I really liked the writing and style of this book! took me right back to her first book and i remembered how much i loved it!

In this quirky take on a “whodunit”, we meet the nasty financier Anthony Wistern just as he dies at his elaborate birthday party. Upon arriving at the processing centre for the “other side”, Anthony (who cannot remember the final half hour of his life) finds out that he is unable to move on until he works out exactly how and why he died. We then follow what happens next via three characters – Anthony, who is able to watch his family on little screens; his wife Olivia, who is left dealing with their four spoiled children; and “the Sleuth”, a local armchair-detective turned investigator, determined to solve the mystery of how Anthony died.

This is a fun take on the genre, and it was interesting to watch Anthony’s reaction to his family carrying on without him after he’s gone. I enjoyed all of the characters – awful as they were – and the conclusion was satisfying.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

Classic Bella Mackie, I thoroughly enjoyed this book just like her previous one. I was on the edge of my seat throughout and felt that the characters and story line were well fleshed out. Highly bingeable and hard to put down, I would recommend this one.

Anthony Wistern is wealthy beyond our imagination. He has a beautiful wife, a group of children and multiple properties, including one in the Cotswold. However, very quickly into our story Anthony died. The police think his death is just an accident, however a local crime blogger thinks different. And with a vast fortune up for grabs she thinks it is definitely his family. 

From the description I thought this was going to be a great, but pretty normal thriller. However Mackie added in an element of suprise when we get to live with Anthony after his death, in a kind of half way house in which he needs to find out how he died to move on. I loved this element of it, with Anthony desperate to work out the story and him watching how his family react from beyond the grave. 

This was a great read and really had me guessing until the end. With how much I loved this I really need to get around to How to kill your family which has sat on my shelf for ages.

This had the pace and grit that I enjoyed from Bellas book before…..twists and turns, humour, excellent characters and I couldn’t put it down! Loved it!

My first Bella Mackie book and it shan’t be my last! I loved the POV narrative which kept the plot pacy and the “the afterlife is an administrative office” vibe which always interests me.

Although I have enjoyed this authors previous book of how to kill your family, this book is still an overall great book but the concept doesn’t hit right, it was still an enjoyable read and some laughs along the way but it took me awhile to get through it

An interesting concept for a book😏. I enjoyed reading it but it was a bit too weird and wacky for me personalky. Definitely have me a few laughs with some very unlikable characters

An interesting take on the afterlife! A husband dies mysteriously at his own, very extravagant, 60th birthday party. He doesn't enter heaven or hell but the waiting area, He can't leave the waiting area until he remembers how he died. After his death back on earth, it is discovered that his investments had not been going well and he was in debt. Therefore there are plenty of theories about how Antony was killed! His beloved family have been so used to spending extravagantly and being looked after that all they are worried about is how life is going to continue! One daughter and her husband are struggling and were hoping for a hand out to keep them afloat. Olivia the wife had found out a while ago that Antony was not doing well and so had been squirrelling money aside with the help of her brother.
In the end Olivia dies falling down the stairs after a struggle with the son-in-law - an accident - but it didn't look good so he tried to fob it off on a would be reporter/sleuth who had been following the story of the family.
Olivia goes up to the waiting room too and bumps into Antony as she too has to work out how she had died. Quite comical and conniving.
In the end the brother runs off with all the assets that were saved. A fun read!

Hmm, this is a tricky one - I really liked How to kill your family, but sadly this one didn't quite hit the same levels for me - I can see its appeal and which customers will enjoy this but personally I'm afraid it wasn't for me.

I enjoyed this so much more than I expected! It was our Patreon buddy read for January over at @thatbookishclub and I purposely picked it to give me the kick up the ass I needed to finally get it ticked off my tbr 📖😂

This book has cemented the fact that I LOVE reading books that have chapter POV’s from hilarious and horrendous rich people 😂, there wasn’t a single likeable character in this book but I honestly didn’t mind as I had such a good time hating them!

A unique and darkly funny concept where the main character, a particularly unlikeable fellow, Ashley Wistern, gets trapped in a limbo state, after being found dead in his pond on his Cotswolds Estate during a party where pretty much every guest has a motive to bump him off.

Whilst he’s stuck in the waiting room, he tries to work out where it all went wrong before his next appointment in either Heaven or Hell. Another dark, twisted and darkly funny book from Bella Mackie. I love this author and will devour anything she writes.

Thank you to NetGalley, and the publishers, for allowing me to read and review this.

Highly recommended.

I absolutely ate this up. How To Kill Your Family was such a great read so I had high hopes for What A Way To Go and it did not disappoint. Such a fun premise and really well executed, the voices of the characters were all so clearly defined it was like I could picture exactly who they were and had zero idea who had done it. Can't wait to read what Mackie comes up with next!

This is a bit of a weird book.

Anthony Wistern is a wealthy powerful man. On the night of a party at his Cotswold house he is found dead in a pond. The story then switches between him in a waiting room in between heaven and hell trying to figure out his demise. The other his wife and children dissecting his life and pointing their fingers.

I initially liked the concept of the book. However, as it went on I found I was skimming the book as I lost interest and realised I wasn’t actually bothered by who did it.

While I appreciate the book's popularity, it was not for me. I didn't engage with the characters in this book at all and it all felt a little bit forced. I was sad not to enjoy it because I could see the heart of it there was a really clever idea, but it just wasn't for me.

Having had a mixed reaction to Mackie's debut, I must say I found it hard to put this one down. It was hilarious, completely unrealistic (but who cares), overly enjoyable and you feel every character got what they deserved!

What a way to go is full of dark humour and Bella Mackie isn’t afraid to write unlikeable and irredeemable characters but that’s the point of them. Mackie’s books shine a light on the worst parts of human beings. This book criticises the super wealthy and the breadth of what they are able to get away with whilst leading the reader down many twists and turns as we try to figure out how the main protagonist died in such a mysterious way.

A humorous murder mystery where just about everybody has good reason to murder the dislikable victim, even his closest family members but who actually did it.? Even the dead man himself is involved in searching for the solution. Great fun - highly recommended.

Unfortunately, despite the promising premise, this just didn’t live up to expectations.

I don’t have anything against unlikable characters in books, but I do need someone to root for, and in this tale Mackie gives us no one. Loathsome doesn’t do the Wistern family justice. And while there was probably a bit more to Clara than the others, she certainly wasn’t a character worth investing in.

The story did start off well but started to really drag after the first quarter so that by the end, I didn’t really care who had done what or why. The POV of the true crime sleuth was passably more interesting than that of wife Olivia or husband Anthony, but the character wasn’t well enough developed to elicit empathy. Nor did I find anything ‘brilliantly funny’ or ‘twisty’ in the writing.

In a nutshell: great idea, poor execution.

To be honest when I requested this, I didn’t read the blurb so I thought it was book 2 of how to kill your family-my mistake.
This was easy enough to get into, but I found myself feeling bored pretty early on and debated DNF.
I thought this was more my mood than the book, so I decided to carry on. It took a turn I wasn’t expecting and it was an intriguing concept.
Full of unlikeable characters with lots of secrets and lies, I wanted to find out what had happened and who the killer was, but unfortunately it failed to hold my interest.
Part of me felt it was a good book to dip in and out of when I didn’t have much time and the other part of me felt no motivation to pick it up, and ultimately I DNF at 60%
Nothing really had happened and I didn’t have it in me to carry on 😣