The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year – 5/5 ✩
Ally Carter never misses! The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year is about Maggie Chase and Ethan Wyatt, two rival writers who both accept a cryptic invitation to a Christmas party at the home of a reclusive fan. Little do they know, the world’s most famous mystery writer Eleanor Ashley is the party’s host. When Eleanor goes missing, Maggie and Ethan must team up to see if they can find the famous writer and make it back to the States in one piece. And, of course, it wouldn’t be an Ally Carter novel without some romance sprinkled in there.
If you’re looking for a feel good, fast-paced novel that will you leave you laughing at every turn and falling for a couple that feels real on the page in front of you, this is the book for you! I couldn’t have loved it more!
I might be biased here because Ally has been one of my favorite authors since I was a kid, but she really, truly never misses. She’s absolutely hilarious and knows how to immediately draw you into her stories. Ally introduces and teases things at the perfect moments, reeling you further and further in until you’re about the teeter off a cliff, but before you do, she pulls you back just in time to reveal the answers you’ve been craving.
She also knows how to write banter better than any other author I’ve read. Her characters’ dialogue never feels forced or awkward; it’s very real and very funny. You can’t help but love her characters and fall deeper and deeper in love with the enemies-to-lovers trope the more you read.
Her characters are dynamic and 3D on the page; Maggie and Ethan both are realistic characters with very real pasts that haunt them and eventually bring them closer and closer together. Maggie’s experience with her ex-husband has crafted her into the woman we see in the novel; she is a woman who has been gaslighted over and over, morphing her into someone who questions herself at every turn. Meanwhile, Ethan’s past with his family and his accident have shaped him; he is headstrong and caring, willing to do anything he can to protect the people he loves.
Throughout the novel, we see these two collide and begin to grow together, transforming Maggie into someone who can see and embrace confidence in herself and Ethan into someone who is able to grow with someone else and support someone else, helping him grow in turn. They both compliment each other so well, and together, they’re able to speak their minds and create a future together that would be unthinkable with anyone but each other. (Plus, Ethan is the definition of a golden retriever boyfriend and I couldn’t have loved him more for it).
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers for the Advance Reader’s e-proof of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year! I can’t wait to get a hard copy of the novel once it’s released!
Anchored Musings 