The story itself is interesting, and had great potential, but was let down by horrific editing. The author uses footnotes, which I’m normally a fan of, but sadly the author peppers them in so liberally that half of the book is in the footnotes. To make matters worse, the footnotes aren’t clickable to see them, or even situated under where they’re referenced. Instead they’re several pages on, leaving the reader having to try to remember to what the footnote is referring. For this reason I didn’t finish this book as it was altogether too much hard work, though the parts I read were really good. I hope the author gets a new editor before the book is released as I think it could be a good book if the digital edition works properly

This was a soft thriller based in Italy which was described beautifully. (Made me want to visit!)
The plot was quite fun, nice bit of escapism but I must admit I wasn’t 100% sold on the writing style with all the footnotes, this may be because it was an e book? It was just quite hard to follow.
Thank you to netgalley for sending.

I loved this book - it was fun, a really good read, and the footnotes were brilliant.
Really looking forward to more in this series, plus the TV series when it's out - should be brilliant.

This was a page turner that had me hooked from the start and unsure of who would end up a victim and who was the culprit. I don’t usually read mystery & thrillers as they can get really dark, but Catherine Macks writing style keeps things light and flowing but with the appropriate amounts of depth for the genre. The Italian summer setting was a beautiful backdrop to the story, and I loved that the characters were all thrown together for an elaborate book tour and sight seeing trip in one. The narration style is quirky with all the footnotes that set it us perfectly to be adapted for film. If you enjoy Agatha Christie novels or enjoyed Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery then you’ll enjoy this book too. I look forward to reading book 2!

My thanks to Netgalley for the DRC of this book, all opinions are my own.

This one veers between a 2.5 and 3.5, so I'm averaging out. And, in the interests of transparency, let it be known that I picked this book hastily, thinking it was by another author, Bella Mackie (whose homage to Kind Hearts and Coronets was a brilliant updating of said black-and-white movie, and a solid 4. Go read it.).
I was about 50 pages in (easy to do, trust me) before I realised my mistake, but by then the murder attempts had started, so I decided to hang on in there.
This is definitely a beach read, indeed, I'd say you could quite comfortably have more than your usual allocation of poolside drinks and still manage to get the gist of things. The prose is absolutely awful - and considering the protagonist is an author of cosy crime novels, this is ironic - and nowhere more so than when she tries to be "literary". The characters are two-dimensional, but that's okay, because they're mostly pretty horrible (including the protagonist); there are quite a few plot holes that are dressed up as red herrings, but are never sufficiently explained; and, oh, oh, oh - the footnotes! Don't get me wrong, I love me some good footnotes, used correctly, but the author obviously missed that part of English class. There are far too many, and not only are the majority of them not very funny, but the author takes the fourth wall, breaks it down to rubble, carts it away to the dump, and then sets fire to it i.e unnecessary, often irritating, and eventually (there are nearly 300 of them) taking up about 50 pages of the book.
On the plus side, the plot tears along at an addictive pace (I'll admit, I read on in the hopes that they would ALL be killed), twisting like the Amalfi coast itself, and the prose is so light that you could absolutely read it half sozzled, so I'm sure this will be a big summer success - although, with so many current cultural references, I'm also sure it won't make it past next summer.
I won't be looking out any past books by this author, I prefer something a bit meatier for my hols, but we live and learn, and this was vaguely amusing in spots (if a bit heavy-handed), so time not entirely wasted.

Bright, breezy and fun, with a snarky narrator, an engaging mystery, colourful characters, and delightful locations, this is an entertaining read you'll want to share with friends. Think Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum) meets Benjamin Stevenson (Everyone in my family has killed someone).

I really enjoyed this book, though at times the footnotes were a bit overwhelming! It was a fun beach read of a book, great cast of characters, nice light read.

Thank you to Pan Macmillan for the ARC copy of this book prior to its release on the 2nd May!

Oh my goodness this book was such a bit of me! Starting off with the book being set in Italy, which was exactly what I needed as we're coming into Spring and I am yearning for warmer weather so badly. This book would be ideal to be reading in the Summer when you're on holiday, sipping a beverage (alcoholic or non). It just gives warm Summer vibes in the best way.

The plot of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies was very cleverly written by Catherine Mack in my opinion. Reading through how the characters got themselves out of extremely difficult situations was really intelligently done. I couldn't see or predict how it was going to happen, but Catherine ended up doing it in such an intellectual way that I didn't see coming at all, but it made complete sense and wasn't illogical or far fetched at all. I loved the surprise of it! I could never see what was coming (unless the narrator made you aware of how something was going to happen before it did happen, to further the plot).

I really enjoy seeing writers push the boundaries of the structure of novels and play about with new and interesting formats, and this is definitely what Catherine Mack does in this book! She uses footnotes which at first I was a bit unsure of, as it felt a bit annoying for obvious things to be put in the footnotes (e.g. "this is foreshadowing, by the way"), but as I got further into the book I love that it helped me to understand the narrators personality, and really felt like she was talking to me directly, not to me as a part of the audience of the book. And I actually found by the end of it that the footnotes helped me to enjoy the book on a different level, and I feel if they weren't there, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed the story as much or felt so connected to the narrator and protagonist.

One thing to be wary of is that there is a lot of short sentences which I don't really experience in things I read generally, so I was drawn towards the fact that sentences were really short and it was super obvious/stand out to me. But I did find it helped the pacing of a book and I like a fast-paced book that keeps me hooked, and this definitely was just that! I was so hooked and couldn't put it down once we got into the nitty gritty of the story and all the drama was happening.

I enjoyed this quirky story of an author on a trip with authors. With some humour and some twists and turns which I wasn’t expecting. I found this book very enjoyable and different. Well worth a read.

Not sure what to make of this one. On one hand it's a fairly quick read - though that might be in part because I was skipping and speed reading some of it - and on the other hand it's a bit of a mess. The constant footnotes are irritating - they may be fine (and ignorable) in the paperback version but on Kindle they are tumbled in with the rest of the text, making it difficult to work out what's what. I didn't feel I needed the footnotes anyway but I suppose they are part of the 'quirky' narrative.

I found the heroine annoying to a certain extent - she blames herself for things that aren't her fault (a relationship with a married man who forgot to mention he had a wife) but carries on associating with him. She acts in a self-deprecating manner but at the same time, seems full of herself.

I pretty much guessed the ending - which is easily done if you work on the principle that the least likely person 'dunnit'. However, there are a few least likelys, so it's not as straightforward as it might be.

I hate to be negative as I know how much work goes into writing a book and I'm sure some readers will enjoy this. It's fun in its way, just not for me, really.

Reading the premise, I knew this was a book I'd dive headlong into and I certainly did!

I will say this, I am a sucker for footnotes. If you have footnotes and use them well (like this does) I am going to be there reading that thing til the very last page, no exception. The narrative voice in this book is so good and made me want to keep reading - I also really appreciate the characters and there were moments I was like, yeah I get it. I often find characters tend to be unrelateable, here not the case.

This book also has such a great pace, we do not hang around to find out what's going on and we are taken straight into the story that makes this book when you begin difficult to put down. I finished this book not long ago and with that ending, how am I meant to sit here and wait for the next one? I can't wait for more from this series for sure.

Funny, gripping and relateable for a murder mystery (they don't happen in real life to me, at least) I would definitely recommend this for every vacation you're planning to take this year, it's the perfect beach read.

(thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC for review!)

An engaging cosy crime novel set on the Italian Amalfi Coast, author Eleanor Dash contemplates killing off her ex-boyfriend—both in her books and possibly in real life. I’m not sure about the footnotes though … that said, it was an easy read - perhaps with a sequel - onwards and upwards, as they say,

Author of a series of cosy crime novels, Eleanor Dash is fed up of her morally bankrupt ex who is blackmailing her. He’s the co-star of her series and the fans and her publishers love him. So how will they take it if Eleanor kills him? Not literally you understand, just in book form. But then life starts imitating art. With her notebook full of possible sticky endings as evidence is Eleanor going down for a crime she literally plotted?
Just when you think you’ve read every take on a cosy crime novel this book comes along. This book is an absolute joy! Yes, I may have guessed whodunnit, but it didn’t detract from a brilliantly cleverly written tale and the author did break the fourth wall and encourage us to solve the mystery? Setting the book on the Italian Amalfi Coast with armchair sightseeing and menu perusal was a delicious added bonus. I defy you not to want to head to the travel agents to book yourself a trip. In the meantime I’m off to MeanReads to post my review - IYKYK.

Thanks to publishers and #NetGalley for an #ARC of #EveryTimeIGoOnVacationSomeoneDies.
I give this book 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
I struggled with the book style initially, it is in the style of the author talking directly to the reader, asking questions etc. I quickly adapted, and I did enjoy the writing style by the end. However I found the footnotes a bit OTT. As this was an ARC the formatting was hard to follow regarding the footnotes, in the fully published book it may be different.
I would put it under the 'cozy mystery' umbrella, and it was an enjoyable one. I would probably look into Book 2 in the series when it is released. I don't think I would recommend, as the writing style could annoy some people.

I absolutely loved this book. It did take a little while to come to grips with this very different writing style but then I did not want to stop reading. There are so many funny moments throughout. To start with I did not really like the author foot notes but they grew on me very quickly and I found them fascinating, intriguing and certainly unmissable. The only thing that I would have preferred is that they did not interrupt a sentence as they often did but this was a minor thing and it could be because it was being read on the kindle where notes are not so easily placed.
Such an interesting plot of a mystery involving mystery authors.
I did discover some of the plot but I had not gone into the depth of the solution that was unearthed. It ends wih the author saying that another one will follow this and I cannot wait to read more by this very very talented author.

I read an eARC of this book so thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley.

If you don’t like footnotes in novels, this may not be for you! However if you enjoy a tongue-in-cheek novel that breaks the fourth wall repeatedly then you’ll have a great time with this!

This is a mystery novel about a mystery novel writer investigating a mystery happening to her. She’s on a promotional tour of Italy with her sister/assistant, her ex-boyfriend and main character of her last nine books who she’s sick of and wants to kill off (the character…) some other authors and a group of fans that won a competition. Her ex-boyfriend tells her someone’s trying to kill him and she’s quite nonchalant about it until strange accidents keep happening and she feels she too may be at risk.

This book was witty, entertaining and enjoyably over the top. I found the self-referential style to be quite a refreshing take on a mystery novel and I was engrossed in the story. This is a real page-turner and there’s so many potential suspects and motives that it became utter chaos (in the best way).

A great setting, a fresh voice and an exciting mystery. I would read more from this author.

I’ve gave three stars for this book as the plot itself was really good and I definitely enjoyed reading that and about the different characters. However, I found the constant footnotes annoying and that the chapters where she was ‘speaking to us’ to encourage us to solve the mystery ourselves broke the suspense that had been building. The storyline itself however was very interesting.

Very fresh, very amusing, a narrator who talks directly to us and drops clues, a summer in Italy, all makes a great summer read. Footnotes didn’t work so well with e format but otherwise it’s an amusing read.

As much as I quite liked this book I did struggle with it. The main character Eleanor is very unlikeable, Conor was forgettable, I just couldn't imagine him planning any robberies, being this bad boy. Oliver and Harper just blended into the background, I did start to hope they were secretly in love to bring something exciting. All the action happened so far in that when it did happen I was over it. The book does have some funny moments and I think the foot notes would work well in a book format rather than Kindle where they just appeared in the middle of sentences. Though I don't think it needed as many. I would probably read the next book just out of curiosity.

📚 Book Review 📚

I was looking forward to this one, I love a cosy mystery but unfortunately, this really falls short.

It started off really well and there are lots of funny aspects to reading initially. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and the Italian setting was really well written. The main problem for me is that nothing happens! I thought at 46% of the way through that things were moving but nothing, the death actually happened 60% in, so as a murder mystery, you are waiting way too long. I ended up skimming through to try and find some actual story to keep me interested.

The other problem I had was with the footnotes, 279 in all. At first I loved reading them, they added humour and were fun. However, reading them on my kindle was really difficult. They were dotted about throughout the paragraphs and within sentences making the text very difficult to read. One footnote actually appeared within one word. Hopefully, this won’t happen in the hard copy versions but in the end the sheer number of footnotes were so distracting that I stopped reading them altogether.

After reading some other reviews, I can see that I am in the minority and I know the author will have worked really hard on this book, but it’s just not for me. The mystery was too long in coming, the characters were repetitive, the footnotes were distracting and the humour ended up being lost which was such a shame. Obviously, this is just my opinion and many other readers loved it.

I’d like to thank Pan MacMillan, NetGalley and the author for the arc and the fantastic opportunity, in exchange for my honest feedback 😊

⭐️⭐️