I enjoyed Bella Mackie's last book and was excited to read this one too. It was different and unexpected but enjoyable to read despite all the characters being unlikeable!

Having previously read , "How to Kill your Family", I was thrilled to be offered the opportunity to read Bella's new novel.
In the opening chapter you are thrown straight in and learn that Anthony Wistern is already dead and he needs to find out how with a genius and humourous take on the afterlife.
Every single character is unlikeable and yet I still couldn't put the book down!
Follow how life after death throws Anthony and his family more and more curveballs!

Of all the new books I've read recently, this is the one that stands out. It was a fun, enjoyable read which had me laughing out loud. I loved Bella Mackie's first novel and the follow-up didn't disappoint. Thanks to Netgalley.

I thoroughly enjoyed Bella Mackie’s book How To Kill Your Family and was really excited to see she has a new book coming out in September this year.

This is a darkly funny story about one of the MOST toxic and dysfunctional families EVER. Anthony Wistern is an influential, rich and adored financial guru. Married to the beautiful socialite Olivia they have four grown up children, several homes and a luxurious and enviable lifestyle.

It’s at his lavish 60th birthday celebrations with 200 of their closest friends in their Cotswold home that a freak and tragic accident leaves Anthony dead but that, believe it or not, is actually the beginning of his troubles.

Stuck in an afterlife holding centre, Anthony can’t go to his final resting place until he remembers exactly how he died and to do that he gets to watch his grieving family cope with his premature death and mourn his loss. Except, if you’ve read Bella Mackie’s books before you will know that isn’t exactly what happens especially if you are part of the Wistern family.

This story has 3 main narrators. We have Anthony, stuck in limbo having to face the truth about his death and his family. Olivia, the grieving widow who has a very troubled and uncomfortable relationship with her four children and finally, The Sleuth, a young woman fixated on true crime who happens to know the Wistern family and is determined to uncover the truth behind Anthony’s death.

Having read and ADORED Maz Evans’ Over My Dead Body in 2023, I was familiar with the “stuck in limbo” death scenario, and I did find myself comparing the books which was a shame, but I still enjoyed What A Way To Go however this was down to the absolutely awful characters involved rather than the humour.

This is the literary version of TV’s Succession and Dynasty and was full of twists and unexpected turns.

Was really rather disappointed in this. I had enjoyed the authors last book although I'd let is needed a bit of work so was hoping this would be better but if anything it was worse. It has such good promises and could have stood out among the whodunit books but the narrative and flow stopped that.
The pacing is off – nothing happened until the final quarter of the book, other than a lot of talking.
There is too much time spent repeating scenes from different POVs alongside meaningless conversations and description. The Multiple POVs by husband, wife and internet “sleuth” really bring very little to the table Anthony trapped in the death processing centre was a good unique idea but his voice was so alike his wife it was hard to really tell them apart would have been
much better as him as lone voice with newspaper cutting or interviews just something than long boring voices ,whilst there are some witty moments
Mackie already did the "aha! rich people! aren't they so terrible and selfish and isn't it funny!" shallow commentary with HTKYF and this book not only did that worse, but made it even shallower. Her writing makes her come across snotty. That being said some of it does come out more like satire so that makes it funny in places.
This book started well, but it dragged on and become boring I actually stopped caring what had happened.
It's 2.5 for me sorry Bella I loved the initial plot idea but it's way off the mark in terms of execution

This is a clever book about a horrible family. Told from three different points of view - Anthony, who was found dead and is in an after-life waiting room looking down on his surviving family , Anthony’s wife who knows much more than she is letting on and an online blogger who is desperate to solve the mystery of Anthony’s death. The mystery unravels slowly as each character tells their side of the story. A quirky read and a satisfying ending.

Anthony Wistern is having a great 60th birthday, despite one or two niggling little issues he has to resolve. He's wealthy, his wife has thrown him a fantastic party, his children are all in attendance, and yet for some reason now he's been whisked off to the processing centre and has to work out how he died. Was he murdered? There are a lot of reasons why he could have been, is anyone really sorry to see him go? His children are all scheming how to get what they want, his business is collapsing and his wife turns out to have been about to leave him, and he's trapped in the processing centre until he understands what happened.

If you enjoyed How to Kill Your Family, then this is even better. The view points switch between Anthony (from the afterlife), his wife Olivia and The Sleuth, a member of the true crime community who lives locally and is determined to work out what happened as more details emerge. Bella Mackie is quite sarky, which I enjoyed, and the book speeds along nicely. There's a lot of family back-stabbing and all of them are out for themselves, which makes them mostly terrible people but fun characters. I liked the concept as well, it was cleverly done and the ending was very satisfying.

Overall, a fun read!

This book is a fun mystery story with funny parts. It's like a whodunit but with a modern twist.

The funny bits were really good. But I wished the people in the story were different from each other. It was hard to tell them apart sometimes. I think it would be better if we saw the story from different people's points of view.

Even though parts of the story have been done before, it's still interesting because of the little details. I liked how the writer wrote the book too.

Overall, it's a good book and worth reading.

This was brilliant! Every family has a range of characters and the Wisterns are no different, despite having money. Wealthy parents, a young socialite, an opinionated middle sister, an older neurotic sister and an alternative brother. When their dad dies, a true crime enthusiast ups her social media posts and gets on the case. She is convinced that he was murdered and sets out to prove it. She digs around and finds out who might have a motive. Will she get there before she gets stopped by the family? There are twists and turns all the way through. There are laugh out loud moments and shock revelations. A great story told from the deceased dad, the mum and the true crime enthusiast.

I really enjoyed this book. The family, the pod cast, true life crime.
A financial wizard and his dysfunctional family. Dying in mysterious circumstances at his 60th birthday party.
Is it a tragic accident or murder? Then the news comes out about his financial misconduct. The list just keeps on getting longer but the police don't believe it's murder.
The family dynamics and sibling rivalry will make you smile.
Enjoy I did

Meet the Wisterns, dysfunctional family extraordinaire. There's Anthony, financial wizard and CEO of Wismere Investments, his ice-queen wife Olivia, and their four grown up children, Jemima, Fred, Lyra and Clara. To the outside world they appear to have it all; money, status and good looks. Nothing could be further from the truth.
What A Way To Go centres around Anthony's unfortunate demise on his 60th birthday, for which his wife Olivia has thrown an elaborate party.
His death is eventually ruled as accidental, but not everyone is satisfied with the ruling. Enter the self named "The Sleuth", a True Crime fanatic who believes Anthony was murdered, and embarks on an amateur investigation of their own, posting live recordings of their progress on YouTube.
The story is told from three POV'S: Olivia, The Sleuth, and Anthony. That's right folks, Anthony still has his say. Following his demise he finds himself in Death's departure lounge, watching over his family as he tries to remember how he died.
I really enjoyed this book. It was so well written everyone was a suspect, and I had a lot of fun trying to work out who killed Anthony. The big reveal, when it came, took me by surprise.
I loved the dark humour, and the characters, even though they didn't have a single redeeming quality between them.
What A Way To Go is a head scratcher of a whodunnit.
Thanks to HarperCollins UK and Netgalley for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Many thanks to netgalley, the author and Harper Collins for approving my request to read this book.

The story centres around the Wistern family after Anthony Wistern the husband of Olivia is found dead at his birthday party, the question is who done it?

What follows is a very fast paced, well written, funny who done it with hideously dysfunctional characters who I absolutely loved as much as I hated that will keep you guessing. I also loved the dark humour and sarcasm throughout the book.

Overall highly enjoyable, I would definitely recommend!

I found the pace of this book far too slow and it didn’t really compare to Bella’s first book so it gets a 3 star from me. Hopefully the next one will peak my interest again.

I had huge expectations for this book after loving Bella Mackie’s first book, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. I loved it!
The writing style is deliciously dark and unique. I was quickly drawn into the characters and intriguing plot.
It’s one of my favourite books this year and I’d definitely recommend it to all.

Objectively, this is a great whodunnit, with a satirical and modern take.
The wit stood out for me.
As for the characters, I kept wondering if we needed different POVs since their voices were not distinctive and distinguishable enough for me.
A third person POV and all characters fleshed out a bit more would have been a 5 star read in my very subjective opinion/taste.
Yet, considering the target audiences, I think my 3.5 stars deserve being rounded up to 4.
Certainly entertaining and despite aspects of the premise being before explored territory, the nuances make it fresh.
I quite like Mackie’s prose too.

Having enjoyed Bella Mackie's prior novel ‘How To Kill Your Family,’ I looked forward to her next novel. This isn’t as good as the original, but it is still a good read, if you can deal with the murdered victim telling his story from his new home that might be in heaven. The format used to tell the story, from three different points of view is interesting and carefully planned. The guy who died tells you his version of what happened, as he watches a screen in a holding room so he can see his family and friends at his 60th birthday party, where he was murdered. He’s forgotten how he died so also needs to find out what happened. His wife, Olivia, know a lot about his unsavoury side of life and gives her thoughts in version number 2. Finally, the local sleuth is also on hand to bring all the facts together. This is very different from her first book, but the high rate of sarcasm remains, and makes enjoyable fun reading.

It took me two months to read this book, which I think says a lot – I had high expectations after How To Kill Your Family (which I loved), but I really struggled with this one. I didn’t feel enthused about the world of the Wisterns, so I kept putting it off and it took a really determined effort to finish the book in the end.

The story focuses on the death of Anthony Wistern, a wealthy businessman, who is found dead at his 60th birthday party. His deeply unlikeable family squabble over the family assets, and the story is told via three voices: Anthony himself, who is in a holding facility trying to discover how he died, his wife Olivia and a true crime obsessive who lives nearby and is labelled ‘The Sleuth’.

Despite having three voices in the book, the tone is very similar – I didn’t feel like any of them had a distinctive style. Anthony and his wife were both equally acerbic and droll, and The Sleuth didn’t bring anything unique to the telling of the story. The children were introduced together without any real features or traits to set them apart, so just merged into one. The problem with having unlikeable characters is that there’s no-one to root for – it can’t just be a social commentary on the excesses of modern life. There needs to be someone who you find funny or hard done by to guide you through the privilege.

One thing I found especially irritating was the way that lines of dialogue were attributed to people via the phrase ‘that was so-and-so speaking’, as Anthony watched over them. Being an observer to the events in the living world meant there was a real disconnect between what was happening and the actual experience.

A lot of the observations were rather glib – almost as if the references to the class system had been crowbarred in. It gets pretty excruciating during a magazine extract where there’s lots of bracketed text describing other articles in the issue.

The pacing is also off – nothing happened until the final quarter of the book, other than a lot of talking. The ending is deeply underwhelming. I was hoping for a clever twist, as per How To Kill Your Family, but there was nothing.

All in all, I was relieved to get to the end of this one. It’s a good concept, but I think it would have benefited from a bit more editing.

I really loved Bella's first novel, and when I read the blurb for this one, I could sense another belter!
While it wasn't quite on a par with her first, I enjoyed it never the less. The action starts straight off and although the pace felt a little slow at times, I still really enjoyed it. Looming forward to more from Bella in the future.

I read Bella's first book and really enjoyed it so was excited to get a chance to read her latest offering.
I liked the style of swapping between characters perspectives and the idea of Anthony watching his family from the "waiting place"
It kept me guessing until the end, definitely worth a read.

A really fun read with an extremely original plot. A wonderful blend of comedy and darkness! I genuinely laughed out loud in several parts. Only wish it was twice as long so I could follow these despicably hilarious characters around more.