Review: Gothic Murder Mystery Wins With Romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 20, 2010
Munro has revived and done a bit of a refresher on her 2005 novel, Second Seduction, presented here as The Spurned Viscountess.Lucien, Viscount Hastings, is about to enter into an arranged marriage with Rosalind; to say that he's less than pleased would be an understatement.  He's still mourning his beloved wife Francesca, he's hell-bent on fulfilling his promise to her to hunt down her killer and even if he was interested in re-marrying, it wouldn't be to this bland little English mouse.  Rosalind, on the other hand, can't afford not to go through with this marriage.  In her village, she's gained the reputation as a witch due to her psychic abilities; all she wants is a safe place to live and a marriage that will produce children, if not love.I try not to generally spill the entire plot in my reviews, but since there's no blurb up, I'll just say that the murder mystery revolves around a band of smugglers operating in the vicinity of Castle Clare and in the village nearby; the smugglers may be harboring the killer of Lucien's late wife.  Both Lucien and Rosalind are investigating the mystery separately, neither one happy with the other's methods, each at great danger to themselves, of course, especially since Lucien doesn't generally believe a word out of Rosalind's mouth.From the beginning of the story, things don't go well for the couple's relationship.  Rosalind touches Lucien and sees images of Francesca; not knowing if they're from the past or present and unsure of how to approach her new husband, he solves that problem by alternating between completely ignoring her or insulting her.  If that weren't bad enough, Rosalind is being stalked by danger at Castle Clare; she fears she's being watched in her bed chamber and someone is playing increasingly treacherous tricks on her.  Her faithful maid and friend even disappeared, but no one is taking her suspicions seriously, not even Lucien.Of course there are many other gothic murder mysteries out there and I think I may have read a hundred of them when I was a teenager.  One of the things I enjoyed about Munro was that she didn't give in and make Lucien tortured but polite to Rosalind.  There was no hot and cold, he was simply cold; he honestly didn't want to be married to her and didn't really care what she thought.  She also didn't turn several other characters into what could have been easy stereotypes and mostly resisted using them anywhere in her plot, which made reading the story so much more interesting.The thawing of Lucien's feelings towards Rosalind had been taking place gradually and not at all smoothly; I lost count of how many times he'd threatened to lock her in her room.  Considering how awful he'd been, by the point that Lucien finally discovered that he'd married well, I wanted a good grovel scene, but Munro wrote me out of it by delivering the shiveringly tender, sweet and romantic wedding night Rosalind had been waiting for.  After that, it was admirable that Lucien didn't turn into a sap; he still had his cranky moments mixed in with more of those shivery ones.All of the elements of a good gothic mystery/romance are here and Munro makes good use of them to turn the story into something special.  While the mystery's ending might have been dramatic and exciting, it's also fairly familiar; Lucien and Rosalind's love story is where this book shined.