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corinneschapterchatter 's review for:
A Most Puzzling Murder
by Bianca Marais
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