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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Loved all the interactive puzzles and how there was actually so much information, that you couldn't figure it all out at the beginning.
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A Most Puzzling Murder is an incredibly unique mystery novel, featuring several “choose your own adventure” style scenes and many puzzles of varying difficulties and skill sets. I really enjoyed it from start to finish, and of course I did read all possible avenues for the choose your own adventure scenes after selecting mine, because how could I not? Some of the puzzles did have me stumped at first, but I love that you can email the main character to get hints should you need them. The author, Bianca Marais, also has an incredibly helpful downloadable puzzle workbook on her website for those reading on kindle or audiobook, so I utilized that so I could work through the puzzles.
I did read this partially on kindle and partially on audio, and I found I actually preferred the audio format! I usually am not a huge fan of audiobooks, but A Most Puzzling Murder is truly fantastic on audio! The narration reminded me so much of the older Nancy Drew computer games, which may be a niche reference but is so, so accurate. The tone and cadence the narrator uses was very reminiscent of those games. I’m not sure if that was an intentional choice, but I really loved it nonetheless!
This book was a really fun blend of fantasy and mystery, two of my favorite genres, so it’s really no surprise that I enjoyed it so much. I would definitely recommend it in any format, but like I said above, I personally would lean towards audio for this one if you were a fan of those Nancy Drew computer games growing up (or let’s be real, still to this day) as it provides a nice dose of nostalgia.
Thank you Mira and The Hive for the early review copy and ALC of A Most Puzzling Murder. All opinions are my own!
I did read this partially on kindle and partially on audio, and I found I actually preferred the audio format! I usually am not a huge fan of audiobooks, but A Most Puzzling Murder is truly fantastic on audio! The narration reminded me so much of the older Nancy Drew computer games, which may be a niche reference but is so, so accurate. The tone and cadence the narrator uses was very reminiscent of those games. I’m not sure if that was an intentional choice, but I really loved it nonetheless!
This book was a really fun blend of fantasy and mystery, two of my favorite genres, so it’s really no surprise that I enjoyed it so much. I would definitely recommend it in any format, but like I said above, I personally would lean towards audio for this one if you were a fan of those Nancy Drew computer games growing up (or let’s be real, still to this day) as it provides a nice dose of nostalgia.
Thank you Mira and The Hive for the early review copy and ALC of A Most Puzzling Murder. All opinions are my own!
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Ahhh! I wanted to like this book so much! But unfortunately the execution suffered. The description drew me in especially as I had just read a similar book that used the interactive story that had stops in play so you could figure out the puzzles and it was done really well. This one, not so much.
I’m not going to harp on things as I am reviewing the audiobook but I wanted to mention that
1. while it’s great that their is a off on the authors site that you can download or print out to assist audiobook readers in the task at hand, it didn’t work for me. For one, it’s not accessible. I realize many people read audiobooks who do not depend on them due to disability. But for those that do that PDF is woefully inadequate. While you can use assistive technology to narrate the addendum to you, it is too difficult to navigate in order to use it effectively.
2. When the stops happen it gives you choices according to what you choose to do. If you choose not to solve the puzzles you still have to look up “the answer” before moving on rather than having the characters figure them out and through the prose show you how it falls in the story. Because that doesn’t happen it relegates the puzzles as a marketing tactic rather than a true interactive book.
3. Lastly, the book had so much information and POVs and sub plots that’s it’s too much, especially since it’s also fantasy (which somehow I didn’t get when I requested the book). It was as if the author had all these ideas and instead of grouping them together and saving some ideas for future works, she threw everything into this one book. The whole throw “everything under the kitchen sink and see what sticks” concept. It’s just way too much and the book suffers for it.
Back to the audiobook part of the review. It was narrated by Dylan Moore who did all the voices and POVs. Unfortunately at the 1x speed ahead spoke so incredibly slow that it was painful. So much so that I thought I may have accidentally slowed it down as it sounded like she was trying to speak whilst in a vat of molasses. Obviously I had to speed it up significantly to have it passable for natural speech but unfortunately it changed the pitch so much that it made it tolerable but not any more enjoyable.
With all that said, for a fully sited individual that can read the physical book that enjoys fantasy and detective fiction, while it has issues, it is inventive and it can be a great way to really connect with a book. So if you want to give it a go, it comes out June 10th 2025.
I am thankful to have gotten a complimentary audio ALC from Harlequin Audio through NetGalley to read which gave me the opportunity to voluntarily leave a review.
My rating system since GoodReads doesn’t have partial stars
⭐️ Hated it
⭐️⭐️ Had a lot of trouble, prose issues, really not my cup of tea (potentially DNF’d or thought about it)
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Meh, it was an ok read but nothing special
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really enjoyed it! Would recommend to others
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Outstanding! Will circle back and read again
I’m not going to harp on things as I am reviewing the audiobook but I wanted to mention that
1. while it’s great that their is a off on the authors site that you can download or print out to assist audiobook readers in the task at hand, it didn’t work for me. For one, it’s not accessible. I realize many people read audiobooks who do not depend on them due to disability. But for those that do that PDF is woefully inadequate. While you can use assistive technology to narrate the addendum to you, it is too difficult to navigate in order to use it effectively.
2. When the stops happen it gives you choices according to what you choose to do. If you choose not to solve the puzzles you still have to look up “the answer” before moving on rather than having the characters figure them out and through the prose show you how it falls in the story. Because that doesn’t happen it relegates the puzzles as a marketing tactic rather than a true interactive book.
3. Lastly, the book had so much information and POVs and sub plots that’s it’s too much, especially since it’s also fantasy (which somehow I didn’t get when I requested the book). It was as if the author had all these ideas and instead of grouping them together and saving some ideas for future works, she threw everything into this one book. The whole throw “everything under the kitchen sink and see what sticks” concept. It’s just way too much and the book suffers for it.
Back to the audiobook part of the review. It was narrated by Dylan Moore who did all the voices and POVs. Unfortunately at the 1x speed ahead spoke so incredibly slow that it was painful. So much so that I thought I may have accidentally slowed it down as it sounded like she was trying to speak whilst in a vat of molasses. Obviously I had to speed it up significantly to have it passable for natural speech but unfortunately it changed the pitch so much that it made it tolerable but not any more enjoyable.
With all that said, for a fully sited individual that can read the physical book that enjoys fantasy and detective fiction, while it has issues, it is inventive and it can be a great way to really connect with a book. So if you want to give it a go, it comes out June 10th 2025.
I am thankful to have gotten a complimentary audio ALC from Harlequin Audio through NetGalley to read which gave me the opportunity to voluntarily leave a review.
My rating system since GoodReads doesn’t have partial stars
⭐️ Hated it
⭐️⭐️ Had a lot of trouble, prose issues, really not my cup of tea (potentially DNF’d or thought about it)
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Meh, it was an ok read but nothing special
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really enjoyed it! Would recommend to others
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Outstanding! Will circle back and read again
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes