In What A Way To Go, Anthony Wistern is stuck in a post-death holding place until he can work out how he died. The mystery is uncovered from three perspectives, (1) Anthony, (2) Olivia Wistern, Anthony's wife, and (3) The Sleuth, a true crime enthusiast. Although I liked the concept, this book just didn't catch and hold my attention. It wasn't for me, but I'm sure others will enjoy the mystery!

Thank you to Bella Mackie, NetGalley and the the publishers for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I read Mackie’s debut novel back in 2022 and it was such a fun read - I always love a “good for her” story - so when this advanced copy became available I jumped at the chance to read it! The characters are thoroughly hate able, which I love in books like this. The plot, although not overly unique, is fun and resolved well by the end of the book.

There is a slight supernatural aspect to this book, which I did find very off putting to start with, and felt this could have been omitted through the use of a third party narrator. However, the use of this as a plot device does come to a very satisfying. I did enjoy the use of the “Sleuth” character and following her documentation of the case; it was an interesting commentary on the true crime obsession in popular culture, but I felt like this angle could have been pursued further, with their ending feeling like a bit of an afterthought.

One other small bug bear I had with the story was the use of dates. The story is said to take place in 2018 but the events mentioned do not match up with this time period (a non existent political scandal is mentioned, for example). I find it off putting to have exact dates mentioned if they don’t add anything to the story, and this could have easily been omitted.

Overall an enjoyable read and a great one to pick up if you enjoy dark humoured murder mysteries!

I loved Bella Mackie’s last book, and I think that this one is even better.
Bella has a way of writing unlikeable characters, a way that makes you want to find out more whilst still not having any affection for them whatsoever. Anthony and Olivia are so unlikeable and don’t really have any redeeming qualities, but yet, I still found myself needing to know exactly what happened and if they would work it out too. I quite enjoyed The Sleuth, although did get a little annoyed that she kept falling for the family’s promises, but I was glad that she learned and grew from her experience in the end. I was definitely surprised by the twist at the end, and again, I feel that this is something that Bella does perfectly.
I’m very much enjoying seeing what she does next, as I have really enjoyed both this book and her last book. Thank you to Bella Mackie and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC.

It pains me to say that I found this book anticlimactic and underwhelming... I really wanted to like this book after loving 'How to Kill Your Family' and I was overly excited to read 'What a Way to Go', but it didn't hit nowhere near the same.

There were quite a few POVs all of which had loads of descriptive paragraphs rather than getting into the action - dialogues were definitely something I was missing most of the time. With loads of descriptive paragraphs came quite lengthy chapters which made the read intimidating to read. The wiring style reminded me of 'The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle' whiles the plot of thinking that the wife did it reminded me of 'Fool Me Once' & "Glass Knives'. Perhaps we would have benefited a little bit more to see the children's POVs too?

It was enjoyable to try to guess who has done it and I really like the idea of them having to guess how they have died in order for us to come to the conclusion ourselves. However, it was very anticlimactic when I finally got to how he died.

Even though I was expecting a little bit more from this book, it is a pretty good book to read if you're a fan of mysteries - but for the fans of How to Kill Your Family... perhaps don't set yourself up to have closely similar book vibes in this one.

I get the whole point is to hate the characters but it just made me not care about them? It felt long and I’d lost interest.
10/10 for the dark humour though - that’s what kept me reading!

A querky, very black comedy.
This book is about death but contains a great deal of humour. Here we have a totally disfuntional, very rich family who have to cope with scandal, and lots of changes when the patriarch dies in mysterious circumstances. Lots of secrets are uncovered about the extended family members.
About fifteen per cent in, I thought this would perhaps be a three star read, but I realised I was actually hooked and became determined to find out what happened. i'm very glad that I did.
Bella Mackie has written a very good book that will keep you guessing right the way to the end. The basic premise may come over as strange to some, but if the reader can suspend their belief and accept it, then they will enjoy this book.

Anthony Western is 60; he's the CEO of a large financial company and is frankly, untouchable. One moment he's living it up at his obscene birthday party thrown by his wife and the next he's at the South Gloucester Processing Centre trying to recall the last moments of his life.

What a way to go - what a book to read! I've not read any of Mackie's other work but I will be doing so now! This is a great read, it's well developed and keeps you enthralled throughout. From the moment of Antony's Death you're not sure who is responsible and the idea of a processing centre in the afterlife is excellently executed. The story is told through the viewpoints/voices of three characters and each person's chapters are distinctly different in style. The characters are likeable/not likeable respectively and feel like real people, with the whole story being driven by them and their personalities.

The writing is easy to follow, it's smooth and flows well...entertaining throughout, I really enjoyed this book!

I loved Mackie's previous book How To Get Away With Murder so was very excited to get an ARC of this book from NetGalley and HarperCollins.

The book follows three main characters - Anthony, Olivia and The Sleuth. I loved the characters of Anthony and Olivia, they are absolutely horrible people and you just couldn't help but enjoy that, however the character of The Sleuth I enjoyed less. I didn't see the point of keeping this characters identity a secret - the big reveal seemed to fall flat for me.

Overall I enjoyed this book and would happily read Mackie's further publications.

I hugely enjoyed HOW TO KILL YOUR FAMILY but I can really see how Mackie has grown as a writer of fiction in this new take - absolutely loved this wild wide, and what a cover!

I really enjoyed the premise of this book and as much as i wanted to enjoy the actual plot i felt too many twists and not enough into the end or even a link into another book. The writing style is fantastic and the author really can keep you interested and did enjoy their last book. I hope maybe a reread when released might give me another chance to see if it hits different.

2.5/5<

I’ve recently gotten into thrillers, so when I saw this one available on NetGalley, I run to request it. The idea for the story was brilliant, which is why I decided to read it, but unfortunately, after about twenty/thirty percent of the book, my interest completely faded. I’m not sure why, but I just couldn’t get into the story. Sadly, I ended up finishing it mainly because it was an arc.


*Thank you to NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review!*

This was an interesting take on a thriller and definitely nice to see something slightly different from her first book. I enjoyed the social commentary aspect of the book and enjoyed disliking all of the characters. I found the fantasy element of it pulled me out of the story. It was an unusual plot device that didn't quite work for me

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC. This was a fascinating and twisty read but (and I think this was on purpose) but I didn't love any of the characters which made it hard to really get invested in.

This was my first Bella Mackie book. I have How to Kill your family on my bookshelf but I haven’t got round to it yet.

This is a whodunnit told from 3 different perspectives, the deceased, his wife and a crime blogger, which I enjoyed, it was nice to have a different person narrate each chapter.

However, I felt it was a little slow in places and for me the ending felt a little rushed and I felt like something was missing.

I will read How to Kill your family at some point but after reading What a Way To Go I am not in a rush.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins for the ARC in return for an honest review.

It’s really hard to read an authors second book without comparing it to their first. In this instance I really wish I could. I thought the book was written from a really unique angle which I thoroughly enjoyed. And I loved to hate the characters. There were amusing elements of dark honour which I enjoyed, however I felt fell short of her first book which ultimately left me a tad disappointed. I also thought that after all the build up the ending felt a bit rushed.

Following the explosive success of 'How To Kill Your Family', 'What A Way To Go' suffers from less from the sophomore slump and more of the sophomore 'slowdown'. It's a literary thriller insofar as it's overly literary and not much of a thriller, with far too many characters, a plot that feels like wading through treacle at the best of times and chapter choices that add nothing to the plot but an endless ream of exposition that confuse things even more. Bella Mackie is not a bad writer and me even finishing this book despite taking more than a week to read it is a sign that there was clearly something about it that kept me turning the pages.

What I think the problem is is that there are too many ideas being included, but only skimmed over. The narrative jumps between three voices - Anthony, the dead man, Olivia, his wife, and an amateur true crime blogger who starts investigating the case as a murder, not an accident. Anthony's POV largely comes from the purgatory he's ended up in and I did enjoy that - it's a new angle that doesn't really get explored. How do you solve your own murder from beyond the grave, that was really interesting. All of the characters are horrible people, but that's not necessarily a bad thing - the inclusion of the blogger helps to balance things out a bit. I also didn't see the twist coming towards the end. I had an inkling, certainly, but I felt the ending was satisfying enough, if a little rushed.

For me, I think what has knocked this book down two stars was the pacing. This is an eye-wateringly slow novel. Some of the chapters go on for far too long while contributing nothing to the plot. The characters don't change or move very much in any given direction and much of the page is taken up by inner monologue and critiques of other characters - some of whom you've never met - that offer nothing at all. I'm not sure where this has come from because I read Mackie's first book and it was not this bad. Things did start to pick up pace as we got to the second half, but really, you don't dozens of chapters of 'here are my scrounging children doing scroungy things' because it's just deathly dull.

It's hard to justify 400 pages for this - I feel like it would have been much tighter and more interesting in 300 or so. Not quite as spitfire-y as her debut, but still a sign that Mackie can deal with the literary thriller genre rather deftly.

Delightfully dark and funny, Bella Mackie stuns with another domestic caper. Murder, lies and intrigue are all up for grabs in this one.

A semi-fantasy murder mystery story, with the victim left in limbo until he can work out how he was killed.

The victim has to follow all his family and friends to understand which had motive and opportunity (doesn’t narrow it down).

I'll be honest and say I went into this with lowish expectations as I really didn't enjoy How To Kill Your Family. Weirdly, I didn't enjoy HTKYF because of how vile all of the characters were. This is precisely the reason I loved this book!

Everyone is delightfully catty and only out for themselves, a family of cheaters, liars and backstabbers. The book is very witty and the premise (watching your family from what felt like beige hell) was really well done.

I really enjoyed this book, and sped through it. It follows the Wisterns, an insanely wealthy family, after the death of their father. Was he murderered? And, more importantly, what about all of his money?

Bella Mackie’s writing style is smooth, funny and easily digestible, and she has a fantastic way of bringing characters to life that you love to hate. The POV from beyond the grave could have been corny, but actually worked well for this story, and the multiple POVs come together in a satisfying ending. Fans of her first book will certainly enjoy this one.