This started off okay with an intriguing premise but unfortunately it quickly became dull. The characters are all such horrible people. I get that that was the point but I hated them all and didn't really care what happened to them and the ending was disappointing.

Great cover though.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

I am not a fan of the gratuitous consumption of rich-person porn as exemplified by Succession or The White Lotus, but Bella Mackie's first book was so much fun that I grabbed the chance at an ARC of this one, and I'm glad I did. (My thanks to Netgalley.)
It has all the usual tropes, nasty rich people, their hideous families, allusions to all the "correct" tastes in decor, clothes, jewels, art etc, and - of course - murder. Mackie handles it all in her own inimitable style and humour, which is what gives her work that extra little kick other authors often lack. Told from multiple POVs, we get as-it-happens insight to the mystery, which should make it easy to foresee the murderer, but even past the veil, it turns out, there is still uncertainty.
Pretty much all the characters, even the working-class sleuth, are either obnoxious or unreliable narrators, but Mackie takes her time and builds up a great picture of both the event itself and the aftermath, as well as the characters themselves. I have seen the post-death POV done before, but not so credibly, and here it adds plenty of humour and depth.
The pace does drop off a bit in the middle, but - as potential perpetrators are eliminated - the drive to find out what actually happened will carry the reader through. And even when one finds out, the final epilogues are an enjoyable touch which round out the justice so deservingly served.
Roll on the next book!

What a Way to Go by Bella Mackie

The Book opens with what is Anthony Wisterns last few hours in earth.
He is celebrating his 60th birthday at a party arranged by his wife .
It's a funny read , and as the book goes along , we are encouraged to work out the killer as it was no ordinary death.

I really wanted to love this after I really enjoyed How To Kill Your Family but I just didn't get on board with this at all. It felt slow most the way through. The last quarter picked up but the ending was flat. Really dfisappointed

This was brilliantly done and such a good follow up of HOW TO KILL YOUR FAMILY by Mackie. Inhaled in one sitting!

I came to this book expecting big things as a fan of Mackie’s writing (I loved Jog on and HTKYF) and this did not disappoint. The premise is something different to the usual crime/whodunnit novels- which in my view makes it feel playful and keeps you interested. Anthony Wistern, stinking rich businessman with plenty of vices and secrets, dies at his own 60th birthday party. From beyond the grave he tries to find out who is responsible. It’s told through several voices (Anthony, his wife Olivia and true crime fanatic and amateur investigator “the Sleuth” whose social media prowess we see increasing as the story goes on. The characters were the kind you love to hate, awful to the point of caricature at times, which gives a kind of dark comedy feel that fans of Mackie’s first novel will recognise. There are twists and turns along the way and even though I thought I’d solved it halfway through I was wrong! I’d seen one review that suggested the plot was repetitive which I’d braced myself for but that was inaccurate. We see some scenes overlapping between POVs but this is cleverly done. I’d like to have known more about the Sleuth’s backstory I think- what happened to her Dad and her Mum’s health seemed to be peppered throughout the book but as a postscript as opposed to anything substantial. I also found that some of the characters were a little 2 dimensional but I think that’s true of many books of this genre otherwise there’d be no room for red herrings. This book should be on everyone’s autumn reading lists!

Thank you to Harper Collins UK and Net Galley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Bella Mackie’s new book, What a Way To Go (I love this title), is a dark comedy/thriller about family, money and unfortunate demises. This is perfect for fans of ‘Knives Out’.

Anthony, an ultra-wealthy businessman, is found dead at his 60th birthday party. The suspects? Well, no-one (according to the police), but his socialite wife, Olivia, and his four adult (or nearly adult) children look increasingly suspicious.

The book is narrated from three POVs: Anthony himself (in the depressingly mundane afterlife), Olivia and an online sleuth.

I initially struggled to get into the book, as I couldn’t easily distinguish between Anthony’s children’s characters - especially the women - although by the halfway point, I was fully immersed.

I really enjoyed Anthony’s narration from the afterlife, and the concept of the afterlife in general. I also enjoyed the online sleuth’s ‘blog’ and the increasing lengths that she went to in order to get more views.

The ending was a bit disappointing for me, although there were some events along the way that I found very satisfying.

I’m also not normally the grammar police, but I really struggled with the author’s allergy to semicolons. Some of the sentences felt a bit laborious to read. That being said, the dark, comedic writing was very well done.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

This is a very good read about a set of people who have few, if any, redeeming qualities. It is funny but not flippant in the way it deals with death, the story and the characters are great and it has a satisfactory and interesting ending. The characters are easily distinguished and I liked the three points of view.

I was drawn in straightaway and it is a quick and easy read. At one point I found myself thinking that there was a long way to go until the end and how would the author continue the story but I need not have worried. A lot of things happen and it is a pleasure to read.

I enjoyed Bella’s first book ‘How to Kill your Family’ and was not suprised to hear it is being made in to a Netflix series.
Because of this I was interested to see what her second book would be like.
It is essentially a ‘who done it’ but with a twist, the victim is the one investigating. The suspects? His own family.
I did enjoy this book, though it did trial off a little at the end. I would say it’s a good book, but not one I can see going viral.

I really wanted to love this: I adore dark comedies, I have a 'Succession'-shaped hole in my life, and I really liked Bella Mackie's debut book. But I didn't like this at all. The characters were unbelievably one-dimensional - for a book that's meant to satirise wealth and featuring unlikeable narrators, I needed them to have depth and surprises and they were just so cliched. I also felt like it needed a really good edit: it's a pet peeve, but nearly every paragraph had an obvious run-on sentence which a simple copy edit could have fixed, and it completely distracted me from my reading. Unfortunately can't recommend this.

Imagine living a life of unimaginable luxury—glamorous spouse, beautiful kids, stunning estates in France and the Cotswolds, and, oh yes, a whole array of mistresses. That’s Anthony Wistern’s world, at least until he ends up dead. Now, with his fortune up for grabs, each member of his dysfunctional family is a suspect, and their seemingly perfect world begins to crumble.

Mackie delivers a witty, fast-paced mystery that kept me turning pages. I found myself genuinely laughing at Mackie’s perfectly timed quips—her sense of humor definitely shines through every chapter. The multiple POVs really brought the story to life, giving us a front-row seat to the chaos of this outrageously dysfunctional family. The characters were well-written and even though I found them utterly unlikeable, I couldn’t help but want to know what happened next!

I loved how Mackie slowly fed us bits of information, keeping the suspense alive as I pieced together the mystery. The dark humor and the unfolding of secrets made it a quick and entertaining read.

However, I do wish the book had a slightly different structure—the build-up was so strong that I felt the ending could’ve used a bit more fleshing out. The length also could have been trimmed a bit to maintain the pacing. But overall, What a Way to Go was a fun, darkly humorous mystery that I ultimately enjoyed.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC. What a Way To Go is terrific from start to finish. I loved the concept of sticking around to solve your own murder, and meeting the very long list of suspects. It is engaging, funny and a refreshing supernatural elements read. Five stars.

Newly dead Anthony Wistern must remember how he died before he can move on in the afterlife. In order to achieve this he spends his time watching his family trying to piece together his final moments. Jade Evans is a true crime fan who has is convinced that one of the family killed Anthony, namely his wife Olivia. The story is told alternating between the pov of the three of them. I really enjoy when books have multiple povs, it feels like you can really dive deep in to the mystery however I did feel they were not "different" enough to give the contrast I personally like.
The story itself was a brilliant idea of death being a process that needs boxes ticked before you can be filed indefinitely. A fresh take on the classic "what happens when you die?" question.
Much like How to kill your family, I felt there was a few too many core characters, with some that could have been omitted entirely.
Bella Mackie has a talent for writing characters that you really struggle to like but somehow still want to know about, if I'm honest I don't recall one character I was genuinely routing for or invested in their outcome. This is fueled by Mackie's presentation of rich people as not only selfish but entirely devoid of feelings about anything but money and their public image.
The story itself without giving away too much falls a little flat at the end, I was hoping for some salacious twist, having spent the story coming up with theories on what happened the night of Anthony Wistern's birthday party. However, the truth left me feeling like "oh, is that it?" Like maybe Mackie had got to a point where she wasn't sure where to go and just wanted to finish the story and rushed to end it without that forethought the rest of the story had been given. This may be just that she's a fairly new novelist who is learning as she goes.
All in all it was a quick and easy, enjoyable read and I would still read more books by Mackie in the future.

This was a really interesting concept, started well but lost traction for me. I wanted longer with each character, found the chapters jumped all over the place and harder work to piece the story together than it should have been

I loved this authors.previous previous novel How To Kill Your Family. But What A Way To Go is so much better. A truly vile man, Anthony Western, dies in an innovative and funny way at his 60th Birthday Party. We then follow the fall-out from his event, and its impact on Anthony's awful family, and also, hilariously, on Anthony himself. Will we find out what happened to Anthony, and will there be any redemption for the Western family?

I loved How to Kill Your Family, so I was really excited for this book and it did not disappoint. As well as having a good mystery at its centre, it was so funny. I laughed throughout. Mackie’s writing style really draws you in and the characters are so well constructed. Already cannot wait for her next one.

Anyone who enjoyed Bella Mackie's previous book 'How to Kill Your Family' will not be disappointed by this one.

The story starts with Anthony Wistern's 60th Birthday party, where he is found dead - no spoilers here on how. The question is, how and why. Was it the wife, one of his 4 children, one of the mistresses, or someone else.

The book is a great romp through the story, told from the perspectives of the dead man, the wife and a sleuth who is convinced he was murdered. Thoroughly entertaining and fun I found it difficult to get to a point where I could stop reading each evening.

DNF @ 69%

I loved HOW TO KILL YOUR FAMILY. But I found this to be such a slog to get through. It’s quite flat and nowhere near as interesting as the authors previous book. Such a shame since I expected to love it!

2.75⭐️

Thank you Netgalley and Bloomsbury for the ARC and the opportunity to read this book pre-release. All thoughts are my own.

Oh dear, what a drag this was for me. I had quite high expectations (for myself and for this book both) as I was really into a thriller/mystery mood, but unfortunately it didn't hit the spot.

What a Way to Go covers the mysterious death of british millionaire Anthony Wistern that is found impaled to a decoration of his extravagant 60th birthday party. The story is narrated by multiple characters, among which literally himself from the afterlife, his wife and a very annoying and stubborn crime-obsessed blogger that is determined to prove that his death is indeed a murder.

I truly found the idea of the afterlife and Anthony's POV to be so refreshing and smart when I started the book, but I am afraid that was not enough to carry the story. I was expecting more investigation but this book is so very centred toward the (personally, unrealistic and overly-dramatic) family dynamics between the surviving family members, that all have something to hide.
I cannot say that I found their secrets particularly interesting or pertinent to the death, so I almost felt like I was reading a very long tangent to what I thought was gonna be the main topic of the story.

The writing style isn't exactly bad, but also very simple and easily digestible, which I wouldn't associate with the genre. On top of this the characters are so unrelatable, and not because they live an extravagant lifestyle, but because they have the emotional depth of a teaspoon. The children are all spoiled and delusional, the blogger is potentially clinically and mentally unwell and the wife needs to get her priorities checked.

Maybe I am missing the point of this book, so that's why I struggled with it even if I genuinely really wanted to know the truth behind the death. Can I say, even that was disappointing eventually.
I don't think I will be reading anything else from the author as I don't appreciate it, but I would probably recommend it to people that enjoy some family drama and wild takes on the lifestyle of the rich.

Brilliantly written, I'm not sure if its correct to find a story about death and murder funny but What A Way To Go is darkly humorous.
The Wisterns are a family of obnoxious, snobby, spoilt and self entitled people and I loved them all. I found Jade Evans very annoying but again this is a good thing as I would find her annoying in real life.
I love the way the story moves between Anthony, Olivia and Jade and it unfolds from their individual perspectives, piecing together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Thanks to NetGalley and the authors for allowing me to read What A Way To Go.