Published March 13th, 2025 by Head of Zeus
Thriller, Mystery, Suspense
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this darkly funny and compelling murder mystery. Thank you to Andrew at Head of Zeus for the invitation to take part and for sending me a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.
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ABOUT THE BOOK:
‘With biting, mordant humor, Chilton sends readers on a serial killer hunt for our disassociated, true-crime-obsessed social media age.’ ASHLEY WINSTEAD, bestselling author of In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
Kirby Cornell needs a break from everything:
– Her crumbling flat in the sleepy town of Crowhurst (famous for its award-winning sausage rolls and a second-rate serial killer from the 90s).
– Her dead-end job.
– Her sleazy landlord.
– Her slobbish housemates.
– And, most of all, the terrible thing they all did.
Luckily, that hasn’t caught up with her just yet. Until a new message on their old group chat pops up:
Everyone in the group chat will die.
It’s the first text her ex-flatmate and social-media sleuth Esme has sent for ages, but that’s not the really weird thing.
The really weird thing is, Esme died twelve months ago.
Don’t miss the new laugh-out-loud thriller from L.M. Chilton, Everyone in the Group Chat Dies – a murder mystery that fuses the flatmate comedy of Friends with the serial-killer thrills of I Know What You Did Last Summer.
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MY REVIEW:
“They say there are three sides to every story: mine, yours and the truth.
So, which one do you want?”
I love a thriller that is injected with dark humour, so I had high hopes for this book. And I was not disappointed. L. M. Chilton has crafted a suspenseful, funny and inventive murder mystery that had me glued to its pages. The plot is delightfully absurd: Kirby gets an alert from her old housemate group chat. It’s a text from her former housemate Esme that reads, ‘Everyone in the group chat will die.’ But it isn’t the chilling message that unnerves Kirby. What really sends a chill down her spine is that Esme died twelve months ago. So who is the message from? Could they know the secrets that Kirby and her other housemates vowed to keep the night Esme died? Moving between the present and events that happened a year earlier, Chilton builds the tension as Kirby relentlessly tries to solve mysteries in both timelines but keeps things lighthearted thanks to the humour that is woven in. I was on the edge of my seat, the many twists and turns giving me book whiplash as I tried to follow the clues and solve the puzzles myself.
The compelling characters are equal parts likeable and unlikeable. There were great dynamics between them, lots of witty banter and petty squabbles that added a layer of realism and relatability. We know from the start that they are all keeping secrets about the night Esme died, meaning we never know who is friend or foe and I was searching every word and action for clues. Esme herself is an enigma, turning up out of the blue one night saying she’s been sublet the spare bedroom and revealing little about herself other than she’s there investigating the murders that happened in the small town thirty years ago. But she also feels very relatable and, like Kirby, I was desperate to find out the truth about her in both timelines.
A darkly funny, clever and surprising murder mystery that will keep you on your toes, I highly recommend this book.
Rating: ✮✮✮✮✰
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
L.M. Chilton has been a journalist for 15 years, working for TV shows like This Morning, The One Show and Loose Women, as well as magazines and newspapers such as The Times, The Mirror, Metro, New!, Cosmopolitan and Glamour.
He started his journalism career writing for ‘real life’ magazines, interviewing people from all over the world about the terrifying, hilarious and heart-breaking things that had happened to them. And also funny things their pets had done.
He works from home in London, thinking of twists for murder mysteries and practicing the banjo instead of writing (much to the annoyance of his neighbours).
L.M. Chilton is represented by James Wills at Watson, Little
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BUY THE BOOK:
Bookshop.org* | Waterstones* | Amazon*
*these links are affiliate links
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Thanks for reading, Bibliophiles xxxx
Please check out the reviews from the other bloggers taking part in the blog tour.
Emma's Biblio Treasures 