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.

‘Every Time I Go On Vacation, Someone Dies’ by Catherine Mack is a very interesting and unique book about books, publishing and murder in the sun. We follow Eleanor, author of the popular fiction-based-on-reality ‘Vacation Mysteries’ series as she is joined on a tour of Italy by her sister/assistant Harper, members of the ‘Vacation Mysteries Extended Universe’ including Connor (the real-life inspiration for Book 1 who is still extorting her for royalties many instalments later) and a number of fellow authors/hangers-on, as well as twenty of her biggest fans.

I really liked the way so many suspects were floated throughout the novel, and that the tension was built so high even before the first fatality. I enjoyed the sly pokes at the publishing industry and laughed out loud many times as I was reading. The novel was also elevated by its immersive setting.

While I enjoyed the fourth wall breaking and encouragement to solve the mystery myself, I wasn’t so keen on the number of footnotes in this novel. I felt they distracted from the flow of the story (though I do think they were harder to ignore in the format I was reading, so perhaps this would be better in the final print). Despite this stylistic ick, I was very excited that the epilogue set up a second book beginning with a murder at a luxurious wedding - can’t wait to read that one!

Overall, I am giving this one four stars. It reminds me of the second Knives Out film (successful people, brought together somewhere fabulous, where everyone has a motive for mischief) and ‘Everyone on this Train is a Suspect’ by Benjamin Stevenson / ‘A Line To Kill’ by Anthony Horowitz because of the literary suspects list!

A really great story, although definitely more light hearted than my usual dark thrillers. Nonetheless this was excellent, clever and funny. Brilliant x

The life imitating art element of the story added lots of excitement to the book, I thoroughly enjoyed it overall.

Eleanor Dash has plans for her book tour, and they do not include having it derailed by overly-enthusiastic fans, possible stalkers, and definite murderer! But she may not have much choice.

Author of a popular series of vacation mysteries, her book tour on the Italian coast is meant to be the precursor to killing off her MC. But when there's an attempt on the life of a charming con artist who's partly inspired her character, find herself unwillingly dragged into the investigation...

I enjoyed, among other things, the meta aspect of this story - namely, that it features a writer who writes about murder mysteries in this murder mystery book!

The story is delivered with light touch, featuring amusing characters and their engaging antics. It was a nice variation on my usual reading fare of chilling psychological thrillers, and will be enjoyed by most readers who like a bit of fun served as a side dish in their murder mysteries. It gets 3.5 stars.