(Hello Team, I am posting a review in June! This is months earlier than I usually do!)
I picked this book up on vacation in Edinburgh. The cover has crows on it and it looked good enough. Spoiler – there are no crows in the book at all. Weak sauce. I do not read much mystery at all. The pitch of “governess goes to isolated mansion in woods and things are spoooooooky” seemed like a diverting way to spend much of the flight home.
Catherine Symonds is the aforementioned governess who has obtained a place at Locksley Abbey. She has lied to get the position as the previous governess was her sister who was reported to have killed herself. Catherine doesn’t believe that for a second so off she goes to investigate.
I do not like a mystery that is not possible for the reader to solve on their own. There is a fourth act reveal that felt like a prank. The author had this great idea for how the doers of evil deeds could get away with their evil acts based entirely on the heroine having amnesia about her life before the last two or three years. It’s one thing to hint at the paranormal or the spooky. Pulling outright “Whoopise, here’s a whole bevy of new facts to try and integrate and I’ll drip feed them to you over a few chapters.” felt like a rug pull.
I guess as the reader we are meant to feel as at sea as Catherine, as upset and undone by the revelations. They made the story make no sense. The paranormal twists felt cheap and the resolution left me feeling blah. This could also be that I’m not a mystery reader and I am missing out on genre conventions.
2 out of 5 because I did finish and it was grammatically correct.
P.S. if you are going to write about a historical period, specifically details of how clothing works, research it and get it right.