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 😊

⭐️⭐️

Thank you NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Interesting blurb, setting was amazing but that’s where it ends.

Boring story, predictable ending and annoying main character. Was trying too hard to be funny, especially with the footnotes. I know they were optional but I read them and they made me want to scream.
Connor was especially annoying. Eleanor was unlikeable. Harper was just ridiculous and her relationship with the main charcater, as a sibling and as an assistant, was kind of pathetic. Oliver was forgettable. Most characters were pretty forgettable actually. Anyway, all in all, not for me.

This is a brilliant summer read.
The plot takes place in Italy as the protagonist Eleanor Dash is on her 10th anniversary book tour. She has been extremely successful due to her ability to solve crimes during her travels and write about them. The sidekick in her novels is a charming Connor Smith, who unknown to the circle of writers, who have joined them, has been blackmailing her. They are ex-lovers who now practically despise each other. Their clap backs are both humorous and revealing.
Eleanor has reached the end of her tether with him however and plans to kill him off in the next book. That is before real life comes into play and there are real murderers out there trying to kill them both.
The plot centres around finding the would be killers or killer. They could be anyone of the other writers on the trip or even one of the Bookface winners. There are secrets and reasons as to why it could be any of them: sibling rivalry, Harper was supposed to be the writer now she is P.A. to her sister. Allison, Connor's ex, has she really forgiven their affair, The elegant Oliver who lost Eleanor when she cheated on him with Connor etc.
We are treated with some excellent landscapes as the tour takes the writers and their fan club through Rome to southern Italy by boat and bus, stopping at some truly remarkable sights. Anyone who has been will understand the tourist trap of Capri.
Mack uses footnotes throughout the book which to be honest I skipped. After a while I found them distracting. I did find it both refreshing and funny how suddenly she broke away and spoke to us the reader directly, challenging us to spot the murderer. I must say despite the clues I didn't.
This is an excellent read and thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this. It will be popular for that beach holiday.

This is the first in a series of Vacation Mysteries and if subsequent novels live up to the first, they’ll easily attract fans. Eleanor Dash, successful mystery writer, is on holiday on the Amalfi Coast with her sister (who badly wanted to be a writer) and her ex-boyfriend Connor, who’s ended up as Eleanor’s protagonist in the pages of her books. It’s not exactly going swimmingly, especially as Connor is being targeted by a killer and there’s a host of characters who all have their own agenda for being in Italy. While not la via bella for everyone, Eleanor must separate fiction from fact and concentrate on who is responsible for the unsettling goings-on. This feels very much if Only Murders in the Building was in book form, though other reviews have compared it to The White Lotus, which is fair. Plenty of humour from the offset with a protagonist who thankfully doesn’t take herself too seriously.

Oh my gosh, I've just finished the last page of 'Every Time I Go On Vacation Someone Dies' this second, and I LOVED it!

It's incredibly funny, the characters are all pretty flawed but still mostly likeable, and the mystery was TOP NOTCH - I hadn't read Catherine Mack/McKenzie before but she is the *queen* of misdirection! The pacing is perfect, her use of language is great, and I thought the use of two 'interjection' sections (where the author pauses the story to summarise some of the pertinent questions to help you solve the mystery) was unusual but still enjoyable.

The MC, Eleanor, is very endearing, especially the (hundreds of...!) footnotes she adds to her own manuscript as we go, and I honestly couldn't put this book down. I don't want to say any more because I will get into spoiler territory, but wow, this was exactly my kind of book. I will say that there were quite a few typos (mostly in the final chapter) but that may only be in my pre-publication ARC e-book copy, and still didn't get in the way of enjoying the story.

I am so excited for the next in this series to come out, this author is so talented, and I am truly delighted to have gotten the chance to read an ARC copy of this book via NetGalley & Pan Macmillan (in exchange for an honest review).

The title grabbed my attention straight away and that cover sealed the deal but I believe it’s time for me to learn my lesson, never judge a book by its beautiful cover nor its intriguing title!

I picked up this book while in Rome and loved the coincidence. I did feel like the author was describing the settings around me and I absolutely loved that.

Now to the things I did not quite enjoy.

The main character, Eleanor, oh dear…how do I put this nicely? I don’t think I can. She is so annoying, I literally found myself rolling my eyes at most of her thoughts and actions.

Reading this on a kindle, the footnotes were a nightmare, randomly scattered and quite confusing at times. Perhaps, these would work better on a paperback copy? I hope so.

All in all, this was not my cup of tea.

This book sounded as if it was going to be the perfect read for me; a bookish murder mystery set in one of my favourite parts of the world. Sadly, although the mystery was interesting and the Italian setting gorgeous, the book itself wasn’t as enjoyable as I had hoped.
The book is narrated in the first person by Eleanor Dash, the author whose book tour has become a lot more dangerous than she expected. First person narratives can either work brilliantly or be a bit of let down and in this case, I didn’t think that it was completely successful. Part of that is because I found Eleanor’s character more than a bit irritating and while some of her asides to the reader were entertaining, others seemed a bit pointless.
The main problem however was the over use of the footnotes. The sheer number of them made the story difficult to follow and I’m not sure what the point of them was. It is possible that in a physical book, they might not have been so intrusive but they definitely spoilt the reading experience for me.
I’m sorry that I didn’t enjoy this book more but I am grateful to Net Galley and the publishers for giving me the chance to read it.

I struggled to get into this book in spite of the multitude of positive Goodread reviews. The main issue for is that yhe story didn't seem to go anywhere for such a long time. I may return to it at a later date but currently this isn't the book for me.

Rating: 1.3/5

Author, Catherine Mack, is perhaps better known as Catherine McKenzie, but has adopted the pseudonym to accompany this switch in genre. "Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies" features fictional crime writer, Eleanor Dash, who finds herself in the middle of an actual murder mystery case while on a promotional book tour in Italy. I was attracted to the book by its premise and was looking forward to an engaging, fun read - but my experience was far less enjoyable than I had hoped.

The story itself is okay - not the greatest, but decent enough to pass the time with. It has a cosy mystery at its heart that follows the accepted structure for the genre. The setting is appealing enough and the cast of characters should offer enough potential for a mixture of some fun and some intrigue. I recently read the wonderful "Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect" by Benjamin Stevenson and the format of this novel has a number of striking similarities: The central character is an author who stumbles into the middle of a murder mystery; the writer breaks "the fourth wall" and speaks directly to the reader to involve them in the mystery; and the writer describes the fictional structure they are following in constructing the work of fiction. However, whereas I loved "Everyone on This Train ...", I found "Every Time I Go on Vacation ..." to be a poor facsimile by comparison.

Be that as it may, there should still have been enough going for this book for it not to be a one-star-read. So what went wrong? Footnotes! For some ill-advised reason the author decided it would be a good idea to litter the narrative with footnotes. I am not averse to this technique, per se - but it does need to be done well if you are going to go down that track. Jasper Fforde has regularly used footnotes in his books and to good effect, adding an extra dimension to the storytelling. Sadly, Catherine Mack does not execute it very well, at all. There are far too many and rather than enhancing the narrative they suck the life out of it and the result is anything but enjoyable. I hate not finishing a book, but there were many times I was sorely tempted to give up on this.

I believe that this book (and the series that will follow) is being dramatised by the author for the small screen. That medium may actually suit the subject matter better, as there won't be any of the footnotes that slaughtered the reading experience.

As ever, I would still like to convey my thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying an ARC in return for an honest review. It is a pity I was not in a position to pass more favourable comment on this occasion.

A good premise and quite a fun read but I was quite put off by the many footnotes littered throughout, which I felt really detracted from my enjoyment of the book.

Fun, Frothy Mystery..
The first in a new series of mysteries featuring Eleanor Dash - author of the Vacation Mysteries - as we join her on a madcap book promotion tour of Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Needless to say not much is to proceed to plan and murder is most definitely part of the game. Fun, frothy, sharp and engaging mystery with a beguiling backdrop, a likeable protagonist and a pacy plot populated with a deftly drawn cast of characters.

I tore through this - fresh, funny and intriguing. I loved the authorial wink to camera, although I imagine my enjoyment was heightened because I'm a mystery reader / writer, this wouldn't be entry level crime! But for long time readers it was a Horowitz like treat. One small quibble - the footnotes didn't work on the version on my Kindle so I imagine the print version would be far more enjoyable

Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies by Catherine Mack was such a good fun read. This is the ultimate holiday read!

Eleanor Dash is the author of the Vacation Mysteries and is on a book tour on the Amalfi Coast in Italy with her sister Harper, a group of fellow authors including an ex-boyfriend, Connor (the real-life hero in her books and another ex-boyfriend) and a group of fans including her super-fan/stalker. What could possibly go wrong?!

Eleanor fell into writing this series of books and now wants to free herself of the shackles of the series by killing off her leading man in the book. She’s plotting how to end the series in her upcoming book, but then life starts imitating art, and Connor is convinced that someone is really trying to kill him on the book tour. The only problem is that there are so many possible suspects……

The style is rather light-hearted, fun and very relaxed - I really felt that Catherine was talking to me. At one point Catherine Mack invites the reader to guess ‘whodunnit’, which was rather fun. I found the musings on how authors view Goodreads, rather entertaining!

Even though in this book, Eleanor is trying to kill off her series of Vacation Mysteries books, this book is set up for a sequel. I hope that that is the case, and I can’t wait to read it!

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Pan Macmillan, for making the e-ARC available to me in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this eARC of 'Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies.' By Catherine Mack.

Everyone, the fourth wall has been broken and what fun it was viewing that. 'Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies' is such a fun story - obviously with that title, it has to be fun - where our main character is an author herself. Mack's witty writing just made this so fun and it captured me when usually this genre fails to do so. The only reason I'm not giving it a higher rating is just because it felt too predictable, if you are someone who enjoys predictable plots then this will be perfect but I like to be shocked more.

For absolutely NOTHING to have happened in the first 20% of a supposed 'mystery' novel except so many unnecessary footnotes that you want to punch someone and the authors attempt to be funny through a character who seems to have taken leave of her brain - I'm not continuing. Maybe it'll come across better in print, I don't know, but LORD JESUS those footnotes! They add nothing! Had I not just read Benjamin Stevenson's 'Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect' (from whom the general vibe of 'author talking to reader / using footnotes to give clues' has almost been lifted verbatim), I might have found something to enjoy about this book. But honestly? Its vapid, unpleasant, annoying main character, its deathly slow pacing, a muddled plot that just kept throwing things at the wall hoping they would stick - it's not happening. DNF.