Without a Clue - Melissa Ferguson - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Melissa Ferguson

NARRATOR: Karissa Vacker

GENRE: Cozy Mystery + Romcom

PUBLICATION DATE: February 17, 2026

RATING: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A cozy mystery plus romcom. (Yes, you read that right.) Contains all the ingredients of both the genres, which works both for and against the book. Had the potential to be a book about books, but doesn’t deliver in that regard. Decent characters of varying ages, decent mystery, average romance. Still, works well if you want a light-hearted entertainer.

Plot Preview:

Twenty-seven-year-old Penelope aka Pip is happy in her high-stress job as a personal assistant to popular mystery author Hugh Griffin, and by extension, to the Magnificent Seven – a group of seven authors including Hugh who write in different genres but band together for cross-promotions and brainstorming. When Pip organises a book cruise featuring the Magnificent Seven and their fans, the last thing she expects is for one of the seven to be found murdered on the second day of the cruise. As the ship is in the middle of the Atlantic, there is no way the murderer can escape, and also no way the police can arrive. The on-board security is quite incompetent, at least in the eyes of Pip. So the path ahead is quite clear. Pip must solve the murder. And the only person she can count on for assistance is Nash, one of the Seven authors and Pip’s secret crush.

The story comes to us in Pip’s first-person perspective.

I have never been a fan of cozy mysteries, and am not presently much into romcoms. But the combination of the two seemingly contrary genres combined with the cruise setting made me try out this book. The result is fairly good, but also fairly mixed.

The blurb accurately indicates that this is both a romcom and a murder mystery. But the readers for these genres don't necessarily overlap. Those who enjoy romcoms will like the romantic build-up and the comic scenes but will see the murder elements as dark blotches on an otherwise light tale. (They aren’t gory, staying true to the ‘cozy’ tag. But they are still murders.) Those who enjoy crime mysteries will like the process of deducing the identity of the murderer but will find the romcom bits tedious. And those readers who enjoy both romcoms and murder mysteries will be confused about what expectations to keep from a book that's trying so hard to be both at once. It would have been better if the book had primarily been either of the two and used the other element as a secondary plot.

The characters are as you would typically expect from both genres. Pip and Nash are the usual romcom leads, with the friends-to-partners trope coming into minor play. Pip has self-deprecating humour which leads to several comic moments, but also gets a bit tedious at times. The members of the Magnificent Seven would honestly fit both romcoms and cozies, what with so many of them being quirky. Each of them has a distinct personality as well as writes in a distinct genre, so while the going is confusing at the start, it is soon easy to figure out who’s who. Other than the above, there are barely any characters, so it is clear that the culprit has to be one of the main eight.

With so many authors in the cast, one would expect more discussions on writing and books and even the book tour on the cruise liner. But all these details are minimal as the focus stays on the characters and on the crime. So better not to expect too much bookish content despite the tempting sound of a book cruise. The cruise too is more of a setting than an active location, so the details of the cruise are also very limited. I did like how the seven represented varied book genres and how the plot established some comparisons between the writer and their genre of choice.

Those who pick this up mainly for the ‘romcom’ might love the romantic pairing but will yearn for more mushy moments. The romance track is quite bland, and I didn’t see the pair as lovers, just as friends.

The murder mystery functions slightly better. For once, there was a perfectly good reason for the main character to turn amateur sleuth and say, ‘I can do better in the murder investigation’ as there were no police around on the cruise ship. At the same time, the ‘investigation” conducted by Pip and Nash is haphazard, which adds to the comic feels, I guess. I can see the comparison to ‘Only Murders in the Building’; suspicion is cast on every single character turn by turn and there are regular twists. Figuring out the whodunnit could be fun for some readers but I found it fairly predictable. The final resolution is satisfying in a sense, but honestly, it is not very convincing. Then again, it might be my antipathy towards cozies that makes me reluctant to accept the overly convenient explanation. Thankfully, there’s no major infodump at the end and the epilogue is good enough.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 8 hrs 7 min, is narrated by the immensely talented Karissa Vacker. With seven central characters and a few secondary characters in a story that involves a lot of conversations and interrogations, it's quite remarkable how she helps keep characters distinct through her voices and changes in pitch and accent. The audiobook is an entertaining one and I never found it difficult to keep track of the cast. Of course, if you aren't an avid listener and would find it tough to keep so many characters straight in your head, better to use your eyes instead of your ears.

Overall, this is a fairly entertaining book that contains many good features of both romcoms and murder mysteries. But in trying to be both, it somewhat messes up the opportunity of being impactful in either. Still, if you are looking for a lighthearted mystery, this ought to be the right fit for your bookshelf.

Recommended not to romcom lovers but to cozy mystery fans.

3.5 stars, rounding up wherever applicable for the audio version.

My thanks to Thomas Nelson and Zondervan Fiction Audio and Thomas Nelson Fiction for providing the ALC of “Without a Clue” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.