Journaled to Death by Heather Redmond

[spindizzy]

Divorced single mom Mandy Meadows scrapes by working as a barista and receiving payments from her cousin, Ryan, who rents her basement apartment. At night, she and her teenage daughter Vellum run a successful home business creating journaling content on their popular social media channels.

But Mandy's carefully organized world is about to come crashing down. While filming their latest journaling tutorial, Mandy and Vellum hear a loud noise on the basement stairs, and Mandy is horrified to find Ryan dead on the landing. The police quickly start to treat the death as a murder - with Mandy and Vellum as chief suspects. Why would someone murder Ryan? Determined to clear their names and find Ryan's killer, Mandy soon discovers he wasn't the man she thought he was...

Heather Redmond's Journaled to Death is the intersection of two of my most favourite interests: stationery and cozy crime novels. Underemployed single-mother Mandy has a lot on her plate; her job in the hospital café is under threat, her stationery channel is taking up more of her time – and her cousin has just been murdered.

Okay, I need to get this off my chest before I go further into this review: I WOULD REALLY LIKE A COZY MYSTERY WITH AN OPENLY BISEXUAL PROTAGONIST PLEASE. Like, sure, Mandy talks about how hot the men around her are, but she also talks about how hot her female neighbour who stress-bakes late night brownies is, and how proud she'd be to land her hot female frenemy as a date, so would it REALLY be that much of a stretch to make them an option in her dating pool? Especially in a book that acknowledges that bisexuality and polyamory exists, at least for minor characters!

(It might also mean that there was less of the "I'm not saying you're asking for trouble by dressing like that, but," stuff going on, which would be SPECTACULAR.)

Anyway, back to the actual book! I really enjoyed Journaled to Death. I liked the details about Mandy and Vellum's channel and the prep-work that they have to do, although as a person who is friends with youtubers I'm kinda squinting at some of the metrics they describe their channel and social media having, and that the author thinks it's possible to have a successful, monetised channel without even hearing about collaborations. And I really liked Mandy and Vellum's relationship – their mother and daughter bond is great, and I like that they're both treating their channel like work. As someone who makes content and has a part-time dayjob: yeah, the scramble is real, and I absolutely believe how the characters respond to their channels! I feel like Mandy's relationship with her cousin was less well-developed out of all of her connections, in that we didn't get a chance to know him as a character before he died, but I think that works thematically with Mandy realising how little she knew about her cousin.

As for the inevitable romance subplot... Eh. It was fairly obvious from page one that "Dr O'Hottie" was going to turn out to be a douche and the quiet doctor who's actually nice is going to be the one in the running for the love interest. The detective being the other side of the love triangle is fine, although I'm honestly surprised that the solution the author came up with to keep him in contact with the protagonist is literally moving him into her house. ... I still think that a) Mandy should stop policing the appearances of women of colour, because that's a thing that she does, and b) that her female friends should 100% be options for the romance chart.

There wasn't much detective work going on here – it's mainly accidents and encountering gossip rather than actively chasing down leads, but that's absolutely fine – maybe even preferred – for a cozy mystery. I did like the scene where she took out her bullet journal and pretty much described it as magic as she tried to use it to solve the crime though. The ending felt a little disjointed – a character who previously seemed to have their act together suddenly yelling their evil schemes like a supervillain is a disappointing ending, because it means that none of the detective work anyone had done up to that point actually mattered, but it is a tradition.

On the whole, I liked Journaled to Death! I livetweeted Journaled to Death as I was reading it because there were parts that frustrated me and horrible realisations like "Oh god, I'm only six years younger than the protagonist" but that's fine! It's enjoyable, and I am absolutely here for more mysteries that hinge on notebooks and stationery.

[This review is based off an ARC from Netgalley.]