December 2, 2024
Donovan’s second whodunit featuring a ghostwriter turned sleuth (after The Busy Body) is a mixed bag. Crime novelist Belle Currer, who ghostwrites celebrity memoirs on the side, finds herself dealing with a real-life closed-circle murder mystery when she accepts an invitation to teach a writing class aboard a luxury cruise. Superstar author Payton Garrett, who first met Belle when they attended the same MFA program, has organized the Get Lit Cruise for wealthy “fans of literature” to attend lectures during a one-week trip across the Atlantic. Flora Fortescue, another MFA classmate, who believes Payton stole her idea for a novel about Lord Byron’s half sister, is among the passengers. As Belle promises in the prologue, three murders occur over the course of the trip, allowing her to flex her knowledge of detective fiction as she solves them one by one. Donovan’s attempts at humor frequently fall flat (Belle prefers white wine because it “sums me up so well: I’m white, and I have a tendency to whine”), and his heavy-handed foreshadowing drains the narrative of tension. While the plot delivers occasional jolts of fun, readers intrigued by the premise would be better off with Benjamin Stevenson’s Ernest Cunningham series. Agent: Abby Saul, Lark Group.
January 1, 2025
Murder strikes--and strikes and strikes--the Get Lit Cruise, which has attracted 275 aspiring female authors, including one killer. Belle Currer--not her real name, but the Charlotte Bront�-inspired byline she's used for ghostwriting credits and her one published mystery novel--has always played second fiddle to Payton Garrett, the MFA classmate who struck it rich as a writer and podcaster. Now that Payton's organized Get Lit, Belle's happy to be aboard theMerman Rivera, but not so happy that she fails to notice that her mystery-writing class is much smaller than the poetry class taught by Payton's wife, Nicole Root, or the romance class taught by Jessamine LaBouch�re (not her real name either), or of course the class taught by Payton herself. Intrigue is promised from the get-go by the presence of Flora Fortescue, another MFA classmate who's suing Payton for plagiarizing her unpublished biography of Lord Byron's half-sister, Augusta Leigh, for her novel, and by Belle's announcement early on that, in addition to dinners prepared by Michelin-starred chef Pierre Gas�oigne--one of three men aboard--the cruise will include three homicides before it ends. As she works to bond in one way with ship's doctor Joan Chen and in another way entirely with journalist Gideon Pereira, Payton's ex, Belle's chatty, self-deprecating first-person narrative keeps everything afloat before, during, and after those murders. If the windup feels a tad overextended, you may just be reacting to the claustrophobia stemming from those tiny cabins that keep you cooped up with suspects who dish entertainingly about the problems of writing, especially if you're a woman. Spoiler: 28 passengers end up suing the cruise organizer. It's highly unlikely, though, that any readers will join them.
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December 1, 2024
Donovan follows bestseller The Busy Body, an Indie Next and LibraryReads pick, with this second case featuring his nameless ghostwriter heroine. This time the action takes place on a cruise that's focused on a writing seminar. Multiple plots will be afoot as an attendee is murdered and still others are sickened. Prepub Alert.
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