This month I have a murder mystery with a very unreliable narrator, another murder mystery with a teenage girl who cracks the case, and I don't know how to describe the last one.
For the Best by Vanessa Lillie Juliet is the CEO of a foundation, the morning after a major event at her foundation she is terribly hungover after getting blackout drunk. She learns that a major player in her foundation was murdered just after the event and her wallet was found near the dead man’s body. So of course she’s now accused of murder, however she cannot remember anything because she got blackout drunk that night. Juliet is a massively unreliable protagonist and an alcoholic. She starts a vlog so she can track down who actually killed Terrance and in the end she finds out the truth and it is pretty horrible for her. An awesome read, and I love that it took place in Rhode Island.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson I was totally into this one and now I want to read the rest of the series. Pip is a high school student in the fictitious town of Fairview, Connecticut. Five years prior a murder suicide took place. The most popular girl in school was murdered, and all the fingers pointed at the boyfriend who then committed suicide after sending an admission of guilt via text to his father. It doesn’t sit right with her, though. So she decides to investigate the murder and clear Sal, the murderer’s, name, as a project for school. The whole story is her investigating and turning up new evidence that the police had missed. She learns that the town’s sweetheart wasn’t so sweet and there were potentially a lot of people who wanted her dead. I was obsessed. Very well done.
In the Quick by Kate Hope Day This one was so incredibly original. It takes place in some undetermined time in the future. June is 12 and living with her aunt and uncle. Her uncle is a very famous engineer who developed a fuel cell for a space mission. He passes away and the ship is lost in space. Her aunt sends her to the astronaut training boarding school that the uncle founded despite the fact that she’s about 4 years too young to be there. She is obsessed with the ship that goes missing while trying to navigate being in this school where she’s too young and doesn’t know anyone and can’t relate to anyone. She’s put onto a team of students that is trying to make a robotic hand and she solves the problem and is bumped up to full on astronaut training. She figures out that the crew from the lost ship is still alive and has to convince everyone else that they’re still alive. Loved this one.
BJ Knapp is the author of Beside the Music, available for purchase here. Please sign up for the Backstage with BJ Knapp mailing list to get updates on events, signings, dog pictures and so much more.