decides that she and her family need to take a survival course. This course was meant to be rather lowkey, but quickly turns dangerous when they're shipwrecked on the way to their destination and wash ashore with other members of the course on an uninhabited island without supplies. Then the murders begin.

Body on the Island has plenty of quirky characters, including several from the previous book. There is also sardonic humor and slow burn suspense. The isolated island location provides dark atmosphere as a backdrop while the Smart's try to determine who the killer is and how to get off the island. This can be read as a standalone but I'd recommend reading The Smart Woman's Guide to Murder first because it'll properly introduce you to the characters. Also, the events of The Smart Woman's Guide to Murder are occasionally mentioned in Body on the Island.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. The opinions in this review are honest and my own.

After a harrowing experience (Book 1 - THE SMART WOMAN'S GUIDE TO MURDER), Ursula decides that she, her mother, two aunts and a dog should enroll in a survival course. Supposedly it's a weekend of camping, foraging for food, learning what to carry with you, what tools will help, etc.

Well, it doesn't exactly go the way they were expecting.

They wind up on the wrong boat with an alcohol-impaired skipper. The boat capsizes .. thank goodness they can all swim (sort of). Washed up on an uninhabited island, the women and a few of those who were on the boat with them, face starvation and frostbite.

Than the murders begin .. one by one someone is killing the survivors.

Murder is usually not funny, but I admit I laughed and chuckled through most of this book. The Smart family is one of the funniest I've ever had the pleasure of being introduced to. In turn they are funny, sarcastic, taunting, insulting ... but always with love. The plot is well-written, lots of action, and a page-turning experience you don't want to miss. The conclusion was a bit of a surprise.

Although second in the series, it is easily read as a stand alone, but I highly recommend reading them in order. I look forward to see what's in the future for this Smart family.

Many thanks to the author / Joffe Books / Books n All Book Promotions / Netgalley for the digital copy of this darkly comic murder mystery. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

Body on the Island is the second instalment in the Smart Woman’s Mystery series, set in the Outer Hebrides, a remote and stunning island group off the west coast of Scotland. Chapter one begins with Ursula Smart, her mother, Pandora, two aunts — Charlotte and Mirabelle and Pandora’s friend Bridget Gutteridge and her dog Mr Bojingles in a precarious position. They are each trying to stay alive and fight to keep their heads above water as they float in the ocean trying not to let the current pull them under. Suddenly Ursula hears bloodcurdling screams coming from her travelling companions and sees a green eyed woman being manhandled by someone who has their hands on her shoulders. The hands reach her head and green eyes disappears beneath the icy water. She struggles. Gasping. Wriggling. Breaking free. Before she's pushed under the surface once more. This was the first murder but it would be far from the last. We are then taken back to twenty-four days before the shipwreck when the ladies are just getting over their experience surviving Ambergris Towers, or as the press liked to call it the Slaughter House, that occurred last year in which four people were murdered. Ursula then decides that what the group really need to be ready for any upcoming horrors is a survival course. We then move to twenty-four hours before the shipwreck when they have embarked on the journey towards the camp.

They arrive on the Isle of Harris and stop at Stornoway Airport for a meal before continuing onwards to Leverburgh. When they locate the conference they are given a pep talk by Ross Kemp’s doppelganger but once they're shipwrecked all of this advice will go out of the window and it's every woman for herself. Can they survive this Tartan Horror story set against the backdrop of the exquisite, isolated and often unforgiving Hebridean archipelago? This is a compulsive and richly-atmospheric cosy mystery with more grit and depth than most of the genre, which right off the bat had me captivated. There is a dark, sardonic humour and banter throughout, especially between Ursula and her cantankerous mother, and they are constantly snarky and sniping at one another, which is certainly a unique feature of the story. Although it moves at a fairly slow-burn pace and is padded with quite a bit of adjunct I found that it was worth persevering. There are twists, turns and red herrings aplenty and you never quite know where danger may be lurking. The atmosphere is one that was impossible to resist with an intense claustrophobia taking over when the group are seemingly trapped on an island with a murderous madman. I loved the clever conclusion as it wrapped things up superbly and was totally unexpected. All in all, a richly-described, humorous and suspenseful thriller.

After reading and loving The Smart Women's Guide to Murder, I was delighted to get a copy of the second book in the series.

After the Smart Women survive the Slaughter House, Ursula decides that they need survival training. She books the family on a survival weekend in the north of Scotland and needless to say, it doesn't go to plan.

I can relate the characters in this book to my own family so I was chuckling along right from the start. This is a light hearted murder mystery which made me smile all weekend long. With everything changing again, coming back out of another lockdown with anxiety rearing its ugly head, this is exactly what I needed.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the advanced copy.

Obnoxious characters, juvenile writing and ludicrous setup. I couldn’t make it past the first 40 pages. Sorry!

Highly recommended! A great read!
The smart women gang are together again the gang includes Ursula, her mother Pandora, aunt Charlotte, Mirabelle and Bridget and her dog Mr Bojingles . They are enrolled on a survival course in the Hebrides.. What could go wrong?

I love Victoria Dowd’s style of writing , she is descriptive, funny and shows some acerbic wit. It makes the book enjoyable and a joy to read and the chapters flow by .
The characters have a great dynamic if not a dysfunctional one , this only adds extra interest to the plot . I would class this book in the cozy mystery genre with a hint of darker themes.
A thoroughly enjoyable read , I can’t wait for the next in the series.

Thanks to NetGalley and Joffe books for this arc copy.

Ursula Smart (not her real name) signs herself up for a survival course - along with her mother, aunts char;otte, Mirabelle and Bridet. But the promised gentle wweekend of foraging and camping in the Out Hebrides swiftly turns into a desperate batttle for survival.

What a cozy murder mystery this book is. I didn't realise that this is the second bok in the series but it does read well as a standalone. When their boat capsizes, Ursula and her family find themselves on a deserted island with no wifi signal. There were five other people with them. Then, one of them is murdered. There's some humor along with murder in this book that reads like an Agatha Christie novel. It's descriptively written and easy to follow.

I would like to thank #NetGalley, #JoffeBooks and the author #VictoiaDowd for my ARC #BodyOn The Island in exchange for an honest review.

The second in the Smart Women Mystery, Ursula Smart her mother Pandora and Two aunts Mirabelle and Charlotte away on a survival course camping trip at leverburgh. Ursula is going to pay for this break that can only mean one word disaster, her mother is not at all keen on the idea, so what has she let them all in for.
Hilariously and witty start to this book that just continues as you read on.
Shipwrecked on the deserted island Orlon, with three dead bodies one possibly poisoning this island is for ghosts not for the living.
Its a brilliant read full of humour and survival, and I enjoyed every moment

The premise sounded good, but the writing style felt as though it had been written for eight-year-olds - and quite possibly by an eight-year-old. Cliches? Tick. Unnecessary adjectives? Tick. Parodic characters straight out of a pantomime or bad sitcom? Tick.

DNF, but forced myself to continue to the halfway point in case it got better. It didn't.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the advance review copy.

What is better than a traditional whodunnit? This takes the classic premise of a group of people forced together only to find murder and mystery abounding and adds a strong character base. The relationships and interactions are fascinating and could probably stand alone without the mystery element, which is also a great read. Agatha Christie would be proud to see her legacy here!

A clear tribute to Agatha Christie and one of her most famous novels, the synopsis sounded darker but this is really a cozy mystery. It’s the second volume in a series and I haven’t read the first one, but the plot is still easy to follow and the relationships between the characters seem pretty well established. Having survived a series of murders in the first book, the Smart women go camping in the Hebrides as part of a survival course. Their boat capsizes and they find themselves on a deserted island where soon the bodies start piling up. There is a lot of dark humor in the dialogues, which I enjoyed a lot, except when it bordered the farcical. The mystery itself is entertaining, even if there aren’t as many characters as are usually needed for a large pool of suspects. This is not my favorite genre and yet, I enjoyed it.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Joffe Books

An amusing entertaining read for the serious subject of murder.
Ursula and her mother go on a survival break. They are recovering from a situation whereby a book club break resulted in four murders!
No complicated plot and good descriptive scenes with so many surprises along the way. Its nice to have chapters with titles!
It kept me guessing and can be read as a stand alone, though does form part of a series. I will be waiting to see what happens next to Ursula and her mother.