Review: Enjoyable Contemporary Victorian
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 21, 2014
This is the first book in a series, and does a good job of introducing and establishing the characters. The characterizations are well done, & the people themselves are either quirkily appealing or (as intended, I'm sure) somewhat distasteful. The plot line is interesting, and there are several likely suspects. This book missed 5 stars for the following reasons: 1) pacing is somewhat slow - while a lot is going on, it's somewhat cluttered busy-work, a bit frazzled like its protagonist, which may be intentional, but can get a little annoying, 2) personally, I prefer my heroines a little more self- confident - Libby is somewhat uncomfortable with her age, looks, & personality, and while this does happen to us women of a certain age. It is annoying when frequently remarked; & Fran, the psychic who doesn't believe she's a psychic but works for the police, real estate agents, etc. was just annoying. Seems like, since she grew up with the ability, by her age in the book she would have come to terms with it. That she hadn't made her weak, for me, & by the end of the book I still had ambivalent feelings for her, so I'm hoping things will improve as the series goes on, since it looks like she'll be a regular. 3) Libby doesn't figure it out until the last possible moment, & when she does, it's based on somewhat weak generalities, rather than the very important clue that the killer dropped midway through the book, which tells the reader who the killer is, but is never mentioned in the climax!  All that being said, this is still an above average book with a contemporary but rural setting that lends itself to an interestingly anachronistic  Victorian feel, & I thoroughly enjoyed it & am starting Book 2 today.