 If you've been looking for a new mystery book to read, Detective Megan is on the case! And so welcome back to my channel, I hope you're all doing good. Today we're going to be doing the classic booktube video. If you liked this book, read this book. But with a little mystery twist, because it's me. So I'm going to be giving you eight different pairs of mystery bricks that I think if you enjoy one of them, you'll enjoy the other and vice versa. Some may be mystery and thriller. Some may be thriller. I don't know, right? I was just looking at my mystery thriller shelf and usually I'm a stickler for like, oh my god, if you're calling it a mystery, it has to be a mystery. But like, I've never done a video like this. I don't think I'm built for this. I don't think I'm good at like pairing books up. I just don't know, my brain shut down, you know, like Windows XP, like bye. But also, I have to be honest with you guys, I just threw my magnifying glass. I always film in the mornings. First thing in the morning, I wake up, get ready, film, right? It's 5pm. It's practically pitch black outside. I feel sick. I've got migraine. I've got headache. Oh, forget it. So I'm like, my energy's not here. I'm a morning galley. So just like, bear with and like, get into it. You know, we're gonna have fun. We're gonna vibe. But it's far too late in the day to be doing this. This is ridiculous. Why did I think this was a good idea? Anyways, shall we just get into the pair? So each pair has something that I think you'll like. If you liked one of them, you'll like the other one. That's basically the entire premise. Let's just get into it. So my first pair is If You Like My Favorite, My Beloved, the Thursday Meta Club series by Richard Osman. You will enjoy A Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybond. This was an easy pairing for me to make. Like, if you've enjoyed one, read the other immediately. So the Thursday Meta Club, many of you will know, is about a group of friends at a time at home who try and solve cold cases at this club, like every Tuesday or something, where they try to solve cold cases and then murder ends up on their doorstep. I love this series. It's one of my favorite series of all time, probably not my second favorite series of all time. These are great mysteries, first of all, but they are compassionate and they are funny. And I think because you've got elderly characters, they really get to the heart of life and the meaning of life and appreciating life. I just love them. I think they're written amazing. They're so quick and easy to read. They've made me cry on multiple occasions. I love them. Killers of a Certain Age, however, is also following elderly characters. That's the number one reason I recommended it. I think I'm really enjoying seeing more elderly characters. It's particularly in mystery at the moment. I feel like this has been so successful. The publishers are like, oh my god, they love other people solving mysteries. When really, I would just love to read more books from the perspective of elderly characters because I think I don't want every book I read to be perspective from like a 26 year old. I don't know. I'm done with that. So this one's a bit different in that it's a group of assassins and they're retiring these elderly women. They're not like elderly, necessarily. Oh no, they're 60 years old. Okay, they're not exactly sprung chickens, but they're not like elderly. I think these characters are a little bit older. Yeah, they're retiring as assassins, but then it becomes clear off their retirement that someone has issued a hit on them. Someone's trying to kill them. I'm getting older. I don't know if I can, if I want all this drama all the time, if I'm being honest. And again, I thought this had some of the things to kind of say. I still prefer this, but I think this had some of the things to say about life and it had that kind of like joy about life in the midst of all this murder that I really appreciated. This one is a bit of a blur for me because I did read it in my video where I read the Goodreads Choice nominees for Mystery Thriller and like that is a blur. That was a point in my life. You know, that video takes a lot out of a person. But I thought this was a really fun read. This is a standalone, which I always appreciate. I thought it was really well written. I just felt like maybe a few of the characters could have had a bit more depth, but I think anyone who goes and reads this, you're pretty much guaranteed a fun time. You know, it's like we're going here, there and everywhere. I remember feeling when I read it that it was written to be a film. It was written to be a movie because there's loads of iconic locations and it's really visual. So yeah, that's my first pairing. My next recommendation is if you enjoyed Big Little Lives by Leanne Moriarty, get your hands on Philly Donovan's Killing It if you haven't already. This was a recent read for me. This I read a fair while ago, but these just scratch and itch I have for women in suburbia and murder. I just, I can't tell you enough, right? Obviously I feel like there's something so distinctive about like American, I think it's both set in America. I'm pretty sure they are. Oh no, this is Australia, right? This is originally set in Australia. I'm getting confused because of the TV show, but I'm pretty sure this is originally set in Australia. I just feel like the UK doesn't have this kind of like mum suburbia culture quite as much as other places and there's something I really love about reading it. So this one at the start of the book, you know that there's been a murder and the rest of the book is kind of going back in time following these three women who become friends, trying to unpack it essentially. And this one's about a single mum who's like struggling with cash. She's got threatening to have her kids taken away from her and someone over here is talking to her book editor at a coffee shop and mistakenly thinks that she is a hit woman and offers her a lot of money to kill her husband. Both of these are just so fun. I love the humor in these. The reason I tried to watch Big Little Lies, the TV show, and I just couldn't because they made it all like moody and like mysterious. You know? Whereas this is ridiculous. Like this is funny. It's high camp. Like I just couldn't do it to myself. This is not like, why would you do that? You're a Reese Witherspoon right there and you make it like foggy mysterious. Like no, are you kidding me? I read this when I feel like YouTube like slightly put a video down if I mentioned the word. But like, okay, yeah, I read this when I had that. And it was just like, it was the only thing I could focus on. I couldn't watch anything but like something about the words and this just flowed into my brain and I ate it up. I was spoiled for aspects of this accidentally from Googling cast members to try and envisage characters. And I still loved it. And this I loved as much as everyone told me I would. It is fun. It is enjoyable. It is a fast pace. The characters are amazing. Both of these have got really strong female friendships in them. I think they're great recommendations. Well done Megan. Now my next to lean a bit more thrillery but I have to mention them. So first is no exit by Ter Adams. If you love this, this is my favourite thriller of all time. This is a thriller but like whatever. The rules don't apply. If you enjoyed this, you need to read the whole A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series so you can read the last book as good as dead. You need to do it. Now the plot of these is not similar. I'm just gonna say it now. If you've read Narek said I'm not spoiling you for this book. Okay the plot of them in itself is not similar but the way they made me feel is. So in this one we're following Darby. I feel like Audarcy. What's her name? Darby. Following Darby there's a snow storm. She has to pull over to this like rest stop and she quickly finds out that out of the people there one of them has a child chained up in their car and it's kind of her trying to survive. This one I can't really tell you much about. It's the final book in the Good Girl's Guide to Murder series. We're following Pip again as she is stalked. She becomes the case right. So she's been solving like cases around her town but this one she is the case and she's getting letters saying who will look for you when you're the one who disappears and both of these books have succeeded in making me feel absolutely sick. Like sick. I don't know how to describe it to you. Not out of like disgust. Out of fear. Out of tenseness. Like ooh I can't describe to you. Heart palpitations. Dizziness. Like oh my god. You don't even know the half of it. I love both these books. They really for me both of them go there and they're not afraid to just like full throttle. They take you on a ride. You're going like 80 miles an hour 100 miles an hour. Do you know what I mean? This one I'm sick that I guess is a surprise. It is marmite. Some people love it. Some people hate it. If you have taste you'd love it. If you don't have taste you'd hate it. I'm sorry I don't make the rules. No it's true. Oh it's true. The rest of the series isn't like that whereas this last one whoo it oh my god it goes there. So yeah if you want to feel sick and have heart palpitations and like absolutely sweat a book out and just not be able to put it down these are X. My next recommendations are if you enjoyed true crime story by Joseph Knox you need to read The Mysterious Case of the Alpeton Angels by Janice Hallett. So both of these are mixed media but true crime story is only through interviews whereas this has some other stuff. So true crime story we're following the story of a Manchester University student who went missing and it's interviews with people in her life like her boyfriend, her sister, you know all these people in her life taking us through the story of what happened and The Mysterious Case of the Alpeton Angels is about this case many years ago where there was this cult and they convinced one of the young teenagers in their group that the teenager's child was the empty Christ and that they needed to sacrifice it. Everyone else in the cult died but the teenagers and the baby and they were entered into like I don't know witness protection I don't know like given new identities and the baby's about to turn 18 and so there's this hunt for him and this true crime story writer is like working on the case to try and write a true crime book about it and this has got interviews, it's got emails, it's got text conversations, it's got excerpts from different pieces of media that have been influenced by this true story and I just think if you like mixed media these are some of the best that I've read lately they both have some really good plot twists like some moments where I was like especially in true crime story there's this moment where there's kind of this meta-ness with the author, the author is a character throughout the book I love when authors do that. There's this moment where like the story and the author connect and it's a moment and then this was just a fun read I keep saying to people though if you're gonna read this, if you're gonna read Missou, I think it's a great almost perfect like mixed media mystery like I think it's Janice Hallett has really got to her best but if you're gonna read it you need to read it quickly I think I read it across three days and that was pushing it like if you're gonna start it it reads quickly don't be like oh my god it's so long if you're gonna read it you need to commit because there's so much information in this the web that is weaved is so tangled we've got so many different characters who are all giving different interpretations of what happened on this night and if you're gonna read it like to keep all that together you need to read it really quick I'm not gonna lie to you, you need to speed run it so yeah I think these are both some mixed media mysteries that I've really enjoyed lately my next one is a little bit of a cheat but if you enjoy reading Agatha Christie books if you're a bit of an Agatha Christie galley I would say you have to read The Three Dalias Dalias still don't know the correct pronunciation by Katie Watson so I don't need to tell you the plot of Agatha because it's like every Agatha if you enjoy Agatha in general this is my recommendation the plot of this book is we're following three different women of various different ages who have portrayed this famous female detective over their lives right they're going to the estate of the author of that detective where like a convention like a fan convention is being held for the weekend and they're going there and then murder ensues and I just thought this was such a love letter to the kind of golden age of crime to the mystery genre in general to Agatha Christie you know the whole book really is like I said like this love letter to the mystery genre and I think if you're someone who reads a lot of classic mystery books you would really really enjoy this and appreciate it I know I did I don't think this is necessarily gonna be like a five star all-time favorite for everyone but I think it's just a really enjoyable read the mystery was good the characters are really good something it did very interestingly we had these three women women we had multiple perspective but each of them kind of took a third of the book like it wasn't like every chapter we were skipping through perspective and I think I actually really enjoyed that because we got to spend a really good amount of time with that one character and really get to know them and then move on and then the last couple chapters or the last chapter is like skipping mid chapter in perspective which I enjoyed I don't know I thought that was a unique take on perspective but yeah the whole book is kind of self-referential to the mystery genre and I don't know I really enjoyed that aspect of it the next two are recommendations because of a key feature in them so if you enjoyed Sadie by corny summers I would recommend The Night Swim by Megan Golden these are both podcast mysteries so I would recommend that if you've enjoyed one of them read the other one because I really like the podcast element in both of these so this one has both Sadie's perspective and the podcast perspective but basically Sadie's sister died she's trying to find the truth of what happened but Sadie has now in the present day also gone missing and so there's a podcast about Sadie going missing right The Night Swim were following more a podcaster as the protagonist who goes to this small town to cover on her podcast this sexual assault case that happened within this small town and it was really compelling it is about to become a series that I'm not sure how I feel about that I just think it was a good standalone but hey I think both of these I don't want to spoil anything but both of them do deal with violence against women and girls and uh the inherent violence you're subject to by being a young woman or girl and I both thought they tackled it really well I love these books for different reasons but I do think the podcast element is super strong in them so if you enjoy one you'll probably enjoy the other then we have two books one of these I didn't love which was the Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle but I know this is super popular and I have enjoyed other Stuart Tartan stuff so you know if you enjoyed this I would 100 recommend Wrong Place Wrong Time by Jeanine McAllister so the reason I paired these is they both have this speculative element to them Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle were at this party and Evelyn Hardcastle was murdered and our protagonist keeps waking up in the body of a different uh member of the party seven times and it's on them to try and solve the the murder of what happened by doing that Wrong Place Wrong Time rather than living the same day over and over again we're going back in time so we're following this woman who witnesses her son stab a man and she's so devastated she goes to sleep that night she wakes up it's the day before and she lives that day again she goes to sleep it's the day before that it's the day before that it's the week before that and she keeps going back in time to find out the truth of why her son ended up stabbing that man this to me was a five star this was like a three three point five I didn't love this as much as anyone else I think it got a bit clever for its own good right but I just wanted to recommend Wrong Place Wrong Time to you again because I loved this oh my god I think it was so good it's amazing it's so amazing to me this is just mind blowing this was definitely the highlight that I read in that Goodreads video and I feel like my appreciation for it was a little bit tempered by like the experience like it's a lot reading that many books that quickly right and I feel like after I did that video and I really got to think about it I appreciated this book more and more I think what it says about like a mother's love and just like I don't know yeah a mother's love and dedication to her family and that deep love that you feel for your family I just thought was beautiful I just thought was lovely it's a great mystery it's got that cool speculative element there was like a twist that shocked me midway and then there's like another twist coming from that that I did predict but it wasn't like oh I've predicted that it was like oh that's clever yeah yeah you know yeah I really loved where the twists in this went I loved the reveal at the end I think it's a lot of lovely stuff about grief as well about identity it's becoming more and more popular I feel like more and more people are reading it and really enjoying it and it makes me so happy because I just thought it was wonderful I thought it was great and then our final pairing has a book that I didn't love as much as everyone else and a book I definitely loved a lot more than everyone else so we've got and then there were none by Agatha Christie and we have got one by one by Ruth Ware and then there were none I enjoyed I don't think it's not by far not my favorite Agatha Christie I've ever read but I feel like everyone else loves it one by one was a five star for me and I feel like a lot of people didn't enjoy this but that's because this this right so this is like technically and then there were none retelling right this is the only and then there were none retelling I've ever really enjoyed I don't tend to like them I've said many times why we don't necessarily need to get into it now I don't like scheduled killings I don't like knowing that someone's about to die whereas this yes more people die one by one but it's not scheduled I think when it's scheduled the reason why people didn't like this is they went into this thinking oh my god it's be a thriller thrilling no it's like a classic mystery Ruth honestly what have I got to do if you try this again I'm begging because the it girl was like a thriller and then I feel like her next one is like a domestic thriller husband and wife and I don't know why guys but I just never vibe with thrillers that are like husbands and wives often I just find that they lean on stereotypes that aren't interesting they're dull they're overused whatever I loved this I thought it was so well done I thought it was fun what I loved about this is you think you know who the bad person is fairly early on right or not fairly early on but more early on than you would normally in a mystery usually it's a reveal at the end this I would say is at the halfway or two-thirds mark that you think you know this is the bad person and you have to sit with that knowledge for quite a while while other events play out and I just thought that was a really interesting reading experience so I'm here to defend one by one by Ruth where everyone he hates it is wrong and just read it again and do it as like a classic mystery thank you guys for watching that was my if you liked this mystery book read this mystery book recommendation video let me know how you think I did let me know if you've read any of these let me know if you're excited to pick any of them up from my recommendations if you've got to end comment a magnifying glass always I love a good magnifying glass emoji in the comments of a mystery video thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you very soon in another video bye