Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting book I loved the idea of going back in time especially in Hollywood. Similar in idea to Stephen Kings timeslip novel 11/22/63 although not quite as good. Nevertheless a good read. Recommended.

I absolutely loved this book! The time period was beautifully described and I felt so in the moment. I did guess the perp pretty early, but I don’t feel it took too much away from the story. I’m looking forward to more from this series!

This was fine. I didn't find it particularly interesting or fun which I was expecting to. The concept was great, just not quite delivered

The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black was a clever time-slip mystery novel.

Lily Jones is an ex-patriot Brit who has come to Hollywood to make it big as a production assistant. While waiting for her big break, bills must be paid. Lily gets a job as a chambermaid at the Beverly Hills Hotel where the glamorous of Hollywood like to stay.. While cleaning the infamous Paul Williams suite, where up and coming actress Honey Black was murdered in 1949, Lily falls and cracks her head. When she comes to she is in 1949 and the suite is occupied by Honey, who is going to be murdered in two weeks. After accidentally getting a job as Honey’s PA, Lily decides that she must be in the past for a reason and that reason is to prevent Honey’s murder.

What a clever premise, can someone really go back in time and change someone’s fate or is a person’s fate set in stone? I enjoyed the glimpse of old Hollywood and though the mystery was fun, I did figure out who the murderer was, however iit did not take away from the enjoyment of the story.

The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black was a great read and I enjoyed it very much.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher Hera books and the author for the chance to read and review this book.

A time-travel adventure which will catapault Lily from Hollywood in 2019 back to to the golden era of filmmaking in 1949. It gives The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black an utterly fabulous setting, Lily is one of the most likeable lead characters I’ve encountered this year and I constantly had the feeling I was reading a book which the author loved to write.

Where to start?

Lily is a girl displaced. English born and a lifelong fan of classic movies, she has travelled to Hollywood with the hope of finding a successful career in the industry she loves. She is working in one of the hotels in Holywood, a staff member who’s keen to help her colleagues and is a good friend to them too. She dreams of getting a break and being offered the opportunity to work on a movie but as the story begins she’s offering to help clean one of the suites in the hotel – the room where upcoming starlet Honey Black was found murdered 70 years earlier.

Lily takes a knock to the head while cleaning what had been the room occupied by Honey Black. When she recovers her senses Lily finds she has been transported back in time. It’s 1949. Lily has no money, nowhere to stay, no idea what’s happened and she’s a very modern girl in a very old fashioned world. None of these things are going to make life easy.

But it’s not all bad news for Lily. She is given an amazing opportunity to work as an assistant to an upcoming new starlet…Honey Black. Yes, Lily has arrived in 1949 in the days before Honey is due to be murdered. Has she been sent to the past to avert a murder? Should she try to intervene and change history? Or is it just coincidence and, if so, how on earth is Lily going to get home?

Watching Lily navigate her way around movie sets, Hollywood stars and handle the attitudes and behaviours from 70 years ago is a huge amount of fun. She’s a no-nonsense sort by nature so there’s no hope of Lily accepting the misogynistic culture on film sets or of adopting a demure and deferential persona so she fits in. We are going to enjoy a feisty and independent woman shaking up the world around her.

I loved reading about life in the late 1940s, there are several cameos to enjoy from huge Hollywood stars (no spoilers) and Lisa Hall makes the whole period come alive around the reader. Lily gets to contrast clubs and hotels with the LA she knows so well. She makes friends along the way but ruffles more than a few feathers as she leaps to the defence of her new employer, Honey Black.

As for Honey herself, she’s a small town girl who’s been given a huge opporunity to become the “next big thing”. But if Honey is to succeed she will need to be better than her rivals, behave impeccably, defer to the big bosses and be squeaky clean. Unfortunately it seems soneone wants Honey to fail and temptations, challenges and physical attacks will all need to be dealt with (often by Lily) if she is to finish filming the movie which should propel her to the brightest of spotlights.

There’s so much to love about The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black and it’s all to easy to forget Honey is due to be murdered and Lily is trying to prevent that from happening. I got far too caught up in the world of films, producers and directors, bickering actresses and the social lives of a long-forgotten generation. The writing and scene setting is joyous, the characters are glamourous, whimsical and deeply posessive of their own celebrity. I don’t know if it would be possible to revisit that world given how events pan out (again no spoilers) but I am sure Lisa Hall would find a way to make it happen if we were all to cross our fingers, wish really, really hard and all buy a copy of The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black…there’s a handy wee link just below this paragraph to help you get your copy.

A fun mystery with a time travel-ish twist to it. I had such a good time with it. It was kind of predictable, but it wasn't bad.

I’ve read a few books by Lisa Hall so I was looking forward to reading her genre switch up! The old Hollywood vibes are definitely there, and it definitely has a good sense of place. In terms of the story on the whole, it was fine. I could see where things were going early on but it’s an enjoyable read.

What a brilliant book. My review could just consist of, if this is your genre, stop wasting time and snap it up! The fact that this is one of my go-to, don't even read the blurb, authors is coincidence!
So... we start in 2019 with Lily Jones working as a cleaner/maid in the prestigious Beverly Hills Hotel. Not quite the job she wanted, but, hey LA Baby! It's a start. Anyway, she is helping her boss by cleaning the Paul Williams suite. One of the most well known hotel suites for all the wrong reasons. It was the site of the brutal murder of up and coming star Honey Black some 70 years ago... The murderer never found.
Lily bumps her head whilst attending to the bathroom and when she wakes up, she finds herself back in 1949... A couple of weeks before Honey Black's death...
And that's all I'm saying as you really need to witness the glamour and glitz (and the reality) of the golden age of Hollywood for yourself.
Although I really needed to find out what was going to happen, I was also mindful that at some point the book would have to end and I would have to say goodbye to the place, the era, and the people I had met along the way. Especially Lily, who I absolutely loved. From her very first tentative steps in the past, to actually managing to get to grips with what was happening. She was the best character... And the crime itself, wowsers. So well plotted and that plot ably executed, with suspects galore. The era and setting really lends itself to duplicitous behaviour and, well, acting! Kept me on my toes throughout.
It was a bit of a change from the author's usual psychological thrillers but, and I am quite excited, Goodreads is showing it as the first in the series. Well, I'll be first in line for book two when it's available.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

TLDR: The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black is like watching an episode of Quantum Leap if Sam spent his time complaining about having no contact with Ziggy, eavesdropping and trying to sleep with one of the characters.

I was initially quite excited to read this book as I am a big fan of both Historical Fiction and Crime Noir and the blurb ticked both of those boxes. Sadly the execution failed to deliver on both fronts.

As Historical Fiction, The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black didn't really paint Los Angeles in any depth and the only reason I was able to visualise any of the locations is due to the cover of the album Hotel California by The Eagles.

As Crime Noir, The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black didn't really offer much mystery. As an example, there is a character introduced to the story in chapter three whose connection with the main protagonist (Lily) is immediately discernible and yet the author chooses to withhold this information until the final chapter.

Lily also has the habit of overhearing partial conversations or coaxing out pivotal pieces of information just before they become relevant which, despite keeping the plot chugging along, did enable me to identify the guilty party from a very early stage and from there it felt like I was just counting down the pages until the big reveal.

To quote Dwight Schrute: "It's never the person you most suspect. It's also never the person you least suspect, since anyone with half a brain would suspect them the most. Therefore, I know the killer to be ... the person I most medium suspect."

This is the first book I have read by Lisa Hall, however, I gather from the acknowledgements that this is not her usual genre so, although the book didn't really hit the mark for me, it would not put me completely off reading another of her works in the future.

A very entertaining read, a famous hotel used by film stars, the beautiful young actress and a tale of a haunted hotel suite. A great plotline, stunning setting and the early Hollywood fight for fame, at any cost. Did Lily dream it all?

3 stars

- Time-slip Murder Mystery
- LA, 1949
- A Twisted Mystery
- Dual Timeline
- Hollywood’s golden age
- Twists and Turns

The book has dual timeline and the writing is gripping. It is twisted and unpredictable. It’s a cleverly crafted time slip Murder mystery. Can you imagine going back in Hollywood old era? It’s not just a murder mystery but it has a perfect blend of time travel and magic too. If you could go back in past and change something, would you take that opportunity? That’s what happens with Lily Jones, a British young woman who wants to fulfill her dream of becoming a movie producer, her odyssey changes from being a chambermaid to Honey Black’s PA. But it’s all unbelievable, has she really been transported back to the 1949? If yes, can she change the past and save Honey from getting murdered? Or will she get tangled in the web of glamour, politics, secrets, threats and complicated relationships? Will she be able to return back to present?

I would say just go blindly into this book.

Thank you Netgalley, Author, and Publisher.

Having read the blurb I was a little worried that the mystery plot line would be overshadowed by some of the more supernatural elements, but this wasn’t the case!

Other than Lily’s initial time travel back to 1949, the story unfolded much like a traditional murder mystery, only with the main character trying to solve a murder that was *about* to happen. Very much reminded me of the earlier chapters of an Agatha Christie book, with the reader trying to start guessing the culprit before they strike.

A strong mix of endearing characters and the author does n excellent job of bringing the time period to life. Fictional characters working in Hollywood are mixed with the names of real golden age stars to create a greater feeling of reality, as though we are experiencing our history as well as Lily’s.

Very highly recommend this book - would have given five stars had I not been able to guess the culprit!

Thank you to Hera Books and NetGalley for an early access digital copy.

Set in the Golden Age era in Hollywood this is a time traveling detective novel with a twist - how to stop the murder of a famous actress that's already happened?

Lily is from 2019, working as a cleaner in the Beverly Hills Hotel and after a bang on the head wakes up in the glamorous hotel but in 1949, two weeks before movie star Honey Black is about to be murdered.

This is an easy read in the hot weather, an enjoyable trip back to a glamorous time, with plenty of red herrings as to who the murderer is.. for me this could have been a little shorter to have kept the pace tight but overall it was fun!

This was such a captivating read. The time travel of 70 years back to the glamorous days of Hollywood was wonderful, filled with places and the old famous stars. I loved that a non person called Alfred gave a script to Honey to read and it was then later revealed that it was Alfred Hitchcock.
The characters and their life styles were so perfectly described that I felt that I was almost reading a book about the historyof the Hollywood stars. Lily who was transported back to prevent the murder of Honey Black was so real and all the way through I kept waiting for her next faux par and how she got out of what she had said. The fact that she loved her Converses was a practial thing nowadays but not known back then but that did not stop Lily wearing them as much as she could. The contrast between life in 1949 and 2019 was so well shown, including the role of women who by 2019 had learnt to stad up for themselves more. Forget the male actors being so hands free and producers using the casting couch if women wanted a role. Despite the superb descriptions this was a cosy, warm mystery with lots of false leads which has produced a riveting story that I just did not want to put down. I have loved other books by Lisa and thiis was one of the best yet as it was so different.

Lisa Hall travels back in time to 1949 in Hollywood, California. It’s been four years since WW2 ended where women were still putting men before themselves. In 2019, Lily works as a housekeeper at the famous luxurious Beverly Hills Hotel where seventy years prior Honey Black was murdered in one of the rooms. As she’s cleaning the room where the murder occurred she’s transported back to that era becoming Honey Black’s PA.
…
Lily came to LA from London hoping to become an actress in Hollywood. Lily knew about the murder in the famous iconic hotel. Her mother was a fan of Honey Black’s movies. Eric was the one who reminded Lily that the room they were cleaning was the same room where Honey Black was murdered. Rumor had it that the director was the killer.
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Lisa Halls gives readers that Twilight Zone vibe by transporting Lily back to a time where women wore sharp clothes and high heels with full makeup and stylish hairstyles. Women were proper ladies in the 1940s. Lily believes she’s in a vintage movie set. As historical pieces go this one was quite interesting. Lisa Hall describes modern day and historic day LA as vivid as a movie set.
There’s no disputing the fashion, cars, and famous people of that era. Readers will enjoy being transported to simplistic times. She accurately recreated the Be early Hills Hotel and the surf areas in Hollywood.
…
Lisa Hall taps into the secrets of Hollywood’s veneer by focusing on a murder mystery that never got solved during filmmaking. Timewarping into the past was a fun experience. It was entertaining knowing Lily had a cell phone and Converse tennis shoes identifying her as a person from the future, yet still able to blend in with clothes and hair in the past.
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The most fascinating aspect about this story is bringing a 2019 experience into 1949. Lily changed lives with her knowledge from the future. It was the start of a woman’s movement. This being a character driven story allowed for a long list of suspects. Lisa Hall played it like a game of Clue with every suspect in the same place at the same time. Whether it’s 1949 or 2019 Hollywood is full of scandal. Anytime somebody does something to stir up the front pages of magazines they do a pretty good job of covering it up. Lisa Hall illustrated in this book how true to words that is. It’s an adventure with a little love story mixed in, but I wouldn’t refer to it as a romance.

Lily has moved to Hollywood hoping to fulfil her dream of working in the film industry, but so far she has only got as far as the Beverley Hills Hotel working as a maid. While cleaning an exclusive suite, Lily has an accident and wakes up in the same suite... but back in 1949!

Faced with knowing the fateful history of this particular suite and its occupants, Lily realises that the only way to get back to 2019 is to solve the mystery and stop a tragedy.

This was an enjoyable historical fiction/murder mystery that I recommend if you are up for a read to take you back to the elegant 40's, with a modern twist!

Thank you NetGalley and Hera Books for a complimentary ARC of this novel!!!

Lily is a British young lady who has come to LA to make her dreams of becoming a movie producer come true. But so far, no such luck. So she ends up cleaning at the renowned Beverly Hills Hotel where 70 years ago Honey Black was horribly murdered in 1949 just before she was about to become famous. As Lily is cleaning the suite where Honey Black was murdered, she slips and hits her head. When she comes to, she realizes her surroundings aren’t what they were in her present day of 2019. She discovered she has awoken to 1949, a few weeks before the murder of Honey Black. She’s been transported back to 1949 to try and prevent Honey Black’s murder. With the help of a few friends, will Lily be able to find out who wanted Honey dead in time to stop her murder from happening? After all, the killer was never caught.

I really enjoyed reading this novel! The more I read, the more I wanted to keep going! I love the combination of classic movies, mystery, and time travel all wrapped up in one novel!!!
AVAILABLE September 21, 2023

Lisa Hall is a new author to me, but I found the description of this book really intruiging so decided to give it a go, and I really enjoyed it.

The main character, Lily, is living and working in LA, working as a cleaner in the Beverly Hills Hotel, not quite the movie producer she wants to be but she's working towards it. Then while working she falls and hits her head, and ends up back in 1949, where she starts working as an assistant to the famous actress Honey Black, who died far too young when she was murdered.

Lily of course knows when Honey was murdered and tries to change time, with the aid of friends she makes, whilst mixing with the Hollywood elite of 1949. It was really interesting hearing about stars who had already made a name for themselves, and some who were about to, the wonderful glamorous Hollywood of the time.

I really enjoyed the whole book, it was a really fun, glamour filled story, with plenty of mystery and intrigue. I'm really looking forward to the next book in this new series.

Join Lily Jones as she travels back in time to 1949 to solve the murder of Hollywood Starlet, Honey Black.

This novel gripped me from the very beginning. The storyline was enticing, historical and fun. I enjoyed the time change to solve the murder, creating a ‘Double murder’ ideally. I also enjoyed Lily and Honey’s friendship.

The characters are true to the time and truly classical in the way they talk and act. The author also brings up some very controversial topics for the 40s, yet continues to hold the readers attention throughout the novel. It didn’t seem to progress as quickly as I had anticipated or hoped, but that just added more detail to the time and friendship of Honey & Lily.

Brilliant book, it was hard to put down once started to read as you really wanted to see if honey black could be saved or not. Will definitely recommend this book