I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne Published by Crown Books for Young Readers on 10/4/22
Genres: Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 333
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
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After the death of her mom (screw cancer), seventeen-year-old Cecelia Ellis goes to live with her estranged grandmother, a celebrated author whose Victorian mansion is as creepy as the murder mysteries she writes. On the surface, life is utterly ordinary in the California coastal town . . . until the homecoming queen is murdered. And she’s not Seaview’s first pretty dead queen.
With a copycat killer on the loose, Cecelia throws herself into the investigation, determined to crack the case like the heroines in her grandmother’s books. But the more Cecelia digs into the town’s secrets, the more she worries that her own mystery might not have a storybook ending.
Short and Sweet Review
After her mothers passing Cecelia is sent to live with her grandmother a famous author in a small town filled with mystery. Cecelia becomes friends with a group of teens who are pretty popular but when one of them is murdered on homecoming night Cecelias new friends start looking like suspects.
This was a pretty good mystery I liked that the current murder was a copycat of a murder that happened years ago in this town to another homecoming queen. It was also interesting that one of Maura’s biggest books was about the murder that took place 50 years ago and they even made a movie about it. Anyway it was interesting to see the dynamics between the characters they came from high places, one was the mayors kid, one a police officers kid, and another one is a therapists kid. Cecelia decides to put on her detective cap but she learns its not as easy as it seems to solve a mystery. All of her new friends have something to hide and she has to decide whether the secrets they’re hiding are relevant enough to make them a murderer. There were some points in the book that were slow but the ending made up for it. I was not expecting what happened in the end and the whole time I didn’t really know who the culprit would be.
This was an exciting mystery and the plot was great and will have you wanting to solve both mysteries that are a stain on Seaview’s history.
