Hi friends!
Well, you’ve been hearing me talk about this book for what seems like forever and it’s finally out today!!!
I know, I know, don’t you publish a book (or more) a year, Catherine? Why should we be excited?
Many reasons, but I’ll give you a couple. When I started writing this book in the late summer/fall of 2022, I knew it would be special. Maybe it was the title. Maybe it was how fun it was to write. Sometimes you just know. And that feeling has been born out throughout the process, from my agent loving it, to selling it in a pre-empt to an amazing publishing house, to there being an auction for the TV rights to it getting reviewed in the NYT last week!!! [It was the lead review and this is the cool image they made based on my book cover!!!]
Oh, you didn’t see me crying on the internet about that? They said it was good! So don’t take my word for it!
Eleanor Dash, the Aperol spritz-loving narrator of Catherine Mack’s fizzy series debut, EVERY TIME I GO ON VACATION, SOMEONE DIES (Minotaur, 340 pp., $28) is a chatty, self-aware sort, a novelist with a best-selling series called “Vacation Mysteries.” Her books feature the devastatingly handsome detective Connor Smith, who bears the same name as the man who has vexed her life — romantically and financially — for an entire decade. But no more: She’s going to kill him off in fiction. Too bad someone’s trying to kill the real-life Connor, too.
Eleanor has arrived in Amalfi for a 10-day trip with Connor and a group of lucky fans who have won a “once in a lifetime Italian vacation” with their favorite author. Not long after Connor informs her that he was pushed into the path of “one of those hop-on, hop-off buses full of bleeding tourists,” Eleanor starts to think someone might want her dead, too.
Mack, a pseudonym for the veteran Canadian suspense writer Catherine McKenzie, gleefully pokes fun at genre tropes while evoking Eleanor’s zany world. To my shock, I found all of it hilarious and not at all annoying — even the many, many footnotes, which advance the plot and Eleanor’s character.
I also wanted to give a shoutout to the 120 of you (and counting) who took advantage of my pre-order offers! If you haven’t received your goodies yet, the last batch is going out in the next couple of weeks. And if you missed out on it, well, first of all, how, and second of all, okay, fine! I’ll extend it to this week. Forward me your proof of purchase in any format and I’ll send you some fun goodies including a signed bookplate. Send it to catherinemckenzieauthor@gmail.com with your address.
Last thing—if you’re in Montreal, I’ll be at Indigo Place Montreal Trust tonight from 4:00-7:00 PM so stop on by and see me!! I just might have some fun things for you at the launch. I mean, yeah I will. Obvi.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read, review, post on social media.
Now get reading. This one is special.
Catherine
Can’t wait to receive my copy TODAY!!!