Smitchy's Reviews > Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

Eleanor dash is a high flying author. Her best selling Vacation Mysteries series has been going for 10 years and has nine books so when her publisher decides that a promo tour through key locations in Italy is just the thing to celebrate a decade on the best seller lists Eleanor doesn't think twice! But she was not counting on rival authors, a stressful relationship with her sister (who is also her assistant), two ex-boyfriends, passionate fans, a stalker, oh, and someone trying to kill her!

Dazzling scenes set in the tourist hotspots and glitzy places on the Italian coast serve a backdrop for Eleanor and her fellow authors to puzzle out the mystery of who wants her dead before someone actually succeeds.

This is a fun beach read, or if like me you are here in the Victorian winter and you want to dream of hotter climes, the undemanding story and colourful cast of characters make it easy to enjoy the setting.

Like in Benjamin Stevenson's books (Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone & Everyone on This Train is a Suspect) the narrator is constantly breaking the fourth wall to let the reader know little extra things about themselves or others in their life, and Eleanor straight out tells us she is an unreliable narrator.

I did find the authors constant asides (I was listening to the audio version so couldn't skim over the footnotes), inane pop culture references (I think this was meant to make it feel "current" but honestly is just going to date the book really badly), and their recaps (like an American reality TV show you could hardly go a chapter without some sort of recap) just a tad obnoxious. But I don't know, maybe I am in the minority?

I didn't find the "twist" particularly surprising, but I enjoyed the journey.