Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder
Kerryn Mayne
343 pages/9 hours 41 minutes
St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan Audio
published July 9, 2024
Thanks @macmillan.audio and @stmartinspress for my #gifted listening and reading copies. #MacAudio2024 #MacmillanAudioInfluencer #smpinfluencers
What a sleeper of a book. I appreciated Lenny and her growth. A neurodivergent loner gets out of her comfort zone to take on the world. OK not really the world but works to change that comfort zone, accept her past and embrace the possibilities.
This comes across as a cross between a rom com and a cozy mystery, but it deeper than that. Lenny is hiding from a mysterious letter and you cannot imagine my guesses for what it held.
Lenny has something in her past that she needs to address and heal. In order to do this Lenny embarks on a journey that has her accept help from others to find her way forward.
She is a unique and dare I say quirky character. She’s finds comfort in the TV show friends and plays scrabble against her imaginary roommate Monica Geller. She had me rooting for her from the start.
It is a bit of a slow burn, but definitely worth the time.
Annie Maynard narrates this one and hit it out of the park bringing Lenny to life. She balances Lenny’s quirks and charm with her anxiety and stress and finds a way to make her lovable.
This is one of my favorite July reads.
About the book
Lenny Marks is excellent at not having a life.
She bikes home from work at exactly 4pm each day, buys the same groceries for the same meals every week, and owns thirty-six copies of The Hobbit (currently arranged by height). The closest thing she has to a friendship is playing Scrabble against an imaginary Monica Gellar while watching Friends reruns.
And Lenny Marks is very, very good at not remembering what happened the day her mother and stepfather disappeared when she was still a child. The day a voice in the back of her mind started whispering, You did this.
Until a letter from the parole board arrives in the mail–and when her desperate attempts to ignore it fail, Lenny starts to unravel. As long-buried memories come to the surface, Lenny’s careful routines fall apart. For the first time, she finds herself forced to connect with the community around her, and unexpected new relationships begin to bloom. Lenny Marks may finally get a life–but what if her past catches up to her first?
Equal parts heartbreaking and heartwarming, Kerryn Mayne’s stunning debut is an irresistible novel about truth, secrets, vengeance, and family lost and found, with a heroine who’s simply unforgettable.
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