Don’t Cross Mo Ellery

by Birdie Horne

A laugh-out-loud mystery following the indomitable hot mess Mo Ellery, whose job as a school crossing guard pulls her into an unhinged murder investigation.

Mo Ellery’s 29th birthday is a disaster. After one small accident—the exposure of her boyfriend’s genitals (well, maybe not that small) on a work video call—she manages to get fired, dumped, and kicked out of their overpriced Chicago apartment. Luckily, a sign appears to guide Mo to her new “Looking for flexible part-time work? Become a school crossing guard!” It’s everything Mo has been looking health insurance. How hard can it be?

A few weeks later, Mo is adjusting to her new low-paying job, her bisexual reawakening, and her new neighborhood’s wacky characters. There’s Claudia, an old woman who refuses to let Mo help her cross the street, and Marlowe, a tween cell phone prodigy whose antics terrify her. But Mo’s greatest nemesis is Poodle Dude, a guy with an SUV full of poodles who speeds through her intersection each morning. . . until the day he speeds into a sinkhole. Mo tries and fails to shield innocent eyes from his bloody corpse, but succeeds in accidentally becoming the guardian to his three poodles.

And that’s not the worst of some of the locals are convinced that Poodle Dude was murdered. Their allegations are obviously ridiculous, but Mo, desperate for distractions—and for several hot neighbor-suspects—reluctantly agrees to help. But Mo the detective is just as chaotic as Mo the underemployed adult, and the three entitled poodles are not helping. When a second local dies under mysterious circumstances, it’s going to take all of Mo’s broadly applicable and transferrable skills to find the killer.

Murderers beware. . . DON'T CROSS MO ELLERY!

Genres: Mystery, Humor, Thriller, Fiction, Audiobook, LGBT, Mystery Thriller

336 pages, Paperback

Published August 11, 2026

About the author

Birdie Horne is a USA TODAY Bestselling Author and the combined pen name of former enemies Eden Robins and MW Garguilo. Over the years, they have been love rivals, co-godmothers, and neighbors across an alley in Chicago. Separately, they have published over twenty books, and together they have a resume full of the kinds of jobs that genuinely worry their parents. DON'T CROSS MO ELLERY is their first outing as Birdie Horne.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mo, our FMC, is having a pretty horrible day when this book starts.
It’s her 29th birthday, and all in the same afternoon she is fired from her job, dumped by her boyfriend of 10 years, and forced to find a new place to live as the condo that she’d been living in belongs to her now ex.
She’s also dealing with the embarrassment of some very unintentional nudity on a work Zoom meeting.

With her savings dwindling, Mo has to find a new job and soon.
She notices a sign hiring school crossing guards, and most importantly, it provides health insurance, which she needs as she has illness anxiety disorder (hypochondria) and frequently visits an urgent care clinic.
She ends up forming an unlikely camaraderie with an entitled tween and older neighbor, both of whom initially came across as very unlikable characters.

I was also intrigued when I read that there was a character called Poodle Dude and kind of chuckled because I wouldn’t be shocked if someone gave me the same nickname.
I love all dogs, but poodles have a very special place in my heart.
Although in this book, Poodle Dude is a major jerk to nearly everyone he encounters and regularly drives his SUV through a school zone like a bat out of hell with three poodles in tote.
(For my dog lovers out there, don’t worry, no animals were harmed).

What really made this book interesting to me is that I wouldn’t put it into a specific genre or category.
It felt like a hybrid of murder mystery, humor and romance.
There were several parts that made me laugh out loud, and towards the end it gives you a suspenseful scene that a lot of us who frequently read thrillers are so used to.

Overall, this was a far-fetched but fun weekend read for me, and it will definitely make you look at Botox in a different manner!

Thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC to review!

[Cecily - MillennialBookGal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Birdie Horne and NetGalley for the advanced audiobook of this novel.

4.25 Stars

What a hilarious ride! I found myself laughing all the way through and it was definitely a book that made me smile.

The story itself is a bit predictable and honestly kind of silly but I think that is what the author was going for. All the characters were interesting and were quite fundamentally "different" and quirky and I love that.

The narration performance was perfect for the story and really made it an enjoyable experience.

Good read.

[BookishKB]

🐩🚸 Don't Cross Mo Ellery 🔎💖

Hot damn, I laughed so hard reading this book! 😂

Mo is truly one of the funniest FMCs I've read in a long time. The situations she somehow manages to find herself in just made everything even more hilarious. I was seriously cackling from beginning to end! Like literally from the very first chapter 🤣🤣🤣

The mystery itself kept me engaged, but it was Mo's chaotic personality and inner monologue that completely stole the show.

I also loved the quirky cast of side characters... and of course, the poodles. 🐩🤣

⭐️ 5 stars! And if you have the chance to listen to the audiobook, do it! 🎧 The narration was absolute perfection.

What to Expect:
🚸 School Crossing Guard
🔎 Amateur Sleuth
🐩 Three Chaotic Poodles
💖 Bisexual reawakening
😂 Hilarious FMC
🏘️ Quirky Neighborhood
💀 Murder Mystery
🌈 LGBTQ+ Rep
_ _ _ _

⭐️ Rating: 5 Stars
📅 Pub Date: August 11, 2026
Thank you to HarperAudio, and NetGalley for the advanced listening copy. All thoughts are my own.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review of advance digital copy received from Netgalley

Don’t Cross Mo Ellery by Birdie Horne (combined pen name of Eden Robins and MW Garguilo) is a fine, palette-cleansing, not at all serious rom com.

The start of this book is a sex, getting fired, and breakup scene that GAVE ME WHIPLASH. I could totally see early 2000s Kate Hudson being the forefront actress.

I had a really hard time with this one. It’s breezily written but MY GOD the level of secondhand embarrassment I got from this made me have to put it down often.

It was fine. I will not remember characters or plot points past this past next week. If you need a palette cleanser after a hard hitter, then sure, give this a go.

I’m more interested on how Eden Robins and MW Garguilo went from former enemies to co-authors. Next book idea?

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is silly, ridiculous, over the top, messy, wacky, and completely committed to the bit—and honestly, I had a blast. You absolutely cannot take Don’t Cross Mo Ellery too seriously. This is not the kind of mystery where you’re sitting there carefully piecing together clues and admiring the intricacy of the investigation. This is the kind where you sit back and think, What the actual hell is happening? while turning the pages because you need to see what kind of nonsense Mo gets herself into next. 😂

Mo is a hot mess, but she’s also surprisingly relatable underneath all the questionable decisions and chaotic behavior. She’s figuring out her life, her relationships, her sexuality, her career, and basically who the hell she is, and she’s doing approximately none of it gracefully. Add a collection of wildly entertaining characters, three entitled poodles, hot neighbors, murder, and an absolutely unhinged amount of sex and sexual references, and you’ve got a mystery that feels much more modern and millennial than traditional cozy.

And speaking of cozy: I wouldn’t quite call this a true cozy mystery. There are definitely cozy adjacent elements, but the humor is much more outrageous, and the descriptions surrounding the murders go a little further than what I typically expect from a cozy. Think modern mystery with cozy ish vibes and absolutely zero interest in behaving itself. If you enjoyed Finlay Donovan, I can absolutely see this being your kind of ridiculous. It’s far fetched, the characters are bonkers, the situations are even bonkers er, and none of it is pretending to be anything other than pure entertainment.

Perfect for Readers Who Love

* Messy, chaotic protagonists who somehow stumble into solving murders
* Modern mysteries with outrageous humor
* Wacky supporting characters and absurd situations
* Finlay Donovan style far fetched mystery mayhem
* Poodles being involved in things they absolutely should not be involved in
* A mystery that prioritizes fun over realism

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Happy pub day!

This book is whack-a-doodle, crazy bananapants. In no way could these scenarios Mo experiences ever happen to one person in real life. But! It’s so much fun, you don’t even care.

[Pav S. (pav_sanborn_bookworm) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars!

I won't lie to you—I saw this cover and immediately felt it in my bones that this would be hilarious! And I was right; the audiobook was exactly what my brain needed!

The story kicks off on Mo's birthday, but it’s a rough start! She gets fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend, leaving her with nowhere to live and no means to support herself. While this scenario sounds intense, the audiobook narration keeps you chuckling through it all, thanks to a fantastic narrator who truly brings Mo to life. I couldn't stop laughing, even during the more serious moments, because the writing is laced with a wonderful blend of dark humor and cynicism.

Mo eventually lands a new job as a crossing guard, but what the kids and drivers do to her is downright chaotic! You’d think people would just respect a stop sign, but when they disregard her, things start to spiral out of control. It leads to a shocking event, and suddenly Mo finds herself stepping into the role of an amateur sleuth. Along the way, she makes friends with an elderly woman named Claudia and a quirky tween named Marlow, which adds to the fun.

This story is not just funny; it reflects real life: a messy mix of personal chaos and fascinating inner thoughts that truly steal the show. Mo’s friends struggle to grasp why she's so flaky and can't seem to sort her life out at 29. After her bestie cuts ties with her, Mo realizes that her feelings and circumstances aren’t the only ones that matter. Then she falls in love with Tasha, and everything begins to unravel.

I believe this audiobook has something for everyone! I laughed, felt sad, and was fully engaged throughout. I was even on the edge of my seat at times! So many delightful characters join the mix (Poodle Dude, anyone?), and the whole narrative feels like one big, relatable mess that Mo would call an RLS (real life situation).

If you’re a fan of Finlay Donovan, Stephanie Plum, or Vera Wong mysteries, you'll find plenty to enjoy here, as they all share a certain dark humor and realism. So, if you appreciate cozy comedies sprinkled with a touch of romance, plenty of wit, and a hint of mystery, this book is for you. With unforgettable twists and characters, it’s sure to capture your interest. I binged this audiobook in just one afternoon because I needed to uncover whodunit and why! Trust me, stick with Mo on her wild ride, and you'll come out just fine. And just so you know, no dogs were harmed in the sinkhole incident! Ha!

Thank you, HarperAudio Adult | William Morrow Paperbacks, for the DRC copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Shelleyrae at Book'd Out · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don’t Cross Mo Ellery is a quirky, humorous mystery by Birdie Horne, a pen name created by co-authors Eden Robins and MW Garguilo.

After Mo Ellery gets fired, dumped, and evicted on the morning of her 29th birthday, she’s forced to move back into her junk-filled childhood bedroom and take a job as a school crossing guard. It’s not a difficult job but it has its challenges, including a grumpy neighbour, Claudia, a precocious pink-haired tween, Marlowe, and a road-raging driver she calls ‘Poodle Dude’. Arriving a few minutes late for work one morning, Mo is shocked to find Poodle Dude’s car lodged in a sinkhole, and the man himself dead. Feeling a little guilty that she wasn’t there to warn him of the hazard, Mo reluctantly takes custody of the man’s three demanding poodles and in her attempt to offload them, forms a growing suspicion that their owners death may not have been an accident.

It’s clear the authors’ had a lot of fun collaborating on Don’t Cross Mo Ellery. They’ve created an offbeat mystery with escalating stakes; a messy, hypochondriac main character with poor decision making skills; and included three high strung poodles in the eccentric supporting cast.

There’s plenty in the story to enjoy though I didn’t always find it as funny as it clearly wanted to be. Mo and her increasingly chaotic circumstances sometimes felt slightly more exhausting than entertaining.

I found Mo’s behaviour a little hard to reconcile with a 29-year-old protagonist, though she did amuse me more often than not. Of the supporting cast I found Marlowe, who appoints herself as Mo’s sidekick, to be a delight. As for Mo’s romance with Tasha, I don’t think it added much to the story.

Mo’s tendency to catastrophise makes her a poor investigator really but the mystery itself is well crafted, with a handful of red herrings and a couple of surprising twists.

Don’t Cross Mo Ellery was a bit hit and miss for me, but it’s an entertaining, quick and easy read.

[Lisa Leone-campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be prepared to laugh out loud during the reading of this book. Don't Cross Mo Ellery is hysterical, honest, absurd and crazy all rolled into a smart, shrewd story! I mean, if the first few pages don't pique your interest, I don't know what will! Watch as Mo Ellery's life goes from pretty ok, then bad to worse, and worse and worse, yet you will ride the comedy into the wonderfully funny ending!

On Mo Ellery's birthday, she accidently displays her boyfriend's ahem on a zoom call which not only gets her fired, but at the same time she discovers her boyfriend wants to break up, and she must pack up and leave their apartment. To add insult to injury, no one wants her...not her mother and father or her best friend who is a major social internet influencer.

With no money in her savings, she finds a crappy small apartment and a part-time job as a crossing guard. How low can she go? Well, lower! There is one particular driver who becomes her nemesis. One day as he begins to fly by and she prepares herself, something terrible happens and he crashes into a sink hole (which may or may not have been caused by Mo). He is dead in his car. Along with him in said car are three show poodles.

As Mo and a woman named Claudia try to figure out exactly what happened, somehow Mo gets the job of taking the dogs. All three! But it's what Claudia thinks that has Mo nervous. She thinks he was murdered. Seriously?

So, Mo does what any normal person would do. She takes the dogs to the funeral of their "dad" to try and not only pawn the dogs off to his brother, but to see if there could be any truth to what Claudia has said. And guess what? She thinks Claudia is right! And guess what else? The brother won't take the dogs!

So along with Claudia and oh yes, a very techy middle schooler, they begin to try and figure out the who, what, where and how of the murder. Then there is another death.

Mo, exhausted from taking care of three dogs, crossing guard duty, watching videos on how to be a detective and trying to discover clues as to what could possibly have happened and oh yes, dating a woman in an Alderman's office because you know, for leads, what else could possibly go wrong? Well, so much more and it is such fun!

Don't Cross Mo Ellery will keep a smile on your face the whole time you're reading the book. This story is about someone who is down on their luck but takes all the danger in stride and in the end well, it may be luck that she figures it out, but she figures it out! And the ending is perfectly Mo Ellery!

Thank you #NetGalley #WilliamMorrow/HarperCollins #BirdieHorne #Don'tCrossMoEllery for the advanced copy.

[Julie Maleski (juliereads_alot) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you William Morrow Books for the ARC and to HarperAudio Adult & Netgalley for the ALC of the audiobook...this is my honest review.

🎧📖 Don't Cross Mo Ellery 📖🎧
Author: Birdie Horne
Pub Date: August 11, 2026
Publisher: William Morrow Books
Audiobook Publisher: HarperAudio Adult
Narrator: Cia Court
Length: 9 hours, 31 minutes

MY RATING: 4/5⭐

Don't Cross Mo Ellery, the recent release from Birdie Horne, was a laugh-out-loud mystery that kept me entertained from start to finish.

Main character Mo Ellery is down on her luck. On her 29th birthday, she spectacularly loses her job, her boyfriend, AND her place to live -- all on the same day. To make ends meet, she begins working part-time as a crossing guard. But when one of the heckling antagonists of her new crossing guard duties is found dead, Mo finds herself in the role of amateur sleuth with some unexpected new friends.

The character of Mo was a hot mess for sure, but she was sarcastic, humorous, and oh-so-endearing. It was great to see the LGBTQIA+ representation in the live story in these pages. And the supporting characters in this book were so lovable in their quirkiness and sarcasm too.

I read this as a combo of the physical ARC and the audiobook, but I primarily listened to the audiobook because narrator Cia Court was FANTASTIC. Court perfectly captured the balance of sarcasm and lovability in Mo's character, and she made this story even more enjoyable!

If you're a fan of amateur sleuthing mysteries, humorous reads, sarcastic & endearing characters, and easy-to-listen-to audiobooks, Don't Cross Mo Ellery is one you'll really enjoy! And it's out now!

#DontCrossMoEllery #BirdieHorne #WilliamMorrowBooks #EpicTastemakers #ARC #HarperAudio #audiobooks #ALC #Netgalley #LGBTQIA #mysteries #amateursleuthing #booklover #bookaddict #bookrecs #bookreviews

[⭒emmi⋆m ⭒ · Rating 4 out of 5]

#gifted

🌱| Heavy on the laugh out loud.
Hot mess express Mo! Chaotic whodunit.
Fun, bingeable read! I really enjoyed it!
Loved the humor.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for inviting me to read this ARC and for giving me this audiobook in exchange for an honest review!

3.5 stars rounded up.

This was a really fun one! Mo was such a hilarious main character. Yes she was a bit much, but that was the whole point!

If you just turn off your brain and have a fun time with this, you will really enjoy this book!

I loved the audiobook. That made the book for me. The narrator really brought all the characters to life, using the perfect voices to carry along the story. I highly suggest if you pick this book up to listen to the audiobook!

This book was a little too horny for me. There were a couple of sex scenes, nothing too graphic, but Mo just had the hots for everyone. Which is fine, but it was a bit unnecessary for me personally.

I hate to say it, but Hannah was a terrible friend. I felt for her what happened to her at the end, but she was never there for Mo but expected Mo to drop everything to help her. Yes something serious was going on, and I am glad Mo did take time to help her, but she was being so unfair. I coudn’t stand her the entire book.

I loved all the cast of characters Mo met along the way, whether they got along or not, there was always something happening!

I didn’t care too much for her relationship with Tasha. I feel like it didn’t need to be in the novel at all. I’d much rather it just be the murder investigation.

My favorite character was probably Marlowe. She was awesome and so funny. I was laughing so hard at the scene with her and her mom when Mo thought something bad was happening. She was smart as a whip and a fun character to follow.

Benny was pretty funny too at times, but I didn’t love him or anything.

I loved that the book involved the three poodles throughout. I love dogs which helps, but they added a lot of comic relief to the story. They were also pretty helpful when they needed to be!

Like I mentioned earlier, I was kind of just along for the ride on this one. It wasn’t like I really cared who the murderer was, I was just having a good time following Mo around, seeing all the trouble she got herself into.

If you want a refreshing, quick and fun read, this would be the one to pick up!

[gracie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A chaotic bisexual getting into shenanigans while trying to get their life together? I'M THERE!

This was a decent enough story that was elevated by the amazing narrator, Cia Court, who was ridiculously good at character differentiation, voice inflections and tone. True to the marketing tagline, I did laugh out loud a few times and the amount of times I had to drop the book out of secondhand embarrassment was proof that this was very reminiscent of early 2000s comedy-mystery shows. However that didn't change the fact that the book was pretty forgettable and I just wish there'd been a little bit after the last chapter.

A pretty fun read regardless, and Cia Court I will be on the lookout for your other audiobooks. Thank you HarperAudio for the alc in exchange for an honest review

[Kayla Winkler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I requested this book’s ARC as it was listed until LGBTQ+ as and I was wanting more than just a romance read.

This book definitely provided that because I cannot figure out where to place this genre-wise. It had so many elements of queer romance to murder mystery that it made the whole read overall enjoyable. I would love to find another book like this, but I know Mo Ellery is in a league of her own.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy!

[Sydney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chaotic and hilarious, I had so much fun reading this book. The writing is humorous and everything is so exaggeratly unhinged, overall it works. You need to suspend belief for this novel and go into it aware that things are wild and weird. If you can do that, you’ll have a blast watching Mo solve a crime with three show poodles as her life falls apart.

3.5⭐️

Thank you to @harperaudio for the ALC and @williammorrowbooks for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

[Danielle Holmes · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐️ 🎧book

I think if you enjoyed “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” then you might like this one too. It’s a cozy mystery that had me laughing out loud - the FMC Mo gets herself in ridiculous situations after getting both dumped and fired on her birthday. She takes a job as a school crossing guard where she witnesses a murder that leaves her the guardian of 3 show poodles and a desire to solve the case. It’s ridiculous but was entertaining.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun audio book. It is Finlay Donavan /cozy mystery style of book. I listened to this while painting at my daughter and son-in-law's nw home and caught myself laughing out loud several times. It was easy to follow along while doing other activities and certainly made painting more fun.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced listener's copy!

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was entertaining but a bit messy and cringe inducing at times. Mo was absolutely completely clueless throughout and never really learned anything from her mistakes, or the mistakes of others. Quite a few plot holes but this is on the comedy cozy side so it’s not abnormal. The main character is super immature so if that bothers you this is not the book for you.

[Ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

The way this book starts out was hilarious! Mo is an absolute mess but that made her relatable at times. She gets fired and broken up with on her birthday and that’s just the beginning. There’s so many quirky side characters and dogs that really add a lot of humor. It was a silly and fun read. 🎧 This is definitely one you’ll want to listen to if you like audiobooks. Mo is chaotic and overthinks everything. She goes off the rails and spirals a lot and Cia Court did a great job bringing Mo to life. It was a great audiobook.

3.5 ⭐️ for story
5 ⭐️ for narration

[Vanna Book-Mage · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars.

I did not expect the story to just start with a sex scene. Listening to unexpected narrated sex scenes is weird definitely different, lol.

Overall, hilarious in some parts and LOL'd lots. Thanks Libro.fm

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny, silly mystery with great energy.

Thank you to NetGalley, HarperAudio, and Birdie Horne for this free review copy.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zany

[Demetri Papadimitropoulos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Please Look Both Ways Before Solving the Murder
In “Don’t Cross Mo Ellery,” Birdie Horne sends a compulsive overthinker into traffic, queer desire, ward politics and dog-show homicide – and discovers that attention may be the only adult skill she actually needed.
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | August 6th, 2026

Disaster is not the same thing as incapacity, though Mo Ellery has spent enough of her twenty-nine years treating one as evidence of the other that the distinction might sound like something Hannah, her wellness-influencer best friend, could monetize. Birdie Horne’s “Don’t Cross Mo Ellery” begins by taking away the things Mo has confused with proof that adulthood happened to her: boyfriend, job, apartment, routine, somebody else’s certainty. After her ten-year relationship with Chris ends, she looks around the sleek condo owned by his family and notices how little of it bears her imprint. He has become, in her phrase, the main character; she is the “flyover girlfriend.” Mo does need to become the protagonist of her own life. The harder lesson is learning to do that without casting everyone else according to convenience.

Even by the forgiving physics of comic mystery, Mo’s birthday achieves catastrophic efficiency. An unusually adventurous lunch with Chris produces cayenne salt in his eyes, a work call she believes has no video, an accidentally displayed penis and immediate unemployment. The breakup follows. Losing the job also means losing health insurance, which matters to a woman capable of turning an ordinary ache into a private season of “ER.” A recruitment sign near a school offers part-time work with benefits, so Mo becomes a crossing guard in Buffalo Park, a Chicago neighborhood she initially treats as evidence of downward mobility. Her equipment consists of a neon vest, a stop sign the size of a minor moon and the suspicion that children and motorists have entered into a joint venture to die on her watch.

Mo’s daily nuisances include Claudia, an elderly woman who considers assistance across the street an authoritarian offense; Marlowe, a pink-haired tween with unnerving technological gifts; and a hostile driver Mo calls Poodle Dude, whose seafoam Kia carries three standard poodles. Then Poodle Dude, actually Cran Johnston, drives into a sinkhole and dies. Mo acquires the poodles. Claudia acquires a theory. The neighborhood acquires a murder investigation. Claudia insists Cran was killed, a possibility Mo resists until she remembers that shortly before the crash he had been slurring, drooling and staggering despite being a health obsessive who did not drink. When Claudia later dies in an apparent gas leak after warning Mo that murder is involved, amateur detection stops being another poor decision and becomes, for Mo, a debt.

Elsewhere, mystery keeps being interrupted by sex, friendship, municipal paperwork and dogs. Mo is rediscovering her attraction to women through Tasha Moore, a clever, chronically overbooked aldermanic staffer; neglecting Hannah, whose UPGRADE program has turned old friendship advice into a business; trying to rehome three prize poodles; flirting with people she may need to interrogate; and nosing through development deals, bribes and gas lines. Elle Cosimano’s “Finlay Donovan Is Killing It” is a useful neighbor for the speed and escalating mishap, but Mo’s more dangerous talent is interpretive overconfidence. Give her three true details and one fear or desire and she can build a theory sturdy enough to climb onto. Reality keeps declining to hold her weight.

The sentences themselves are rarely content to arrive alone. A clipped observation picks up a qualification, the qualification catches an anxiety, the anxiety attracts a joke, and the joke sometimes brings a friend. The rhythm is quick without being uniformly short; Horne’s longer sentences often sound like Mo trying to keep control by talking faster than the situation can deteriorate. Marketing jargon rubs against medical panic, municipal bureaucracy against sexual slang, dog-show terminology against self-help patter. At its liveliest, the prose resembles the contents of Mo’s bag emptied onto a table: ibuprofen, receipts, a charger, somebody else’s dog treats and, underneath, the clue she needed twenty pages ago. The clutter is usually purposeful. This is a mind forever sorting, labeling, spinning and misfiling.

Rather than hide crucial information, Horne often leaves it plainly visible and lets Mo value the wrong thing. At a bar she nearly recognizes someone in a photograph, then loses the thought when Tasha touches her. Leslie Carey, the alderman’s wife and chief of staff, praises Mo’s care of the poodles so precisely that Mo mistakes manipulation for recognition. Hannah keeps trying to say that something is wrong in her own life, and Mo postpones the conversation because murder, romance or the next emergency feels louder. Horne rarely needs an elaborate concealment. Mo will put the wrong price on the clue herself.

If “Don’t Cross Mo Ellery” were only about a chaotic woman discovering that she is secretly competent, it would sit comfortably among familiar life-reset comedies. Horne’s better idea is to make competence embarrassingly practical. It matters that Mo comes from marketing. She knows how to reframe a bad fact, pitch a new story, sell lemonade from an exceptionally humiliating lemon. Crossing-guard work requires the opposite discipline. Marketing rewards framing. Traffic does not. One job asks what story can be made persuasive; the other asks what car is actually coming. Mo is terrible at looking impressive, yet she notices, improvises and cares. The job she considers humiliating teaches her to look before she spins.

Part of what Hannah does to Mo’s self-image is puncture the fantasy that everybody else received the adult instruction manual. Hannah has the successful brand, the house, the partners, the language of boundaries. She also has an online stalker she has repeatedly tried to tell Mo about. Mo has not listened. When their friendship finally breaks open, Hannah’s complaint is not that Mo is messy. It is that Mo’s mess has become monopolistic. Her crises are so vivid to her that other people’s lives register mainly when they cross her own. Only when she sits with Hannah’s messages does she understand both the scale of her friend’s fear and the clue linking the stalker to the missing $11,500. The case advances because Mo finally does something less glamorous than deduce: she pays attention to someone who needs her.

As Leslie comes into focus, that same weakness turns nastier. She wins Mo over by telling her exactly what she wants to hear, especially that she is doing a wonderful job with the dogs. Mo experiences the compliment as being seen. Later she understands it as access. Leslie has located the soft place in Mo’s self-conception and pressed. That correction matters more than any slogan about becoming the main character. Choosing your own life does not help much if somebody else can still write your lines by flattering you.

Plenty of the comedy works because Horne has a good joke almost every time one raises its hand. The problem is that she calls on nearly all of them. Claudia’s death, Hannah’s fear, Benny’s wrongful suspicion and the physical danger of the climax receive only brief stretches of unprotected seriousness before Mo’s mind starts making a bit of them. The voice need not become solemn; solemnity would be fatal here. But it could occasionally leave a feeling alone long enough to change the temperature of the room. Grief and farce can share an address without using the same bulb.

A second cost appears in the middle, where Mo’s certainty becomes its own recurring set piece. She encounters ambiguous evidence, declares victory, acts on the conclusion, discovers that plausibility is not proof and transfers her certainty elsewhere. Benny looks guilty; then Tond does; then even Tasha. Her detective errors echo her personal ones, but by the third or fourth false solution the device has begun to show its seams. The thirty-nine numbered chapters are conventional; the more interesting design lies in recurrence and late convergence. Because each wrong theory changes a relationship as well as the case, the reversals rarely feel disposable, even when there are too many of them. Page by page, the book moves quickly. Across the middle stretch, Mo sometimes seems to be sprinting around the same block.

During the final movement, much of that clutter clicks into one wonderfully improbable contraption. Cran’s death is deliberate botulinum poisoning; Claudia’s gas leak is murder. Leslie kills Cran because his show poodles, and his control over gifted handler Benny, obstruct her hopes for her aging dog Charlie’s final competitive triumph; Claudia dies when she gets too close. Hannah’s stalker, the stolen cash, UPGRADE, Botox, dog handling and ward-office corruption suddenly occupy the same plot. Two murders, municipal rot and a sinkhole finally narrow to competitive dog showing. One has to admire a motive so magnificently disproportionate to its body count.

In a stricter puzzle, the revelation might feel overripe. Here it mostly works because Horne has never promised austerity. Leslie grows flatter as she grows more dangerous, eventually serving as killer, thief, stalker, self-help zealot and syringe-wielding dog fanatic in one increasingly crowded person. The climax, with Benny nearly strangled by a dog collar, Hannah threatened with a syringe and poodles helping subdue the killer, offers more farcical coherence than detective inevitability. Still, enough of the clutter pays rent. Mo’s health anxiety helps her recognize the significance of Botox. The dogs become clue, motive and rescue squad. The sinkhole is where neglected infrastructure, corruption and personal danger finally give way under everybody’s feet.

More interesting than the solution is what solving the murders fails to settle. Mo does not finish with the missing cash, a restored marketing career, three glamorous dogs and a girlfriend waiting beside the caution tape. She has learned something less photogenic: wanting a life does not make its terms acceptable. This matters most with Tasha. Their relationship is sexually joyous and emotionally real; Mo’s bisexual reawakening is allowed to be rediscovery without being drafted into a coming-out pageant. But Tasha’s work has already claimed most of her calendar. When she looks for their next real date, the first opening is roughly a month away. Earlier Mo defended staying with Chris because they had already been together for ten years. Now she can want Tasha intensely and still see the relationship that is actually available.

In that choice, the queer storyline gains something a romantic reward would have spoiled. Tasha need not become cruel, false or secretly incompatible for Mo to leave. She only has to be seen accurately. What Mo has rediscovered about herself remains true even when the woman who helped uncover it does not become permanent. Desire is information, not an instruction.

The farce is also tethered to ordinary pressures that Mo would prefer to convert into personality flaws. Getting fired costs her health insurance. Losing Chris costs her housing. Hannah’s enviable public visibility gives a stalker the illusion of private access. Gas lines, road surfaces and municipal discretion give violence places to hide as accident. Horne does not enlarge these conditions into a program. They simply keep Mo’s “hot mess” from being purely decorative. Rent, work and vulnerability have helped build it. So has temperament.

Readers who click with Mo’s frequency may find her unusually alive: profane, anxious, horny, food-motivated, generous, catastrophically suggestible and braver than she knows. Those who do not will find scarcely a neutral sentence to rest in. Emily Austin’s “Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead” also lets anxious queer consciousness determine comic form, though Austin works in a darker, more inward register; Horne prefers collision, propulsion and the possibility that a poodle may enter from stage left. Her jokes are strongest when they leave something behind: hypochondria becomes a clue, a nuisance dog becomes motive, an embarrassing municipal job turns out to have taught Mo how to look.

On my scale, “Don’t Cross Mo Ellery” lands at 79/100, or 3/5 Goodreads stars. That is a high three, and deliberately so. Horne has made something distinctive, funny and more carefully patterned than its madcap packaging initially suggests, particularly in allowing Mo to grow without sanding her into respectability. The middle could lose some loops, and Leslie could retain more personhood once she becomes the answer. A leaner version would not be less exuberant. It would give the exuberance somewhere to peak.

Past the solved case, the image that best explains the book is almost embarrassingly small. The poodles have found another home, and Mo returns to an apartment that suddenly feels too quiet. For most of the novel, quiet is a vacancy her mind rushes to furnish with fear, jokes, sex, diagnoses, theories or somebody else’s attention. Now she almost reaches for her phone and does not. She tapes a photograph of the dogs to the wall, her first real decoration, and heads back into the neighborhood with résumés. Soon she will walk into a sex shop, buy something she once would have been too embarrassed to buy, notice a help-wanted sign and turn the collision of sex and work that destroyed her old life into a possibility she has chosen herself. The woman who began by trying to erase the last trace of herself from someone else’s condo ends by placing one small image on her own wall. It is not much of a makeover. It is better: a mark of occupancy.

[Sherry Moyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗦
After accidentally exposing both her and her boyfriend’s (ahem) family jewels on a Zoom call for work, on her birthday, Mo Ellery finds herself unemployed, broken up with, and without a place to live.

Dusting herself off, she finds a small place, gets a job as a crossing guard, and accidentally sees a murder.

Or was it?

Her nosy elderly neighbor thinks so, as does a teenager she helps cross the street daily.

And so Mo finds herself mixed up in a murder investigation while caring for three needy poodles and her own disintegrating self esteem.

It’s a lot.

𝗙𝗘𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦
It’s a lot.

This goes for comedy murder vibes and almost delvers. It was just a bit too slapstick for me. I wasn’t a huge fan of Mo and her constant bad choices. Side characters were interesting, but ultimately, I wasn’t invested in solving the mystery at all.

𝗩𝗜𝗕𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗘𝗖𝗞
“THOSE MEDDLING KIDS!”

𝗥𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗗
I think there’s an audience for this one. If you want something light and silly, this will scratch that itch.

Guys, lots of shenanigans.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

*I received an e-arc from the publisher via Net Galley to read and review. Thank you!

I was originally drawn to this book because of the synopsis of fun, quirky characters and queer rom com style. However, the execution really didn't land for me. The pacing moves at a relentless clip, with major plot developments stacking on top of each other in a way that is overwhelming. It truly felt like a finale of Grey's Anatomy, where one unbelievable thing happens after another. And the story didn't have to be believable, the farfetched is part of what makes the premise really fun. But the story doesn't pause to let any single moment breathe. I found myself wanting it to slow down. I also struggled with the main character. While her chaotic energy was supposed to be endearing, it was really just more frustrating. She also kept using the word "shitballs" which happened so often that it pulled me out of the story each time. I also love an imperfect narrator, but this was a miss for me.
If you love fast-paced plots and a messy protagonist with an endless stream of ridiculous, but funny circumstances, this might be the read for you.

[Get Your Tinsel in a Tangle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t Cross Mo Ellery starts with the kind of public humiliation that would make most people fake their own death and move to a lighthouse. On her twenty-ninth birthday, Mo accidentally exposes her boyfriend's genitals during a work video call, gets fired, gets dumped, loses her apartment, and somehow has to keep participating in society afterward. I was exhausted for her before chapter two. If embarrassment could be harvested as a renewable energy source, Mo could single-handedly solve the climate crisis.

What follows is essentially the story of a woman looking at the smoking crater where her life used to be and saying, "Well, I guess I'll become a crossing guard." Not because it's her passion. Not because she's fulfilling a lifelong dream. Because the job offers health insurance. Which honestly felt so realistic it looped back around from depressing to funny.

Then things get weird. And by weird, I mean Mo develops a one-sided rivalry with a guy who speeds through her intersection every morning in an SUV full of poodles. A sentence that sounds like it was generated by feeding a cozy mystery and a fever dream into the same blender. Then the guy drives into a sinkhole and dies, leaving Mo with three extremely judgmental show poodles and a neighborhood full of people convinced there was foul play involved.

The thing is, Mo has absolutely no business investigating a murder. This woman treats anxiety like a competitive sport. Every clue she discovers immediately launches her into twelve new theories, eleven of which are objectively insane. Watching her detective process felt like watching someone throw spaghetti at a wall and accidentally solve a crime. Every time she became convinced she'd cracked the case, I became convinced she needed a nap.

But that's also why she works. Mo isn't one of those quirky heroines who secretly has everything figured out underneath the mess. She's actually a mess. She doesn't know what she's doing. She doesn't know what she wants. She's staring down thirty while watching everyone around her appear infinitely more competent, and there's something painfully recognizable about that. Beneath all the jokes and chaos, there's this very real fear that maybe everyone else got an instruction manual for adulthood and yours got lost in the mail.

The side characters are doing some heavy lifting here too. Claudia, Marlowe, Tasha, the various neighborhood weirdos, all feel like people who wandered in from completely different books and somehow formed a community anyway. My favorite dynamic in the whole novel is that nobody seems entirely sure why they're helping Mo, including Mo. Found family usually gets presented as this beautiful emotional phenomenon. Here it often feels more like a series of increasingly binding accidents.

The poodles deserve their own paragraph because they are somehow both evidence and emotional support animals. Every time they appeared, I felt like the book was reminding me that we're all taking this murder investigation slightly more seriously than the actual investigator. There were moments when I trusted the dogs' judgment more than Mo's, and honestly I stand by that.

Now, did the book occasionally mistake escalating chaos for actual momentum? A little. There were stretches where Mo's complete inability to make a reasonable decision started testing my patience. The humor is very committed to the bit, and whether that works for you will depend entirely on your tolerance for a protagonist who repeatedly sees a bad idea and responds like it's a limited-time offer. I laughed a lot, but I also spent a significant portion of the book wanting to confiscate her phone and put her in a supervised environment.

Still, somewhere along the way, I got attached. Maybe it's because Mo's life is falling apart in such a recognizable way. Maybe it's because her bisexual reawakening and murder investigation are somehow running on the same chaotic energy. Maybe it's because every person in this neighborhood seems one inconvenience away from starting their own investigation. Whatever the reason, I ended up having a genuinely good time.

This landed at 3.5 stars for me. It never fully convinced me that chaos is a substitute for common sense, but it absolutely convinced me to spend several hundred pages with a bisexual crossing guard who keeps collecting problems like they're loyalty points.

Whodunity Award: For Making Me Believe Three Show Poodles Were Better Equipped to Solve This Murder Than Half the Human Cast

Huge thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley for handing me the keys to this delightful little clown car of bad decisions, murder, neighborhood gossip, and emotionally complicated poodle custody. I'd absolutely climb back in.

[Gali · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Don’t Cross Mo Ellery" by Birdie Horne is a chaotic cozy mystery, just like its heroine. Birdie Horne is the pseudonym of two authors, Eden Robins and Mary Winn Heider, and this is their first novel together. And a successful endeavor it is!

Told in the first-person POV, the book follows Mo Ellery, a 29-year-old bisexual hypochondriac woman who finds herself in the thick of a murder mystery. Her 29th birthday starts on the wrong foot when a Zoom work meeting goes awry due to a small accident involving indecent exposure. As a result, she gets fired, dumped by her boyfriend, and kicked out of their Chicago apartment, all on the same day. She finds a low-paying job as a crossing guard and moves into a small flat in a less posh neighborhood. However, her troubles are far from over. The neighbors are less than welcoming, the kids disregard her orders to wait for her signal to cross, and her bestie is distant.

Among the colorful locals are Claudia, a wacky old woman; Marlowe, a tween prodigy; and Poodle Dude, a man with an SUV full of poodles who speeds through her intersection each morning. The plot thickens when Poodle Dude dies after speeding into a sinkhole. Claudia believes he was murdered and drags Mo into investigating it. Soon, Mo finds herself the guardian of three poodles and in the role of an amateur sleuth. When another local dies under mysterious circumstances, Mo needs to step on it. With the help of Marlowe, her sidekick - or is it the other way around? - they try to find a murderer. What follows is a series of shenanigans, chaos, and mayhem.

I enjoyed the book very much. Mo isn't your standard heroine. You'll either like her or hate her, and I liked her. Yes, she is a mess, selfish at times, and has issues, but that made her feel human and authentic. She grows and develops throughout the tale, and I couldn't help but root for her. She doesn't always act wisely, that's true, and more than once I wanted to shout at her to reconsider her actions. But then, we all make the wrong choices at times.

What made the book work for me was the humor. Much of it comes from Mo herself, whose chaotic decision-making repeatedly lands her in awkward situations. The investigation is just as messy as its heroine, which fits the tone of the story perfectly. I also enjoyed the interactions between the characters and watching Mo become more aware of her flaws and more independent as the story progresses. And I loved the dogs and their antics!

The mystery is a light but fun one. There is a light romance subplot, which doesn't overshadow the plot. The pace was just right, and the tone strikes a nice balance between lighthearted and tense moments. Even though two authors wrote the tale, the seam is invisible, and the writing is smooth.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read, a palate cleanser if you please. Despite enjoying the book very much, there were a few things that kept it from being a five-star read. The opening scene made me somewhat uncomfortable, and I found the motive behind the murders a bit far-fetched. That said, I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to those looking for a light and fun read. I would love to read more books featuring this heroine.

* Thank you NetGalley and (publisher) for the opportunity to read this arc. All opinions are my own.
* Review on my blog: https://galibookish.blogspot.com/2026...

[Jennifer Huberdeau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review of an Advanced Reader's copy from the publisher.

Mo Ellery is a hot mess.

In a single day — her 29th birthday — she manages to get fired, dumped and kicked out of her apartment.

It all begins with some spicy birthday shenanigans (which, unbeknownst to her, were breakup shenanigans) and the unfortunate decision to join her afternoon meeting mid-shenanigans with her camera on. It ends with the incident getting her blackballed from her industry. Down on her luck, Mo's best friend, Hannah, suggests she take what she can get, even if it isn't what she wants at the moment. Hannah says to look for signs. And then a sign appears: "Looking for flexible part-time work? Become a school crossing guard."

It's not exactly the fresh start she imagined, but it is a start.

A few weeks later, Mo is working with what she has: a studio apartment, a low-paying crossing guard job and her bisexual reawakening. And she's dealing with a cast of zany neighbors: Claudia, a conspiracy theorist who won't let Mo help her cross the street; Marlowe, a tween tech wiz and her nemesis, "Poodle Dude," a driver with three poodles who speeds through her crosswalk. Her efforts to slow him down are always thwarted and end with him threatening to send the local alderman after her.

She thinks things can't get any worse until a sinkhole opens near her intersection.

Mo does her best to alert drivers to the sinkhole, but "Poodle Dude" pays no attention as he barrels through the intersection. The sinkhole swallows his SUV. Poodle Dude doesn't survive the crash. It all seems like an accident until Claudia pokes her head in, declares it a murder and hands off the poodles to Mo for safekeeping.

Could it be a murder? And if so, what's the motive? Mo tells herself she doesn't have time for things like this.

All Mo wants is a good-paying job and a date with Tasha, the alderman's assistant. Instead, she has three jobs she doesn't want: crossing guard, dog sitter and detective. Determined to get rid of at least one of those titles, she heads to Poodle Dude's funeral, hoping to hand off the dogs to his brother, but ends up finding a clue on the dead man when she inadvertently drops her phone in his casket.

What ensues is a whakadoo investigation with a few spicy scenes in between murder accusations. The mystery gives Mo a problem she cannot simply run from — forcing her to pay attention to the world around her, even when that world is full of chaos, suspicious neighbors and three very demanding dogs.

"Don't Cross Mo Ellery," by Birdie Horne, the pseudonym of MW Gargulio and North Adams author Eden Robins, is a bit of a slow burn, taking its time for the murder mystery to get underway. The story lingers in the details of Mo's life, trying hard to convince you that she is a hot mess. The effort is as ingratiating as the character is.

That patience pays off. The novel's charm comes less from the mystery itself and more from watching Mo stumble through the consequences of her own choices, slowly figuring out that a life she never planned for might still be a life worth keeping, with a few tweeks, of course.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started Birdie Horne’s Don’t Cross Mo Ellery during my morning commute, and before I’d even reached work, Mo had managed to get fired, dumped, and kicked out of her apartment on her birthday. Suddenly my own morning felt remarkably well organized. Thank you to William Morrow for the gifted book and HarperAudio for the gifted audiobook.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Mo Ellery is an absolute disaster—and I say that with affection. She overthinks everything, regularly makes the worst possible decision, and somehow believes she is qualified to investigate a murder simply because it happened near her crosswalk. She is exhausting, ridiculous, and frequently hilarious.

I listened to most of this one in the car, and Cia Court completely sold Mo’s chaotic inner monologue. I caught myself laughing alone at a stoplight more than once, which probably made the people beside me wonder whether I was okay. Fair question.

The mystery begins when Mo’s speeding nemesis, whom she has nicknamed Poodle Dude, drives into a sinkhole and dies. Naturally, Mo walks away from the scene with his three poodles and an unofficial position as neighborhood detective. Because apparently calling the police and going home would have been too sensible.

Claudia and Marlowe were my favorite parts of the story. Claudia is the kind of neighbor who announces that something is murder and expects everyone else to catch up. Marlowe is smart, fearless, and far more capable than most of the adults around her. I honestly wanted more scenes with both of them.

Mo occasionally became a little too much for me, and there were moments when I wanted to reach into the book, take her phone away, and tell her to sit quietly for five minutes. But underneath all the nonsense is a woman whose life has fallen apart and who is slowly realizing she cannot keep expecting everyone else to clean up the mess.

I switched between the audiobook and my physical copy at home, carried the book from room to room, and ignored Faith’s repeated suggestion that reading time should actually be dinner time. Priorities were debated.

This is staying on my recommendation shelf for anyone who wants a funny, wildly over-the-top mystery with eccentric neighbors, a bisexual awakening, three demanding poodles, and an amateur detective who has absolutely no business investigating anything.

Which fictional hot-mess detective would you trust the least to solve your murder—and why would you still follow her into danger?

#DontCrossMoEllery #BirdieHorne #WilliamMorrow #HarperAudio #CozyMystery #FunnyMystery #AudiobookReview #QueerBooks #Bookstagram

[Just Blue Through Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and to William Morrow for the ARC of Don't Cross Mo Ellery by Birdie Horne.

I started off laughing out loud in the first chapter, and found numerous other times throughout the story that had me chuckling or smiling -- the two authors dueling to write a story to make people laugh as their Birdie Horne persona definitely achieved exactly what they were going for. Mo Ellery is a hot mess of hilarity.

Losing her job, being broken up with by her boyfriend of a decade, and moving into a tiny apartment on the outskirts of Chicago to work as a part time crossing guard (with health insurance!) has made it quite the month in Mo Ellery's life. She's perservering in her own way, with pockets of snack pepperoni and loads of hypochondriac trips to urgent care, but when a man who always recklessly blows through her crosswalk speeds through right into a sinkhole and dies, Mo finds herself seeking out if murder played a hand. Along the way she makes friends with a dog walker who looks like Link from Zelda, a nosy neighbor with the largest collection of large sun hats, a tween hacker, a dedicated public servant, and the victim's brother who is more than accurately described at one point as a "chaos hostage". Oh, and she's doing all of this detecting while carting around the victim's 3 show poodles.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read - it's light, it doesn't take itself seriously, with intent, and it's just a solid romp of a read.

For me, where I struggled was that, while Mo made me laugh, she isn't a likeable person. The situations she gets herself into are funny, but she's such a selfish mess who doesn't seem to have any intent on changing and that was just frustrating. When I finished I wasn't sure I would want to read another story with her as the lead because of her personality, and it seems like while a plot will push her forward to action, she's never going to take any action on herself.

My other struggle was one mention that happens in the book that I think maybe confused the whole mystery for me but I will write about that solely in the NetGalley publisher notes. Overall I think the mystery made sense and had some fun layers to it to keep the readers guessing.