Rating: ★★★
Audience: Historical Mystery
Length: 325 pages
Author: Deanna Raybourn
Publisher: Berkley Books
Release Date: February 15th, 2022
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads
BOOK SUMMARY:
While investigating a man claiming to be the long-lost heir to a noble family, Veronica Speedwell gets the surprise of her life in this new adventure from the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-nominated author Deanna Raybourn.
London, 1889. Veronica Speedwell and her natural historian beau Stoker are summoned by Sir Hugo Montgomerie, head of Special Branch. He has a personal request on behalf of his goddaughter, Euphemia Hathaway. After years of traveling the world, her eldest brother, Jonathan, heir to Hathaway Hall, was believed to have been killed in the catastrophic eruption of Krakatoa a few years before.
But now a man matching Jonathan’s description and carrying his possessions has arrived at Hathaway Hall with no memory of his identity or where he has been. Could this man truly be Jonathan, back from the dead? Or is he a devious impostor, determined to gain ownership over the family’s most valuable possessions–a legendary parure of priceless Rajasthani jewels? It’s a delicate situation, and Veronica is Sir Hugo’s only hope.
Veronica and Stoker agree to go to Hathaway Hall to covertly investigate the mysterious amnesiac. Veronica is soon shocked to find herself face-to-face with a ghost from her past. To help Sir Hugo discover the truth, she must open doors to her own history that she long believed to be shut for good.
NEUTRAL.
I went into this with a different mindset after not loving the previous two books. This series reads much more like a cozy mystery set in a historical time period and once my brain clicked to that kind of genre, things got better.
Veronica and Stoker were as always, just fine! I liked getting more of Veronica’s back story and learning some new angles to her personality. Stoker, formidable and dedicated still made me swoon with the way he talks to Veronica. I love that there connection continually seems to strengthen which each passing tale.
This started off as an interesting story. I liked the new characters added and seeing the old resurface. Towards the end I thought things became repetitive again. There’s only so many times you can get kidnapped at gun point before a switch in story telling needs to be made.
While I didn’t love the ending, it definitely opens the story back up for future books. I heard there’s at least two more coming so I get it, EVEN IF I’M FRUSTRATED BY IT. Anywho, this is a fun series to mix in with denser reads.
Overall audience notes:
- Historical Mystery + Romance
- Language: little
- Romance: closed door
- Violence: low blood, mild otherwise
- Overall audience notes: kidnapping, impersonation, mentions of torture, gun violence, physical altercations, near death experiences, colonialism
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