BR Myers

A fun read, with a lot of hat tips to famous mysteries. Wilkie Collins ( threatening seasides, mistaken identities), Daphne Du Maurier ( eerie housekeeper) Charlotte Bronte ( horse in the mist, haughty lord of the manor and hard luck young woman.)
If you are a purist for the times, this will drive you crazy…. A girl who would basically be scullery helps dress a lady and they chat , including, briefly, about sex?!)
Anyway, all in all, a fun read. Would have gone three and a half, but didn’t want to go all the way down to three, so four it is… (mehr)

Overall I enjoyed this book.

Some things I didn't enjoy largely centered around how disjointed the plot felt. The first third is largely Terry acclimating to her new school and what it means to be a (mostly) normal teenager in America. Having spent her first fifteen years globetrotting with her archeological parents Terry doesn't quite understand the politics of being a high schooler and doesn't want to understand them. Grieving for what happened to her mother, feeling a distance growing between her very busy father and herself, dealing with the aftermath of her injury and stuck in a town who's museum is mostly closed off, she's quite adrift.

Honestly speaking if the book had mostly focused on her adjusting and making friends, with a light mystery involved I would have been more content. The summary however makes the mystery seem much more important than I felt the book treated it. Her father fell into a coma, a curse, and a fifty year old mystery to solve all makes the high school stuff pale in comparison. Once the mystery plot actually began I could have cared less about her boy troubles, her mean girl troubles or her issues with understanding American teen culture.

I feel like some of it could have been spread throughout subsequent books (especially her boy drama), to avoid having the plot seem cramped.

I was quite pleased with how the mystery resolved itself as I had guessed at pieces of it, but not the overall motive. Myers tosses a couple red herrings out that should keep most readers guessing. As a lover of ancient Egypt I enjoyed the bits that spoke about her and the search for her tomb, as well as the pains Myers takes to discuss how taking artifacts impact the country they're taken from. Its always nice to see social consciousness in a book.

So as I said, overall I enjoyed the book. The next book ([book:Diadem of Death|33828570]) has Terry traveling once more and running into an old friend (which in as any lover of genre knows this NEVER bodes well).… (mehr)