 Hello friends, welcome back to my channel. Today we're doing a video I do once every year talking about what I think the most exciting murder mystery releases of 2023 are. I do this once every year because I know a lot of you have found my content through my murder mystery-esque videos. And I think it can be helpful to just have like a distilled list of some of the most exciting books of one particular genre coming out. Well, subgenre, because mystery is a genre. Subgenre that I am most an expert on. I'm not an expert, but it's the thing I'm closest to being an expert on. So yeah, today we're gonna do a list of the most exciting ones for me. These are the ones I'm most excited about, okay? It is subjective. I have been very strict with what I have allowed on this list. I have not allowed missing person mysteries. For example, one that has just come out, just another missing person by Geolimic Alistair is a missing person mystery. And here's the thing, sometimes after I've read missing person mysteries, I allow them on to the murder mystery category. Not because it's necessarily a murder, not because the person's dead, but because of the way they're framed, they can either fit into, I think, murder mystery conventions and be allowed into the club or they're not. So I haven't read any missing person mysteries yet this year. There's quite a few on my most anticipated list, but they're not allowed. Not allowed. There's only one book I've allowed on this list that I think is subverts the genre of a murder mystery and plays the genre, but isn't necessarily a murder mystery. There's only one I've allowed on to this list. Everything else is very strict. I'm very excited. Listen, if you're not from the UK, we've had like a no summer. If you don't know, I think we had one week in June that was nice and the rest has just been dull and dreary and horrible. It's literally thunderstorms out there today, guys. What the hell? Thunderstorms? Oh really? That sucks. But that kind of weather does make me excited for murder mysteries. Autumn for me is murder mystery time. So I'm excited. Let's get into it. We're gonna go roughly in order of publication. First, we have this book kills. This is a YA. This has very much been pitched for fans of a good girl's got to murder, which I am. I am that person. Now I'm always a bit tentative with YA murder mysteries because I haven't had the best luck when I think of some YA thrillers. YA mysteries have been really popular. I don't always love them like everyone else does. So I'm a little bit tentative, but in this one, it sounds really interesting. Basically one of the like most affluent, good looking, lovely guys at this school is murdered, he dies. Our main girlie, she's like, I just want to stay out of this. I am not involved. She's trying to keep her scholarship. Like she's can't pay her way at this rich ass school. She's like, I'm just not getting involved. Turns out he was murdered in the same way as a character was in a short story that she wrote. And then she receives a letter thanking her for the inspo. Not them saying you're on the Pinterest board girl. Oh my God. So I have high hopes for this one. I think it sounds really interesting. It sounds fun. It sounds a little bit campy. So I'm hoping that I will enjoy this one when I get around to it. Now we have The Villa by Rachel Hawkins. Now this one I have allowed in, listen, I feel like a lot of books nowadays like take aspects of murder mystery and you know, often play with them a bit and take a bit here, borrow a bit from thriller here. Like that's quite common in a book nowadays. You know, we don't get a lot of like Agatha Christie-esque murder mysteries coming out nowadays. But this one, it got split timeline which we know isn't my favorite thing. I've heard some people who said I don't like split timeline saying that this one's okay. So like fingers crossed. Present day is two girlies going on for a little bit like who cares. Past, we're in like I think the 70s and there's all these rock stars and famous authors and poets and whatever staying at this hotel and one of them one of them is killed. Was his death not an accident? Was it a murder? So I don't know. I'm really excited about this. Rachel Hawkins, I've only read one book and that was Radcliffe's Girls and I mean, listen, it wasn't the best book I've read but it was fricking fun. I read it in like an hour and a half. Like I could not put it down. It was, it was intoxicating, shall we say. So I'm really excited to pick up more Rachel Hawkins. Then we have the one that I have allowed onto the list. I let it sneak its way in and this is murder your employers. Murder your employer, the McMaster's guide to homicide by Rupert Holmes. Come the fuck on. Oh. We need this. This is essential. This is a crisis. I can't take it. I can't take it. Murder your employer, McMaster's guide. Like anything that has like the something guide to homicide in the title? Are you kidding me? So this one is like a school for killers basically. Hang on. I got a quote from the synopsis. I texted it to myself because I was like, you have to read this out Megan. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse nor better than death. And then as they're like dissertation, they're finalist in station. They have to like write about a murder which would leave the world better off. Oh, this is what I'm saying. This plays with the murder mystery genre. It's not, I don't know if there's gonna, you know, there's not gonna be a death and then whatever but it's playing with the idea of murder and the idea of like creating murders like coming up like, you know an author has got to come up when they do a murder mystery with like, you know a murder that I think we tend to read a lot of murder mysteries where like it feels kind of justified often. I don't know. There's ones where you're like, oh my God, I need to catch the killer. That's so terrible, whatever. Agatha Christie would often do this thing where like a horrible person would be murdered and so you'd kind of be like, you know what? I get it. I get it. So this is one I've been eyeing up for so long. This, another one we're gonna get to later and the last word, which isn't a murder mystery, the three books that I am currently restraining myself from buying. I don't, here's the thing. I feel like I don't let myself buy books that often but like somehow my TBR has still grown this year. I've still bought more books than I've read. Sometimes I lie in bed at night and I look at my shelves and I'm like, are they gonna fall through the floor one day? Like is this too much weight? Can the floorboards like hold this? Hmm, anyways. Yeah, I'm so excited for this one. I haven't heard anyone speak about it. I just came up, I think on Waterstones one day when I was browsing and thank God it did because I need to read it. But yeah, I'm holding off because I'm trying not to buy too many books at the moment because we do want to get that TBR down. Next we have the Headmasters list, which I do own but I can't find it. My current like TBR situation is a right old mess. It is a mess. So I'm gonna sort it out soon. Right now it is a mess. I usually I know where every book is. Yeah, not right now, I don't know where it is. But this is another YA one set at like a posh school in LA and there's a car accident and one of them dies. One of the group of friends dies. There's like four in there. It's like one of them striving, one of them screams, one of them cries, one of them dies or something like that, very dramatic. But yeah, it's another YA med mystery that I am tentatively intrigued about. I ain't gonna give a go because I'm trying to give more of them a go. I feel like there's a lot out there that everyone else likes to read and I tend to read more adult ones but I wanna dip my toe in YA because it can be fun. Then we have one I've spoken a lot about and I'm gonna be reading later this month and it is The Golden Spoon by Jess and Maxwell. I am so excited. I've said it a million times, Great British Bake Off meets Murder Mystery. Are you kidding me? It's like they wrote it for me. They just get what I want. They get the camp, they get the fun, they get the ridiculousness. Oh, so shut up. I just accepted that I'm kind of a cheesy bitch that loves pop music. Yeah. It's gonna be incredible. I'm just hoping for fun, ridiculousness. I am so excited to read this. Oh my gosh. And I think it's a kind of book you can probably like devour in one day. Just like sit there and just can't put it down. That's what I'm hoping it will be for me anyways. Then we have one that I really wanna get round too soon and it's Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. Ah, guys. Listen, Vera Wong. She's a lovely Chinese granny. She's a tea expert. Listen, she's a babe. And then one day she wakes up to find a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. Knowing she'll do a better job than the police possibly could because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing. Quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with a time on her hands, Vera decides it's down to her to catch the killer. Oh, I've heard really good things about this one so far. This is like cosy, ridiculous. You know, I love, we love Murder Mysteries following elderly protagonists. That's, I feel like the Ganon with the Thurs in Murder Club and now we see it a lot. But this one is one that I think I'm gonna love. It sounds endearing. It sounds cute. And so many people have loved this author's other books. What were the similar ones? It's like Dial-A for aunties, isn't it? Yeah, for aunties in a wedding. Yeah, so I've heard really great things by this author. So I'm excited. I'm really excited. I think this is gonna be one that I love. I'm hoping this will be, if I don't get to it before then, I'm hoping this will be in the top 10 for the Goodreads mystery thriller. I feel like it is. I feel like it's going to be. So I'm hoping I'll get to read it for that video when I do that again, if I don't get to read it before. Then we have one I'm just gonna mention quickly because the synopsis sounds kind of generic. It's Three Drops of Blood by Gretchen McNeil. We're following like a failed young actress, it's YA. She doesn't wanna go back to high school. She works at her dad's law firm. She sees like this affair happening, but then she sees like a double murder happen and she's like, what the fuck? The synopsis doesn't sound exciting, but Gretchen McNeil, if you don't know, wrote the hashtag murder trending series. I've only read the first one, but that book was radonk. It was crazy. It was like the first ever choice I had for my Patreon book club. And although it wasn't the greatest worth of fiction, it was a wild ride. And so that's kind of what I'm expecting from this. The synopsis doesn't sound like a wild ride, but I think it's going to be. So I put it on my list because a murder mystery from the campiness that I had in hashtag murder trending fills me with excitement. Then we have A Death in the Parish by Richard Coles. Listen, guess I have bought the second in the series without having read the first, but I couldn't miss out on the special edition that has the doggies. What do you have me for? Like a psychopath? I can't miss out on the doggies. This series we're following like a canon who is like a priest. I don't know the difference. Is this church of England? I'm a Catholic. I don't understand what the canon is in English. Well, I don't know if I'm a Catholic. We don't need to get into my religion. I was raised a Catholic. That's a better way to... We don't need to get into that. It's a question that hangs over my head. Anyways, I was raised a Catholic and I have not gone to church for maybe six years. Maybe seven. So much to think about anyways. Can you save us, Britney Spears? Can we be saved? We're following, he's basically a priest who there's murder mysteries in his parish and he's trying to solve it because everyone trusts him and will say stuff to him. And there's fricking doggies. It's pitched on the back as devotees of Midsummer Murders and Icath Christy's Miss Marple Stories will feel at home here. Vickers, sausage dogs, cozy crime. I am so excited. I know I need to continue on with the series. So I want you to start the series. This, Her Majesty's Royal Coven and Veronica Speedwell I would say are the top three series I wanna start that I haven't and they have been that for the whole year and then I keep just starting other series because like a video is cool for them rather than starting the ones I wanna read the most. So I would like to start at least one of them this year. If not all three of them but that involves me finishing a lot more series to be able to do that. Then we have another sequel. We've got a lot of sequels in the latter half of this list. We have another sequel. We have A Very Lively Murder by Katie Watson. This is the sequel to The Three Dahlia's. I've talked about this quite a lot actually. This is a love letter to the murder mystery genre. The first one we meet three actresses who have played this very famous detective character throughout history, right? And the first one they go to the family estate of this author at like a fan convention and murder starts happening. And I loved this. I really enjoyed this. I just loved how I don't know reminiscent of different mystery tropes it was and how it paid homage to the mystery genre. And the second one, I believe one of them is filming her first film as an actress cause not as an actress as playing this role because in this first one she's just been announced as like the next actress for this role. And so I think she's filming the first film and murder starts occurring and the gang will get back together to solve it. How exciting. I really need that's the other one. That's the other book. That, the last word and your McMaster's guide to homicide or whatever are the three books that I want to buy. And I keep looking at them like... Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh. Next we have one that I don't really think is a murder mystery, but I put it on the list cause it is a murder mystery. You get me? It's like a murder mystery, but it's not a murder mystery. We have Zero Days by Ruth Ware. Now, I think this is more suspense from Ruth Ware but at the heart of it, it is a woman trying to find out who has killed her husband. So her and her husband were hired by companies to break into buildings and hack security systems but then she arrives home to find her husband dead and the police suspect her. So she's like trying to figure out what actually happened. So I think it's kind of like with the nature of their job it's like a Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I think it's gonna be like, you know, spy shit and like who killed him? Rather than like, hmm, you know, cozy murder mystery. But at its heart it is a murder mystery cause her husband has been murdered and she wants to figure it out. I loved when Ruth Ware did classic murder mystery with one by one. And I feel like you all guys, you guys didn't get it. You guys who like trashed on it didn't get it. You didn't get it. And if you've like cheated me out of ever getting a classic murder mystery from Ruth Ware again, I am gonna fucking, I will find where you live. I'm joking, but I'm excited for this from Ruth Ware. I'm nervous because I feel like she's been like veering away from what I love from her into like new lanes that I'm unsure of with both this and the it girl kind of. But I'm still hoping I'm gonna love it. Quick shout out to my favorite cozy mystery series, the Lady Hardcastle Mysteries. The next in the series is coming out. It's called A Fire at the Exhibition. Guess what? There's an art exhibition. There's a fire and someone's murdered basically. I haven't got this far into the series yet. I think I'm like three books behind. If I'm hoping to get caught up this year I'd love to get caught up on this series. So yeah, just a pointer, if you like the Lady Hardcastle series that the next one's coming out. And if you haven't read it yet, what are you doing? It's the best cozy mystery series to ever exist. Then we have The Death I Gave Him by MxLew. This is pitched as a Hamlet retelling. No, I haven't read Hamlet. I wasn't a big Shakespeare girlie back in the day. And maybe I did, I don't know. I'm gonna be on a Shakespeare kind of blurs into one for me. I don't know. No, I did Macbeth at school. I did Midsommers. No, I didn't. What's the one? What's the one where there's a film with Kenneth Branagh? We watched that English class. I remember that. I don't remember school that much guys. I loved school, but I don't remember it that well. Anyways, it's a Hamlet retelling. Guy's dad is murdered and him and his dad were working on this code that could basically end death, I think, could eradicate death. And he knows his dad has been murdered because of this code. And then it's locked room mystery. He's locked in a room. There's like these four other people who are like their lab assistant. They're, you know, it's all people linked to them. And he knows one of these people killed his dad and he needs to solve how it is. What a cool idea. Like sci-fi, murder mystery, Shakespeare retelling. Locked room. There's just a lot of ticks, I feel like, on that list for a lot of people. So I'm really excited for that one. Then we have The Devil's Flute Mergers by Sushi Okamizo. This is the next in, so this isn't like a 2023 new release. It's a translation, a new translation of Sushi Okamizo's book. So you guys know I have read too The Honjin Murders and the Inigami Curse. I own at least two more. I think I only own two more. This synopsis re-reminds with Inigami Curse. We're following another very powerful family and the patriarch of the family dies. And then they're trying to figure out, I think in this one, The Devil's Flute, they're like, they're holding like a silence or something. They're trying to like speak to his ghost and then they start getting killed. And then the family secrets start unraveling. It's like very similar to Inigami Curse. So I feel like I will hold off on this one until I've read the other ones that I own so that I get a variety in storyline. There's nothing wrong with them being similar. Agatha Christie probably has loads of plots that sound very similar. It's like a similar breadth of books faced off following this detective by this author. But yeah, I pretty will hold off because it sounds super similar to the Inigami Curse. Then we have The Last Devil to Dive. I'm Richard Ostman. This is the next in the Thursday Murder Cop series. I am so excited. You guys know this is one of my favourite series ever. So excited. We're all following an elderly group of friends as they solve murders real, real this time. They used to solve cold cases in the Thursday Murder Club and now they solve real murders. And this one I think is set around Christmas which like, Richard, I see what you're doing. It's set around Christmas. There's a box with like an item that is dodge and then like something happens to that box and people start getting murdered including someone close. Then there's something close to the Thursday Murder Club. Who is that? Who is that? Because I'm thinking of all the possibilities and I'm not happy with any of them. So, but yeah, you guys know this is one of my favourite Murder Mysteries series and I feel like we are at a lot for like the growth of Murder Mystery as a subgenre and all the success that it's been having. So very excited this one. Then we have The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett. So if you've read The Appeal by Janice Hallett this is a Christmas version. Following the same characters, they're holding like a Christmas panto and someone gets murdered. I'm sorry, the camp. I'm sorry, the camp. Like how exciting is that? I didn't love The Appeal because I just feel like as a debut, I mean, I've loved Janice Hallett's other two books. So I feel like I love this in theory and I would recommend people to read it. I just feel like it's a bit debuting, you know what I mean? I feel like she's ironed out some of the problems I had with this in her other books. So I'm hopeful for The Christmas Appeal that I'm gonna love it because I've loved her other books. I always feel bad because now I know Janice Hallett's books like take a long time to be published in the US or like some of them aren't published in the US. I feel bad, okay? I'm sorry. I'm sorry for like pushing her on you but last UK girlies have to have something. And finally, we have The Mystery Guest by Nita Pros. This is coming out right at the end of the year. I don't think, I think it's gonna be even too late to be in this year's Goodreads Choice Awards. I think it will have to be in next year's based on like eligibility criteria. But this is the sequel, another sequel to The Maid by Nita Pros which was the winner of The Goodreads Choice Awards last year for Mystery Thriller. I enjoyed it, I didn't love it but I am excited for the sequel to come out. I mean, I still love this edition. Look at those sprayed edges. I think they're one of my favorite sprayed edges ever. I love like the Art Deco kind of feel. And we're following Molly who is a maid at this hotel and another murder happens basically but it's also like these books are also focusing on Molly a lot as a protagonist. So I think stuff from her past, particularly with her grandma who's now passed away starts getting dredged up for her. But I'm excited. I'm excited to see how this series continues. You know, this has just been so popular this year while the first book has. I'm excited to see what she does with the sequel because I feel like a sequel wasn't originally planned. So I'm excited to see how that goes. Okay, everyone, that is my top murder mysteries coming out this year that I think you should be aware of if you didn't know them already. There's some that I already own like you guys know some that I don't own that I really get to. I haven't read any of these yet which is kind of shameful. I feel like I've been like holding off on reading them. I suppose I'm gonna be reading The Golden Spoon next. And I probably a lot of these if they are on the mystery thriller at the end of the year I will read them then. But yeah, please let me know if you've read any of these because it will help me prioritize which ones to get around to next and let me know which ones you're most intrigued by. And I will see you very soon in another video. Love ya, bye.