This was fun, but the main character was extremely long-winded with her observations sometimes. For example, when she was about to explain how she solved the mystery she first had to wax eloquent about how murder is like marriage and I was like wow please just get on with it. ( )

Liza and Hannah's marriage is on the rocks. To rekindle things, Hannah books them into a romantic long weekend away without consulting Liza – which is part of the problem in the first place. And when the first body (literally) drops, Liza assumes it's all a game. It's not.

The thing I dislike about romance is all the gazing and longing and wondering. I usually love stories with established couples because they do away with all that. For me, though, having a couple in a rough patch is too will-they-won't-they for my tastes.

Also, for me, this story required too much suspension of disbelief. I kept (internally) screaming about preserving evidence and contaminated crime scenes and fingerprints.

Cosy mystery readers who crave queer rep with a dash of romance will relish this goofy spoof on Agatha Christie and Cluedo.

Hannah decides to take her wife, Liza, on a quiet weekend away to try to save their shaky marriage. However, things aren’t turning out as well as she hoped -Liza is annoyed that she wasn’t consulted on this weekend, the other guests are, to be kind, quirky, and now a blizzard has arrived trapping everyone in the hotel.

Then one of the guests, a man seen earlier arguing with his wife, falls to his death. Finally things seem to be looking up for Liza, a true crime blogger who sees it as an opportunity to actually be at the scene of a murder...well, a possible murder. But then the bodies start piling up literally and she realizes that not only is trying to solve a real murder a whole lot harder than talking about one but she starts to realize that she and Hannah are trapped inside with a possible murderer who seems intent on ensuring that no one gets out alive.

Murder Most Actual by Alexis Hall is an entertaining homage to the golden age of mysteries. The cast consists of all the stock characters we’ve learned to love from those books including a femme fatale, an amateur aristocratic detective and a real detective with a (possibly probably) fake French accent. If the plot is improbable, the sly humour underscoring it makes it nigh impossible to put down. A fun fast read and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Thanks to Netgalley and Rakuten Kobo for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review ( )