Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyage for giving me an ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own!
So I'm not sure how many know this but I'm an absolute sucker for Ally Carter. As a Gallagher Girls graduate, I will follow her into battle. So when I saw her new book and saw that one of the comps was Knives Out (A movie I adore), I jumped on it.
Synopsis: Maggie Chase, cozy mystery writer, hates Christmas (Although, honestly, it's more like Christmas hates her). A year after her disastrous divorce, Maggie receives an anonymous gift, an all expenses paid trip to England over the upcoming Christmas holiday. Unfortunately, Ethan Freakin Wyatt, thriller novel writer and her nemesis, got a similar invitation.
Once they arrive, they meet their mystery host is none other Eleanor Ashley, the Duchess of Death and Maggie's icon. It would be an absolute dream come true if it wasn't for Ethan's stupid smug, handsome face being there.....Or for Eleanor's sudden disappearance from her locked office 2 days later.
Snowed in with no cell reception, Maggie and Ethan quickly realize something more nefarious is at play and they must work together to figure out what's happening and find Eleanor before someone gets hurt. Not an ideal way to spend Christmas but not Maggie's worse!
Review: Ally Carter continues to nail her balancing act of romantic and cozy mystery. Sometimes when a writer plays around with two genres, one side can overpower the other but not here. I never felt annoyed at one storyline overshadowing the other and I felt both elements supported the one another.
We have a great cast of suspects: The Duke and Dukette Duchess, the arrogant nephew, the writer, the doctor, the lawyer, the detective all with their invites and personal histories with Eleanor. The giant mansion with its secrets and seemingly endless murder weapons. As the book progresses, we quickly realize that it's not just one mystery our duo must untangle. While reading the denouement, I never felt like any particular reveals came out of nowhere or cheated. Much like Knives Out, I felt the pieces come together right as our duo exposed the culprit(s). Carter still kept a few pieces up her sleeves though, for the end.
That said, I think the thing I'm most struck by in this book is how close to home Maggie's struggles hit and how angry it made me.
Let me try again. In Carter's other work, our protagonist gets thrown into extraordinary situations but it usually feels par for the course. A spy sister, a teenaged thief from a family of thieves, a spy school alum, etc. Yes, they are in their impossible positions but they're The Main Characters (TM). Of course, they're dealing with this! Even Ethan, with his good looks and secret past feels out of reach for us mere mortals but Maggie? Maggie's struggles are so real and close to home that it makes me want to fight someone.
Throughout the book, we get more of Maggie's background and she's spent so much of her life being gaslit and told to make herself smaller. I won't spoil anything but as both a woman of color and as a writer, the level of causal bullying Maggie's had to endure felt straight out of conversations I've had with friends. Still, despite all of that, Maggie carries a defiant spirit, a mix of quick wit, kindness and feralness that those monsters couldn't snuff out.
And as for Ethan, my giant numpty (I mean that affectionately) with his quick quips and lingering stares. We spend the first 46% of the book solely in Maggie's POV, both in the present and in flashbacks. Through Maggie, we quickly learn that Ethan definitely is a loud, (Some could say annoying) flirtatious man who plays it close to the chest. With every insult and death threats, Maggie gives him, he laughs it off before charming the nearest person. Through the book, though, we see that he's not just the Leather Jacket Guy novelist that she thinks he is. And then we get his POV and I was kicking my feet as we see the world and Maggie from his eyes. Bravo for Carter for pulling off that off.
I really love this couple. I love how we see Maggie spread her wings and trust herself while we see Ethan ground himself and drops his guard. I've seen other books do a similar dynamic but this might be one of my favorites.
(BTW, just in case Ally Carter is actually reading this, while I am a big fan, please don't invite me over for Christmas to solve mysteries. I'm too jumpy of a person and I'm not a Christmas person. I'd much prefer us discussing Scarecrow and Mrs. King or Remington Steele.)
Overall, another banger from Carter, I give it 5 stars.
TW: Gaslighting, poisoning, brief blood, on page panic attack, claustrophobia, arson, stabbing, death of parents,
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