October 2024
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    I'm looking for a murder mystery and romance novel for one of my close friends, it's her 16th birthday and she's an avid reader. She's read and loved a good girls guide to murder and all of Karen M. McManus's books so anything in a similar vein would probably be great. She's fine with stuff that's explicit (but I wouldn't want to get her anything crazy) and is open to other genres. Any advice would be greatly appreciated 🙂

    by DeerOfTheChocolate

    10 Comments

    1. Kindly_Agent4341 on

      The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley is a really good YA thriller/mystery. It’s about an Ojibwe girl joining an FBI investigation about the murder of her best friend and the corruption that’s going on in her community. There’s some heavier themes but it’s balanced out by the characters relationships and the romantic subplot

    2. She might like A Bad Day for Sunshine by Darynda Jones, first in her Sunshine Vicram crime fiction trilogy. The main character is a small town sheriff and single mom, and her teenage daughter is a significant supporting character. There’s also romance for both mom and daughter.

    3. The Margot Mertz books by Carrie McCrossen are good YA mysteries (strong Veronica Mars vibes), as are the Stevie Bell books by Maureen Johnson (those ones are a bit spooky/eerie).

      The Chuckling Fingers by Mabel Seeley is a good, creepy mystery from the 30s that I read recently and really liked. A bit of a grown up Nancy Drew vibe.

      Emily Henry’s romances are fun reads, and not super explicit.

    4. The Broken Girls by Simone St James

      It’s not YA but I think she would enjoy it. It’s a murder mystery at a girls boarding school told from two timelines. One from the timeline of the girls at the school in the 1950s and the other is modern day as a woman wants to know about her own sister’s death, who was found on the abandoned property.

      So it’s like two mysteries being solved.

    5. Leading_Chemist_7999 on

      A classic Agatha Christie like Murder on the Orient Express or And Then There Were None

    6. A Deadly Game of Magic or The Seance by Joan Lowery Nixon. Lois Duncan’s Daughters of Eve was one of my favorites back in the day, too.

    7. a good girls guide to murder. I LOVED this series sooo much. Recently i’ve also enjoyed the alphabet series by Sue Grafton, There are a few sex scenes but it’s fairly mild.

    8. Not necessarily a murder mystery, but Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ The Inheritance Games has a murder mystery feel. It scratched the itch after watching Knives Out and wanting more.

      The Clue inspired series by Diana Peterfreund is more of a straightforward murder mystery, starting with In The Hall With The Knife.

      Deanna Raybourn’s Veronica Speedwell series isn’t YA, but she follows the conceit that the stories are written by the Victorian era protagonist, so romance abounds, but sex is alluded to. The series begins with A Curious Beginning.

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