if you liked this mystery book, read this!

If you've been looking for a new mystery book to read, Detective Megan is on the case! Hello friends, welcome back to my channel, I hope you're all doing good. Today we're gonna 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 gonna be giving you eight different pairs of mystery books that I think if you enjoyed 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'm 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 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'll wake up, get ready, film, right? It's 5pm, it's practically pitch black outside. I feel sick, I've got a migraine, I've got a headache. Come on, love. No, forget it. So I'm like, my energy's not here, I'm a morning girlie, 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 pairs? 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 liked my favourite, my beloved, The Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman, you will enjoy Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Rabon. This was an easy pairing for me to make, like if you've enjoyed one, read the other immediately. So The Thursday Murder Club, many of you will know, is about a group of friends at a retirement 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 favourite series of all time, probably now my second favourite 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 that 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. 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, like, I don't want every book I read to be perspective from like a 26 year old, like, 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 spring 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 after retirement that someone has issued a hit on them, and they're trying, 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 similar things to kind of say, I still prefer this, but I think this had similar 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 was 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, whoo, 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 other 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 Lies by Leigh-Anne 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 an 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, are these 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 it's a 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 overhears her 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 humour 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, 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 Reese Witherspoon, right there, and you make it, like, foggy, mysterious. Like, no! Are you kidding me? I read this when I, I don't know, I feel like YouTube, like, slightly pushed the video down if I mention 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 trying to 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, 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 two lean a bit more thrillery, but I had to mention them. So, first is No Exit by Claire Adams. If you loved 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 No Exit, 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, or Darcy, what's her name? Darby. Following Darby, there's a snowstorm, 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 in particular, I guess, is a surprise. It is Marmite. Some people love it, some people hate it. If you have taste, you love it. If you don't have taste, you hate it. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules. No, it's true. No, it's true. The rest of the series isn't like that, whereas this last one, woo! 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 Alperton 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 a story of a Manchester University student who went missing and it's interviews with people in her life, like her boyfriend, her sister, her, you know, all these people in her life, taking us through the story of what happened. And The Mysterious Case of the Alperton 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 Antichrist 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 them 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, uh, where there's kind of this metaness 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 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 girlie, I would say you have to read The Three Dahlias. Dahlias, I 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 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 going to be like a five star all-time favourite 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 have these three women. Women. We had multiple perspectives, 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 in the last couple chapters, or the last chapter, it's 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 Courtney 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, we're 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 though, I'm not sure how I feel about that, I just think it was a good standalone, but hey-ho. 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 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 will 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 Tatton stuff, so you know. If you enjoyed this, I would 100% recommend Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Julian 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 member of the party seven times, and it's on them to try and solve 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, 3.5. I didn't love this as much as everyone 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 the experience. 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 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, yeah. I really loved where the twists in this went, I loved the reveal at the end, I think it says 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 favourite 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 gonna be a thriller, thrilling, no, it's like a classic mystery and I love it. 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 between 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 a 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 Ware, everyone who hates it is wrong, and just read it again and view 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 for my recommendations. If you got to the end, comment a magnifying glass as 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!