It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Murder (Kiss, Marry, Kill #2)

Author: Ally Carter Title: It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Murder Publisher: Avon Date Published: 10/13/2026

Read Dates: 09/09/2026- 09/10/2026
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

 📖 I received a gifted e-book ARC. The following is my honest review✍🏻

It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Murder is a dual POV cozy mystery holiday romance. Ella has spent her life cleaning up messes anticipating people’s needs and being invisible to the wealthy families she’s worked for. But when Liam, the grandson and heir of the wealthiest man in town goes missing, leaving behind only a puddle of blood and a house full of witnesses who say Ella was the last seen with him, she’s suddenly all too visible and the prime suspect in a murder investigation! Liam didn’t die, but it suits his interests to let people believe he did, so he’s busy skulking around town trying to figure out who wants him dead and attempting to evade Ella’s persistent efforts to locate him and prove he’s alive and well, before she kills him for the aggravation!

This was such a fun read and I know it’s going to find its way into my holiday rotation in December. It’s a closed door romance mixed with a cozy mystery and it’s filled with humor and banter. Told mostly in present day with a few flashbacks over the 20 years Liam and Ella knew each other and interspersed with snippets of the investigative interview conducted with Ella, it’s a fun, fast paced read. The inner monologue for both Ella and Liam had me smiling, and their banter whenever they were together was delightful.

Ella Chambers didn’t kill Liam Montgomery.

If she had, she certainly wouldn’t have done it outside his family’s mansion during the Christmas party of the year. She definitely wouldn’t have loaded his body into the trunk of her car. And she absolutely would not have announced to the town that the boy who ruined her life ten years ago was “so dead to her.”

But now Liam is missing—nothing but a bloody spot on the drive and a host of unanswered questions—and Ella is the only person who knows he’s still alive.

So it’s up to her to prove it.

Liam Montgomery didn’t want to die.

But, it turns out, when you’re the sole heir to a billionaire, someone might want you dead. Luckily for Liam, being dead works for him.

Now he’s on the hunt for a killer. Unfortunately, Ella is on the hunt for him.

She’ll have to prove he’s still alive to clear her name, but that’s easier said than done in a quaint mountain town where everyone knows your story but no one knows the truth. Can the billionaire’s grandson and the housekeeper’s daughter join forces to catch a killer? Or is their past too steeped in secrets and lies?

As the storm of the century blows in, every step will bring these two childhood rivals closer to a killer—and each other.

Because, this Christmas, only one thing is it’s beginning to look a lot like murder.