ALC Book Review: It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Murder (Kiss, Merry, Kill #2) by Ally Carter

October 12, 2026October 13, 2026 GoodeyReadsLeave a comment

Rating: ★★★★★
Audience: Holiday Mystery Romance
Length: 300 pages
Author: Ally Carter
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: October 13th, 2026
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

This limited deluxe edition paperback will feature stenciled edges and cover effects – available on the first printing only, so pre-order now!

A billionaire’s grandson and the housekeeper’s daughter square off in this cat-and-mouse holiday romance-mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year.

Ella Chambers didn’t kill Liam Montgomery.

If she had, she certainly wouldn’t have done it outside his family’s mansion during the Christmas party of the year. She definitely wouldn’t have loaded his body into the trunk of her car. And she absolutely would not have announced to the town that the boy who ruined her life ten years ago was “so dead to her.”

But now Liam is missing—nothing but a bloody spot on the drive and a host of unanswered questions—and Ella is the only person who knows he’s still alive.

So it’s up to her to prove it.

Liam Montgomery didn’t want to die.

But, it turns out, when you’re the sole heir to a billionaire, someone might want you dead. Luckily for Liam, being dead works for him.

Now he’s on the hunt for a killer. Unfortunately, Ella is on the hunt for him.

She’ll have to prove he’s still alive to clear her name, but that’s easier said than done in a quaint mountain town where everyone knows your story but no one knows the truth. Can the billionaire’s grandson and the housekeeper’s daughter join forces to catch a killer? Or is their past too steeped in secrets and lies?

As the storm of the century blows in, every step will bring these two childhood rivals closer to a killer—and each other.

Because, this Christmas, only one thing is it’s beginning to look a lot like murder.

Thank you to the publisher for an ALC.

I LOVED THIS BOOOOOOK.

This might be my new favorite of Ally Carter’s. I was down bad from the beginning and it did not let up (complimentary).

The mutual pining between Ella and Liam was top notch. As was the banter. It was sassy and heated and full of *oh my gosh kiss already* nonsense that I adore. The cat and mouse vibes are 100% accurate and you have to go with the audiobook!! Dual narration was top tier. I loved both narrators.

I kind of forgot it was Christmas in this story? But that didn’t bug me at all. I was locked in to the mystery and wondering where things were going next. I liked the the drama and turmoil It does lean on the heavier side (see content warnings) yet it didn’t overwhelm the plot to me and worked well to amplify the themes.

The romance was tender and nuanced. I liked that they both learned new things about each other and found ways to work together. They both had a protective streak I was obsessed with. There was emotional depth and this longing for home (as a person) between Ella and Liam I could not get enough of.

Overall audience notes:
– Christmas Mystery + Romance
– Language: low
– Romance: closed door
– Violence: moderate
– Content warnings: loss of a parent (cancer), murder, attempted murder, gun violence, loss of a grandparent, other mentions of cancer

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Book Review: Cover Story by Susan Rigetti

May 29, 2023June 30, 2022 GoodeyReadsLeave a comment

Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Contemporary Fiction
Length: 368 pages
Author: Susan Rigetti
Publisher: William Morrow
Release Date: April 5th, 2022
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Netflix’s Inventing Anna and Hulu’s The Dropout meets Catch Me If You Can, a captivating novel about an ambitious young woman who gets trapped in a charismatic con artist’s scam.

After a rough year at NYU, aspiring writer Lora Ricci is thrilled to land a summer internship at ELLE magazine where she meets Cat Wolff, contributing editor and enigmatic daughter of a clean-energy mogul. Cat takes Lora under her wing, soliciting her help with side projects and encouraging her writing.

As a friendship emerges between the two women, Lora opens up to Cat about her desperate struggles and lost scholarship. Cat’s solution: Drop out of NYU and become her ghostwriter. Lora agrees and, when the internship ends, she moves into Cat’s suite at the opulent Plaza Hotel. Writing during the day and accompanying Cat to extravagant parties at night, Lora’s life quickly shifts from looming nightmare to dream-come-true. But as Lora is drawn into Cat’s glamorous lifestyle, Cat’s perfect exterior cracks, exposing an illicit, shady world.

A whip-smart and delightfully inventive writer, Susan Rigetti brilliantly pieces together a perceptive, humorous caper full of sharp observations about scam culture. Composed of diary entries, emails, FBI correspondence, and more, Cover Story is a fresh, fun, and wholly original novel that takes readers deep into the codependency and deceit found in a relationship built on power imbalance and lies.

WELL THAT WAS WILD.

This was a total bookstagram made me do it read. I didn’t have a clue what it was about, I just picked it up and then DEVOURED it. The fast paced nature of email, text and diary entries make this a story you can’t look away from.

And it was worth it. That ending blew my mind. I had picked up on a couple of the subtle pieces mentioned throughout, yet I was still flabbergasted at how everything worked out in the end. It was perfectly convoluted and insanely well written.

Some of the diary entries did start to feel repetitive and drawn out to where I started skimming towards the end. Otherwise though, this is a great mystery of which I’m hardly saying anything to the pages within because I highly recommend you go into this book as blind as possible!

Overall audience notes:

Fiction / Mystery
Language: a little
Violence: low

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Book Review: Smoke Show (Deadlights Cove #1) by B. Perkins and Aimee Vance

October 31, 2022October 13, 2022 GoodeyReadsLeave a comment

Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Paranormal Romance
Length: 346 pages
Author: B. Perkins & Aimee Vance
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: July 19th, 2022
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

When the dean of Bishop College in Boston threatened to close Petra Ambrose’s Pre-Revolutionary American History department, she could feel all of her work towards her dream career slipping through her fingers. To her dismay, students weren’t interested in American Puritanical culture and the status of women in their time, not unless it involved trendy witches glamourized in modern society.

In a last hope to save her job, Petra was tasked with finding something new and exciting to draw in more students. Not exactly sure where to start, she headed up the coast to explore sites other than cliche and touristy Salem.

Small-town Maine had her imagining a quaint village straight out of a romance novel on the water. To some extent, she found it, with the quirky, nosy neighbors, but Deadlights Cove was entirely too dingy to be run by its no-nonsense mayor. Plus, everyone in town seemed to be in on some joke at her expense, none more so than the mischievous and overly friendly bartender, Blaze. Far too handsome for his own good, the man had the unfair ability to irritate her more than anyone else ever had while simultaneously setting her heart racing.

With obstacles popping up at every turn, Petra was ready to throw her hands up and go back to the drawing board for a new strategy until she wound up at the center of a murder investigation.

Nothing was as it seemed in Deadlights Cove, and Petra could have just unearthed more than she’d ever imagined. But was discovering the truth about this town worth giving up everything she’d worked so hard for?

Follow Petra and Blaze’s story, along with the quirky band of local misfits, through the Deadlights Cove series, beginning with book one, Smoke Show.

GREAT FOR THE SEASON.

Read this on a whim (and from a friend’s recommendation) and it hit the spot. This is a hidden gem for the paranormal romance genre!

I loved this small town and all of the characters. There’s all sorts of mythical types (demons, angels, shifters, witches, etc.) and they all fit into the story perfectly. Great autumn vibes for the setting that set the mood.

Petra was a great FMC. Had no major complaints and just enjoyed watching her explore Deadlights Cove and coming to terms with the new world surrounding her. Blaze was a swoony cinnamon roll. I loved their connection and build. It’s a bit insta-y for me, but over time I thought it all worked out just fine. There were a lot of good communication moments and I loved the way the third act was handled.

This leans on the lighter side and absolutely made me laugh out loud a few times. I can’t wait to read book two.

Overall audience notes:

Paranormal Romance
Language: some strong
Romance: two open; low-med explicit
Violence: medium
Trigger/Content Warnings: murder

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Book Review: Truly Devious (Truly Devious #1) by Maureen Johnson

October 2, 2019August 29, 2019 GoodeyReads4 Comments

Rating: ☆☆ 1/2
Audience: Young adult contemporary mystery
Length: 416 pages
Author: Maureen Johnson
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: January 16th, 2018
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place” he said, “where learning is a game.”

Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym, Truly Devious. It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history.

True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder.

UNFORTUNATELY. I WAS BORED.

The entire time y’all. I kept reading thinking things were going to amp up, and they never did. And I know it’s a series, but I was more annoyed that I felt like I got ZERO answers than wanting to read the second book. I even had a bookish friend who told me what happens in book two because I really didn’t want to read it (though I will say, it does seem moderately more interesting in case you want to pick it up).

It took til about 200 pages (halfway-ish) for anything to happen. I was way more interested in the flashbacks where the original murder had taken place than I was with Stevie at school. Most of the story focused on being in school and meeting other students (which were all trying way too hard).

The original story was interesting and I wanted that to play a bigger role in the present timeline. That really drove the story for me.

I hated most of the side characters other than Nate and Janelle. This group of three were building a solid friendship and I was enjoying seeing that dynamic. They were supporting each other and being kind when Stevie made some bad choices acting as a wannabe Sherlock Holmes (not on board with her going through people’s things).

I did NOT GET THE RELATIONSHIP WITH DANIEL. It came out of literally nowhere. Luckily, not in an instant-love kinda way, but just a flat-out, wait all of a sudden we’re making out kinda way. I did become a fan of Daniel towards the end of the story though. He was probably my favorite character.

Overall audience notes: