Review copy was received from Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds by Allison Brennan Narrator: Vanessa Johansson
Published by Harlequin Audio on June 17, 2025
Genres: Mystery, Thriller
Length: 12 hours, 4 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
Amazon, Audible, Libro.fm, Barnes & Noble, Apple
Mia Crawford is responsible to a fault. She has to be. Between her high-demand job and taking care of her grandmother and her cats, she has little time for anything else. What time she does have, she pours into reading. Mysteries, romances, thrillers…books filled with women who are far more impulsive than she would ever dream of being. Now, forced into taking a long-overdue vacation, she finds herself on a luxurious private island where she just might have a chance to reinvent herself—for a little while, anyway. She can explore the island. Flirt shamelessly with a cute bartender. Have a vacation fling. Live like a heroine in one of her favorite novels.
Or she can curl up with a good book on the beach. Turns out reinventing yourself is easier planned than done. But when gossipy notes written in the margins of an old book turn out to be clues to the disappearance of another guest, Mia finds herself diving headfirst into a dangerous adventure. With everyone at the resort hiding secrets of their own, she’ll have to solve this real-life mystery before she becomes the next target.
Allision Brennan has been doing more stand alone mysteries. Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds has mysteries, a love of books, and a romance. The island setting is an amazing backdrop.
Mia is a CPA taking a vacation before her promotion. Her dream is to run a bookstore, but she feels she needs the safe route to fund her future and care for her grandmother. So many new businesses fail within three years. So she thinks about her future and her friends urge her to have a holiday fling. She’s immediately attracted to the bartender Jason who seems to take too many risks. She also picks up a book from the free table in the gift shop and finds notes written on several pages. She realizes it was from the woman who disappeared right before Mia arrived.
Mia is lovely. She’s kind to the wide ranging, difficult, and over the top guests on the island. She cares for her grandmother. She, along with her new friend, Bree, work to figure out the clues in the book. Mia does start to spend time with Jason and they fall for each other.
There are a number of events, mishaps and even deaths on the island. Mia is sharp about figuring out most of what is happening. She misses one big factor which I got almost immediately.
I enjoyed Mia’s personal growth, along with Jason. Her smart take on the mystery found the solution. It felt a little long at times, or unbelievable, but overall it was fun.
Narration:
I have listened to this narrator previously but it’s been awhile. Her voices were perfect for me for Mia and her honest and caring approach to things, for the smooth sexy tones of Jason, and the distinct voices for so many other characters. Her performance really added to my enjoyment with emotions infused to the characters. I listened at my usual 1.5x speed.
Listen to a clip: HERE
About Allison Brennan
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Allison Brennan believes that life is too short to be bored, so she had five children and writes three books a year. Allison recently relocated from Northern California to Arizona with her husband and two youngest children.
Allison has penned more than three dozen thrillers and many short stories. COLD SNAP was a finalist for Best Thriller in the Thriller Awards (ITW) and FEAR NO EVIL (2007) and COMPULSION (2015) won the Daphne du Maurier award. Allison has been nominated multiple times for RWA’s Best Romantic Suspense award, and the Kiss of Death’s Daphne award. She currently writes the Lucy Kincaid/Sean Rogan thriller series, and is launching the Mobile Response Team series in February 2020.
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I read all types of books but my favorites are urban fantasy and romantic suspense.I like some romance and some action / adventure / mystery in everything.I like sex in my books but please, only between TWO people.Intimate conversation is equally important to the sex in a book.It lets me see the characters.The other thing I enjoy is humor.
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- 🎧 Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds by Allison Brennan @Allison_Brennan #VanessaJohansson #HarlequinAudio#LoveAudiobooks #JIAM #JIAMAudiobookChallenge - June 17, 2025
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 25-Audio
- 25-COYER
I love when characters like CPAs go on to solve murders, lol. I do like the sound of this!
Thanks Tammy. It felt fun and light even with the murders and some horrible people.
Love your review, Anne💜 I’ll be starting this soon.
Hope you enjoy!
I love the setting. Great review!
Thank you. It was a fun read.
I’m going to be starting this one soon. Looks good. Great review!
I hope you enjoy it.
Now, that would be a fun, summer setting for a mystery and I love the idea of clues hidden in a free Little Library exchange book.
Very appropriate for our reading crowd.
Yes, I got that twist that Mia missed pretty early on, too. This was a fun departure from Brennan’s usual mystery/thrillers. More a cozy, beach read mystery.