This book has a great premise that made me want to read it. It is entertaining and enjoyable but has too many characters to keep track of. I raced through the first half but lost interest after that. The pace picked up again towards the end though.
My favourite part was Frances' diary and the excellent narration of the audiobook by Alexandra Dowling and Jaye Jacobs.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quercus Audio for an advanced copy in exchange for my review.

This high quality audio keeps you highly entertained as you listen to Annie Adams attempt to solve her great aunts murder in order to inherit her fortune and save village. Running along side and interwoven is another murder mystery.
This is quite a long listen but times goes by quietly as the story is full of interesting characters and twists and turns . I was dragged into this classic who donnit. It was full of action and the pov approach made it hard to stop listening. And I tried to solve mysterys. It had a homage feel in places to agatha Christie. Highly recommended yo anyone who like agatha Christie and a good whodunit set in different timelines. This was narrated well and a 5 star listen.
Thanks netgallery and publisher and author and narrator.

Annie Adams is invited to visit her estranged Great Aunt Frances regarding a change to her will. On her arrival, she soon learns that her aunt - who spent almost her entire life fearing that she would be murdered - has indeed been murdered. She has left a will, stating that whoever solves her murder will inherit her considerable fortune.

So begins a race to discover what actually happened to Frances. It involves deep dives into Frances' past, via her diary.

It's a cosy murder mystery and an easy read, but not particularly striking. It is well written, and the audiobook is beautifully narrated by Alexandra Dowling and Jaye Jacobs, but it's a bit long in parts and there's not enough humour to lighten it. There are twists and turns and the ending is quite satisfying. A solid mystery that would go well with a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

This audiobook had me hooked. Firstly the quality of the audiobook was good and the narration was great.
The story is about 17 year old Frances Adams who was told she will be murdered by a fortune teller. The fortune was not told quite simply but in the form of a riddle to which Frances dedicated her whole life to try and solve before being murdered. 60years later, her great-niece Annie is invited to Frances' estate to discuss her inheritance only for Annie and the other invitees to find Frances dead...murdered. Frances last act of revenge was to challenge a group, including Annie, to try to solve her murder. The person who pulls through will inherit Frances' estate. Annie delved into this detective work using all that Aunt Frances had compiled already and the diary entries from 1965.

A must read if a fan of crime and mystery!

In 1965, when Frances Adams was seventeen, a fortune teller told her that one day she’d be murdered. Thus began a lifetime of trying to prevent the crime that would be her eventual demise. Sixty years later, she was murdered. When her great-niece Annie arrived from London and discovered that Frances’ worst fear had come true, Annie was thrust into her great-aunt’s last act of revenge against her sceptical friends and family. The person to solve her murder would inherit her wealth. Could Annie unravel the mystery and find justice for Frances?

The plot of this book was what attracted me to pick it up, and it didn’t disappoint. The idea of someone gathering clues to their potential future murder for their entire life was both intriguing and bittersweet, as it could’ve attracted self-fulfilling prophecy. Was it a self-fulfilling prophecy, though? You’d just have to read it to find out!

It was interesting to see things played out from Annie’s perspective. The murder mystery had a classic feeling to it, and I had fun following the storyline, I didn’t try too hard to solve the whodunnit. I loved the connection between Annie and Frances despite them never spending time together.

The audiobook was performed really well, with its multiple narrators. I really enjoyed the distinct voices between Annie and Frances, it made it so easy to follow. I’d recommend this to Agatha Christie fans everywhere!

Thank you to NetGalley and to Quercus for the ARC :)

The story is your typical murder mystery, it being described as 'perfect for fans of Knives Out' is very accurate, there are many similarities between the two. I like that it's set in a Dorset town (hey, I live there!) and I was picturing Corfe Castle and it's surrounding village as our setting. I'm usually a loud and avid hater of non-linear stories, but the format of Annie reading Frances' diary alongside the reader 'seeing' the events she is reading about really works. It spurred me to keep reading so I could get to the diary/60's chapters. Also, it was really refreshing to read a book where the first few chapters have only female characters, without it being made a point. Speaking of characters, there are A LOT, which is typical of the genre but difficult to follow occasionally. I do think if I were reading it and not listening to it, the characters would have been easier to track.

The audiobook itself is fine. I like the narrator's accent (biased as it's my own), tone, and her diction is great. I felt she really embodied the characters when they spoke, which helped with the distinction between so many of them. I did have an issue with the pauses as she spoke, though this might be down to editing rather than the narrator/s. The space in between sentences, and sometimes in the middle of them, were too long. There were a few times I thought I'd accidentally paused the book, waiting for the next word to come. The first half-ish is especially guilty of this. I'd listen to another book with the same narrator/s happily, though.

I'm assuming the two narrators listed each narrate the past/present respectively, though I'm only discovering as I'm writing this review that there were two. They sounded identical, to me, so in future I'd recommend more distinctly different voices or having only one narrator.

It was a really enjoyable and quick read/listen. If you've watched Knives Out, read A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, or just like a good ol' fashioned whodunnit (two for the price of one, here) then I would fully recommend it.

4/5

This This was such a fun classic-feeling mystery! Not quite cozy but familiar like a re-run of an old mystery series!
The story is split into two time-lines; current day & 1960's.
Were following Francis in the 60s timeline via diary entries & the current day were following Annie, Francis' grand-niece as she tries to uncover all the clues Francis left to work out how she was killed. Francis spent her life obsessing over a fortune that was prophesied at a fair when she was a teen, that she would be murdered.

This story comes with a whole host of characters, a big mansion, a small town setting and plenty of secrets! The mystery sets itself up really well, there are a lot of characters but it never feels confusing and I think the ending wrapped up really nicely!
I was really craving a classic mystery book and this was really satisfying!

I first read this book on my kindle, and immediately realised that I wanted it as an audiobook as well. So, that's what I requested the audio on NetGalley. And despite how little time that had passed since I had read it, the story, and the narrator (Oh God, I love the narrator's voice) meant that I passed two days happy as a clam. I would recommend the audiobook, over the kindle (because of the narrator), but either version is brilliant.

Please read this book. It's a great start to the series. I've been singing its' praises to everyone I know, whether they like murder mystery or not.

Sadly DNF'D the audio book as characters not brought to life enough, including the main protagonist. Too many characters, too many things, with little explanation.

Less is more,.. go for quality & complexity done well, instead of too much & too little.

I was intrigued by this book from the moment I saw the title. It was a really great listen. The narrator was amazing. The story split into two timelines works really well. It's fast paced and not very predictble.

ALC review via NetGalley:

This book had an intriguing premise that was maintained throughout the story.
A small town, murder mystery with high stakes as a race is on to inherit the estate of the murdered woman.
Frances Adams has been preparing for her murder since she was sixteen years old following a fortune foretelling her murder. She's spent her life keeping notes on everyone in her life, and her obsession around her impending death has resulted in enemies made along the way.

I really enjoyed the use of flashbacks using to Frances' diary, and the mystery kept me guessing until the end. A complex cast of characters, with more than one unsolved murder to focus on. The clues Annie picks out are cleverly woven throughout the book in a way which doesn't make them glaringly obvious. This was an easy to read, fairly light and enjoyable story which I will purchase for my Mum as I know she'd enjoy it too. I would definitely read more from this author again.

I listen to a lot of audiobooks, especially during my daily commute, so I am familiar with following audiobooks well. The narrator was easy to listen to and helped create an enjoyable experience. The relatively large cast of characters made it slightly harder to follow however and I think I would have preferred to read the physical/ebook for this reason alone.

How To Solve Your Own Murder was amazing on audio. The narration gave life to an already fantastic story. If you love funny, quirky, cosy crime/mysteries, you'll love this. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance audio copy.

I listened to this new debut novel on audiobook and found the narration well done and I felt the voice suited the characters.

The story is a dual time line as the main character Annie tries to solve the murder of her great aunt to be able to inherit from the will and get to stay in what has been her family home for many years. ( so a lot is a stake here)
I thought the idea of the story was good. I usually enjoy a dual timeline tale and felt the addition of two people trying to solve a murder and the winner get the inhabitants a bit different from the norm.
However I often found my attention drifting in parts as it just didn't seem to really grab my interest. There were parts that were good but I just felt it was a little thin and if Annie had read the diaries a bit quicker, she would have found the answers a lot sooner.
Not bad for a debut though.

Frances clutched the fortune teller's pronouncement, a chill snaking down her spine despite the summer heat. "Beware the bird," it hissed, a cryptic message that would cast a long shadow over her life. Obsessed with unraveling its meaning, Frances spent decades interpreting the cryptic clues, building a future based on warding off a prophesied doom.

Fast forward sixty years. Enter Annie, a young woman unexpectedly summoned by a long-lost great-aunt. Thrust into the heart of a family she never knew, Annie inherits a fortune and a chilling secret: Frances's murder. Armed with a cryptic diary and meticulously crafted "murder boards," Annie delves into the past, determined to solve the present.

However, the path to the truth is littered with obstacles. The secrets locked within the diary, penned by a teenage Frances, feel distant and immature. The present-day characters, while drawn into the investigation, lack genuine depth. Ultimately, the weight of the mystery crumbles under the lack of emotional investment. The "fun and original premise," as many reviewers noted, loses traction in the face of underdeveloped characters and a narrative that struggles to resonate.

This was quite an entertaining story and I was interested to discover who was responsible for past and present mysteries. However towards the end the main character behaved in an utterly ridiculous way that completely disengaged me from the story.

I thought the narrator did a very good job though and was a pleasure to listen to.

It was a shame as there was a lot to like up until this point, but I’m afraid this wasn’t for me and I wouldn’t recommend.

2 stars for the story, but an extra 1 as I enjoyed the narrator..

*** Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher ***

I am hugely grateful to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read an ARC of this book. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this audiobook - so good that I kept trying to find household tasks to undertake which could justify me listening to it. It was a very easy listen, and I thought that the juxtaposition of excerpts from the 1970s diary alongside investigations in the present time was a great way to develop understanding of the relationships between the different characters. It has to be said I had no idea who the murderer was/murderers were - but I thought it was well-explained how Annie had reached her conclusions.

This was another book that I enjoyed because of the format of delivery. There are two narrators, one for the older timeline and one for the current. Both did a good job bringing the book to life.

As I started writing the review I thought back about the reveal since I figured out the culprit while I was listening to the book at the time in guessing the author meant for us to. Surprisingly though, I had to recollect the entire process of the plot to get to the reveal! That was new for me. It basically meant that the story has its way of being prominent and keeping one’s interest over just wanting to know the end result.

The past has three friends who are intertwined in each other’s lives. One of them receives a fortune about her being murdered in the future, or it is the most straightforward interpretation of the fortune teller’s statement. Another of them actually vanishes and this casts a shadow over the others’ lives.

In the present, we have a gathering of people who have a stake in a will. I liked the combination of people who end up in the same frame and how they interact. The flow of the story is entirely practical and was fun to follow. I would definitely read another book by the author and recommend this to others who find the blurb or this review interesting.

I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own listening experience.

How to Solve Your Own Murder is a cosy, Agatha Christie-esque, engrossing mystery, and a great read.

‘Frances always said she would be murdered…and she was right’. What a great tagline, and perfectly reflective of the twisty, who-can-you-trust, everyone-has-a-secret, slightly tongue in cheek nature of this story. The prose was engaging and well delivered, and created an atmosphere that perfectly balanced sinister undertones with warm characters and occasional light relief. I really enjoyed Annie’s gumption and perseverance, and the way her character played off Detective Crane.

The double murder and alternating timelines were really interesting and kept me guessing right up to the end. I really enjoyed this as an audiobook- the character voices were so distinct and animated. I had to double check how many narrators there were, because the transitions were so seamless!

Thank you Quercus and NetGalley for a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed are my own.

If you love a cosy, murder mystery, complete with country house and rich people getting taken down then this is the book for you! I really enjoyed listening to this story, the narrator does a fabulous job of building the suspense, and the pacing is perfect. I would highly recommend and I can’t wait for more from this author!

Thank you so much NetGalley and the publisher!

For me, this book had a really interesting and gripping premise, but it did not give any more than that.

I did enjoy the writing style and the characters, but it felt like something was missing to give it that spark?

This does feel like a Agatha Christie/Sherlock Holmes/Nancy Drew kind of mystery, so if you do enjoy a classic mystery then you will definitely enjoy this.

A solid 3 stars for me!