I was sent an ARC copy of this book for the purpose of review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.
So happy to be on the blog tour for Fiona Leitch today, thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources! Read on to find out more about the book, the author and to read my review!
About The Book
Famous crime writer Bella Tyson is hired to co-host a Murder Mystery cruise, on a luxury liner sailing from Southampton to New York. She’s expecting an easy ride; fun and games, surrounded by amateur sleuths and fans of her books, all the while staying in a deluxe cabin and enjoying the spa and the amazing restaurants on board, culminating in a visit to one of her favourite cities in the world – the Big Apple.
She’s NOT expecting to be stuck on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic with her two least favourite people in the world, her hot but unfaithful bastard ex-husband Joel Quigley and fellow crime writer, bitch goddess and Twitter frenemy, Louise Meyers. And when real live dead bodies start turning up – as well as fake not-really-dead bodies – Bella’s dreams of being pampered on the high seas turn sour.
Accused of a murder she would have liked to commit but didn’t, and helped (or hindered) by a gang of unlikely detectives, can Bella find out who the real murderer is before the ship reaches its destination and New York’s finest drag her off?
My Review
The whole plot of this book sounded intriguing to me. As someone who loves murder mysteries and the crime writers who tell the tales, I couldn’t wait to read about a famous crime writer who happened to come across a murder onboard a ship. The idea of a Murder Mystery cruise sounds like something I’d love to do and I was intrigued to see how the author was going to weave real murders into the plot around the fake ones for the murder mystery event.
This is the second book in the series and although I hadn’t read the first book in the series, this didn’t impair on my reading. The book works well as a stand alone book as well as a sequel and had some really interesting characters who you grow to love and some really vile ones too. I thought I had the killer pegged but then we were taken on a wild ride with plenty of twists and turns.
The culmination of the novel was dramatic and I didn’t see it coming at all – however it makes perfect sense when you think about the whole book you have just read.
I can’t wait to read more in the series as I love Bella as a character and Joel and Will are really interesting too. Overall, this was a fantastic read that kept me gripped and I am looking forward to more.
About The Author
Fiona Leitch is a writer with a chequered past. She’s written for football and motoring magazines, DJ’ed at illegal raves and is a stalwart of the low budget TV commercial, even appearing as the Australasian face of a cleaning product called ‘Sod Off’. After living in London and Cornwall she’s finally settled in sunny New Zealand, where she enjoys scaring her cats by trying out dialogue on them. She spends her days dreaming of retiring to a crumbling Venetian palazzo, walking on the windswept beaches of West Auckland, and writing funny, flawed but awesome female characters. Her debut novel and first in the Bella Tyson series, ‘Dead in Venice’, was published by Audible as one of their Crime Grant finalists. Fiona is represented by Lina Langlee at the North Literary Agency.
You can find her on her website, Twitter and Pinterest.
You can buy the book on Amazon here {affiliate link}.
Oo this sounds like my kind of story line! I love a good mystery that makes you want to keep on reading 🙂
This looks like a fun book. My husband writes cozy mysteries for a living
A murder mystery does sound like an interesting story and one where you would want to keep reading until the end!!
My mummy is from Southampton and likes going on cruises! So this would be perfect for her (just as long as it doesn’t put her off!), we love a good Crime read!
My wife is a big reader and I’ve recommended her this book, she has read all sorts this year and would probably enjoy this, great review
Ah I really would love this book, it sounds like it has shades of an Agatha Christie book set up on a boat,
Oh this sounds very interesting, it reminds me of when I used to watch the Jessica Fletcher programmes
That’s great that the ending was a shock, there’s nothing worse than being able to guess an ending. This sounds like a really great book x
Oh love the sound of this book. Definitely sound like my kind of read and love a good shocking ending 🙂