Death at Thorburn Hall by Julianna Deering

**This book was sent to me free of charge by Bethany House Publishing in return for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.**

Overview:

Drew Farthering arrives in idyllic Scotland for the 1935 British Open at Muirfield hoping for a relaxing vacation, but he soon finds a mystery on his hands. Lord Rainsby, his host at Thorburn Hall, fears his business partner may be embezzling and asks Drew to quietly investigate. Before Drew can uncover anything, Rainsby is killed in a suspicious riding accident.

Thorburn Hall is filled with guests, and as Drew continues to dig, he realizes that each might have had a motive. Together with Madeline and Nick, he must sort through shady business dealings, international intrigue, and family tensions to find a killer who always seems to be one step ahead.

My Review:

This is the 6^th book in the Drew Farthering series but it is the first one I’ve read.  Because of that, I was a little lost with the characters but not enough to take away from this story.  It takes place in Scotland where Drew, his wife Madeline, and their friends Nick and Carrie gather at Thorburn Hall to enjoy the British Open golf tournament.  Instead, their host Lord Rainsby ends up dead by what at first glance appears to be an accident but turns out to be murder.  It then falls to Drew and company to figure out what really happened. 

The story takes place at the precipice of WWII and I thought the author did a good job of letting it play into the story without overdoing it.  Hitler wasn’t perceived as a mighty threat at that point so I’m glad she didn’t have the characters see him as the monster he would come to be.  I have a feeling that she was setting the table for that in later books which would make sense. 

It’s a little difficult to talk in detail about this story without giving away a lot of spoilers but I will say that I think the characters were a little flat and stereotypical – especially the lead police officer.  I also thought some aspects of the story were too heavy but went nowhere while others were too light that had more significant meaning.

It took me a while to get into this book because I thought the pacing was slow and there was no sense of urgency from the characters to catch the killer. I prefer a little more action in a murder-mystery book. That’s not to take away from this story – just my personal preference.

Another thing I had issue with was that Carrie spent the whole book being a whiny baby hiding in a hotel room and that more than anything really annoyed me.  If you have read any of my other reviews, you know that character is the most important thing to me as a reader and if I don’t connect with them, it’s hard to like the story.  Fortunately, she isn’t really the main character so I can kind of let that go.

The ending was a little disappointing because there were threads throughout the book that seemed really important that turned out to be nothing – almost like the author couldn’t figure out where to go with them and just gave up. 

I know this sounds like a negative and very unhelpful mixed review but it isn’t meant to be.  It isn’t a bad book but it just isn’t my cup of tea.  I am sure there will be lots of people who really enjoy this type of mystery but for my personal taste, I want to see a little more depth and coherence.  I will chalk that up to my own shortcomings for not having read any of the previous books in this series.  

The Vanishing Thief by Kate Parker

Overview:

Georgia Fenchurch appears to be an unassuming antiquarian bookseller in Victorian London, but the life she leads is as exciting as any adventure novel. For Georgia is a member of the Archivist Society, a secret association of private investigators led by the mysterious Sir Broderick.

When a frantic woman comes to Georgia claiming that her neighbor, Nicholas Drake, has been abducted by the notorious Duke of Blackford, Georgia and the Archivist Society agree to take the case. But Drake is no innocent—he is a thief who has been blackmailing many of the leading members of London society. To find Drake and discover who is behind his abduction, Georgia and her beautiful assistant, Emma, will have to leave the cozy confines of their bookshop and infiltrate the inner circles of the upper crust—with the help of the dashing but dubious Duke of Blackford himself.

But the missing thief and his abductor are not the only ones to elude Georgia Fenchurch. When she spies the man who killed her parents years ago, she vows to bring him to justice once and for all…at any cost.

My Review:

This is the first book in the Victorian Bookshop Mystery series where we meet Georgia Fenchurch, owner of a bookstore that specializes in antique books.  She is also a member of the Archivist Society, a group that discretely solves crimes. 

Georgia was orphaned as a young girl when both her parents were brutally murdered and she has been on the hunt for their killer ever since.  In the beginning of the story, she spots him and though she chases after him, he gets away.  Shortly after, a woman comes into Georgia’s store and demands help from the Archivist Society in locating her neighbor has been abducted by the Duke of Blackford.  Georgia is skeptical but discusses the case with the rest of the Archivist Society and they agree to help. 

I found the story to be engaging, although the author plays a little too fast and loose with the rules of society at that time.  I am more than willing to suspend belief if the rules are broken “correctly” but there still needs to be a sense that it is a historical event and not a modern story with a Victorian setting.  It wasn’t enough to take me out of the story, though, and that’s important.

I thought the characters were interesting but just a tad two dimensional and a little flat.  I would like to see them more fleshed out but the story had enough twists and turns to keep me turning the page and wanting to find out how the person would be caught and that’s the tell-tale sign of a good book.

Overall, while there were a few minor issues, I did enjoy the book and will definitely be picking up the next one in the series.

To Marry an English Lord by Gail MacColl and Carol McD. Wallace

Overview:

From the Gilded Age until 1914, more than 100 American heiresses invaded Britannia and swapped dollars for titles—just like Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham, the first of the Downton Abbey characters Julian Fellowes was inspired to create after reading To Marry An English Lord. Filled with vivid personalities, gossipy anecdotes, grand houses, and a wealth of period details—plus photographs, illustrations, quotes, and the finer points of Victorian and Edwardian etiquette—To Marry An English Lord is social history at its liveliest and most accessible.

My Review:

In a bit of a departure from my normal murder mystery book reviews, this is instead a work of non-fiction.  With degrees in History and Anthropology, I have a passion for all things history and British – especially the Victorian era – and this book combines both. 

This book tells the stories of the American Heiresses like Consuelo Vanderbilt and Jennie Jerome who ended up marrying into the elite of British Society.  Consuelo married the Duke of Marlborough and Jennie married Lord Randolph Churchill and gave birth to Winston Churchill.  There are numerous others named but those are the two names most people will be familiar with. 

These marriages were considered good matches all around as the impoverished British Peerage needed the money and the American Aristocrats wanted the titles.  On paper it was a win-win for everyone except the poor women who were basically auctioned off to the highest title holder. 

The one complaint I have about the book is how it is laid out.  There are numerous one- to two- page spreads of additional information such as styles of architecture or the various types of what the authors call Wall Street Fathers. These spreads occur throughout the book and usually in the middle of a chapter so you have to thumb through the additions to finish the main section you were reading.  It is a little distracting and would be better to have these either at the end or beginning of each section.  Once you finish the paragraph or section of the main story, you are forced to backtrack to the “secondary” sections. 

Overall, I really enjoyed the book and highly recommend it, especially if you were a fan of the PBS show Downton Abbey as the creator of that show, Julian Fellowes, took his inspiration from this book.