Meet 28-year-old influencer and celebrity blogger Coco Cline, who has started her own social media consulting firm in her hometown of Central Shores, Delaware. Her new clients, Sean and Olivia Chen, are ten days away from the grand opening of their specialty consignment shop when Coco stumbles across their store clerk Stacy dead behind the register.
Worried that a cloud of suspicion will ruin their chances of a successful business launch, the Chens ask Coco to work alongside the inexperienced Central Shores police force to speed up the investigation. Using her celebrity status and social media savviness, Coco realizes Stacy’s seemingly ordinary life was all an act.
Following a trail of cryptic online posts, confusing timelines, and muddied gossip, Coco and her friends discover Stacy’s questionable relationships just might be the reason for her untimely demise.
Until the 50% mark I thought this was a 3 star read and then suddenly I was hooked and audibly gasping at the reveals. The first half of the book wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t gripping. However by half way through it really got going and was a thrilling read for the remainder of the book.
I absolutely love reading murder mysteries but don’t read a lot of tongue in cheek mysteries. This was definitely more Agatha Raisin than Agatha Christie and that’s what I fancied reading at the time.
This book was a very light and fun murder mystery. Is that a thing? The murder happened really near to the start of the book and we didn’t previously meet the victim so I wasn’t emotionally attached. Although I did feel some annoyance towards the characters judging her romantic life.
I don’t think I necessarily liked any of the characters, the main characters were pretty self centred and were focussed on their influencer life. They were all also pretty well off and I suppose I just couldn’t relate to any of them. I did think it was weird that a long term and live in boyfriend would have their own flat…in the same area…either you live together or you don’t . It felt a bit odd to me. Despite not really liking the characters, they were fun to read about. Sort of in the same way I used to watch The Hills or The City, I couldn’t relate but I loved to see the fashion.
Coco and her band of friends were just hilarious and turning Miss Marple in the current time should not have worked. They obtained information that should have been private and ultimately cracked the case. I expected the police to refuse information but nope, they have loads of vital information to these amateur sleuths and just told them not to go snooping…If you enjoy some realism in your murder mysteries then this element may annoy you but I was looking for something fun and this was it.
This book was cleverly done! I didn’t start putting all the pieces together until the last third when it all came together and suddenly it all made sense. I did not see the big reveal coming and guessed two other killers before choosing the right one (a chapter before the reveal so it doesn’t count).
Extra points for not ending the book in the boringly predictable way that I feared it would. This is the first in a series and I’m really excited to see where the series goes and will be keeping an eye out for the next instalment! I do kind of wish I’d read this book in summer though because it was weird reading about a lovely sunny beach while there was snow up here in the North East of Scotland but that’s just a personal preference
Thank you to NetGalley who provided me with a this free ebook in exchange for an honest review
Kapowski Reads 