My Five Word TL: DR Review: I think I misled myself

Before I start this review I must confess that I misled myself a little with this particular novel.  I do have a way of sometimes not reading the description as thoroughly as I should and in this instance I was expecting a gothic mystery.  In actual fact there is so much more going on in this story and whilst I  appreciate what the author wanted to deliver, it simply wasn’t what I expected and so I did struggle a little.  Like I said though, that’s on me for not properly checking out what the book was about in the first place.

As it is the story gets off to a good start.  A young woman turns up at a mansion uninvited and asks to see the master of the house.  Florence is the daughter of a bookbinder, her father has thrown her out following a scandal of some description and the only hope she has is that Lord Francis Belfield will employ her to restore his rare book collection.  After a few tense confessions Florence is taken on and given a room and a three month time allocation to get the library collection into a fit condition to sell.  Lord Belfield’s wife recently passed away in what can only be considered as unusual circumstances.  On top of this tragedy his personal finances are in disarray and he needs to raise funds somehow.

What I liked about this story.  The writing was easy to get along with, I have no idea how historically correct it is but I enjoyed it, the scene setting was well executed and atmospheric.  There was an air of sadness about the place, also one of slight neglect there now being very few staff left to manage the estate which immediately generates an easy going friendship between Florence and the butler/footman/odd job person.

The cast of characters was relatively small and almost what you would expect from a gothic mystery.  The master of the house has an air of sadness that doesn’t prevent him from sometimes being rather high handed.  His brother is a truly awful, over privileged character who I loathed.  The cook is grumpy and not easily befriended.  The footman is easy going, a little gullible and loves to gossip.  Now, unfortunately I did not always find Florence easy to like and this definitely made the read a little more difficult for me.  I’m not sure I can really put my finger on why Florence didn’t win me over.  She had some winning characteristics, she was creative, clever and definitely a capable and forward thinking woman but she puzzled me.  For example, with very little to go on she immediately decides the late mistress was murdered (why?) and begins to look at all the inhabitants as potential suspects.  It just felt a bit flimsy at this point with little to back up any real theories, she was also on thin ice in terms of her employment and so the notion of snooping around an unknown house in the early hours of the morning reading personal correspondence, etc, just felt a bit reckless.  Plus, if there was anything of real substance to be found in such correspondence then surely it wouldn’t have been left lying around in the first place?

Anyway, regardless of these little misgivings I was enjoying the story and was keen to find out what was going on at Rose Hall.  However, I did find myself losing interest as the story progressed and in fact I was tempted to stop reading.  The plot became a bit too convoluted and  the mystery elements got overtaken by so many other events.  However, I will say that I’m glad I continued reading.  I wanted answers and  they were definitely delivered.  At the end of the day I think this is a case of my own expectations having gone off in the wrong direction this simply wasn’t the read I was expecting or hoping for at that particular time but I would love to see what this author comes up with next.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

My rating 3 of 5 stars