This was a really good book! A totally original story and great characters! The author used very descriptive words and I could picture myself at the places described.
Rebecca goes home to help her brother. He wants to get his manuscript published. At Swanford Abbey, Rebecca finds an author that she hopes will promote her brothers book. Mysteriously, the author is murdered and things are not as they seem. Rebecca teams up with Sir Frederick, a childhood friend to uncover the murderer and they find out more than they bargained for. They must also come to terms with their attraction to each other. ( )

An entertaining "who done it" murder mystery with a pinch of romance. 4 Stars!!!! This is my second Klassen book, and I really enjoyed it, although some parts dragged a bit for me hence the 4 stars.

The setting and main/secondary characters were great, and the mystery kept me guessing until the very end. Hint, there's more than one mystery :) Rebecca Lane has been away from home for over a year, working as a lady's companion to Lady Fitzhoward. Rebecca is called back home to Worcestershire, England, to check on her brother, John, who is struggling mentally. She quickly finds herself thrown into a dangerous assignment and, to her pleasure, spending time with her childhood crush, Sir Frederick, at the "haunted" Swanford Abbey.

I just loved Rebecca Lane! She is a loving and loyal sister to John. Klassen does an excellent job of portraying mental health struggles with John's character and the toll it takes on their loved ones (Rebbecca and Rose, the caretaker of the Lanes and the Lodge). Another character fav was Sir Frederick. He is a class act and someone you'll root for. Finally, Lady Fitzhoward made me laugh out loud and reminded me of Violet Crawley from Downton Abbey. There are so many great characters with intriguing storylines to follow in this story, and although there were parts that dragged for me, I would have liked even more background on certain characters.

I would recommend this book and will read more of Julie Klassen's work in the future. :) ( )

Tasked by her brother to present his manuscript to a well-known author, Rebecca Lane takes a room in the monastery-turned-hotel Swanford Abbey, where the author is also staying. And so is Frederick Wilford, an older man Rebecca once had a huge crush on. When the famous writer is murdered, Frederick, as local magistrate, is determined to find the guilty party, even if the investigation shines a light on secrets Rebecca is hiding.

As a Regency-era romance, the story here is pretty good. As a mystery, it’s only okay. My biggest issue is that it takes quite a while to really get going; so much of the first half is spent describing the abbey, hinting at things from the past that affect the present (which we won’t know more about until much later), and setting up the mystery around the murder, which doesn’t even occur until over halfway through the book. I don’t mind a mystery taking so long to get started if I spend that time trying to figure out who the victim might end up being, along with who the murderer will be, but in this case, the synopsis tells us who the victim will be. All of this led the book to feel slow for a while.

I mostly liked the characters. Rebecca had her issues in the story, mostly stemming from the task her brother insists she help him with, but this seems to lead her to not care at all about the societal conventions of her time or about her reputation. That leaves Frederick to be the most understanding man ever. He ends up having to help her in a lot of different ways, more times than I might normally prefer in a story like this, but it didn’t bother me this time, I think because it didn’t seem as contrived as it could have.

I raised my eyebrows during part of a scene that seemed to be straight out of North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, and found out while reading the author’s note at the end of the book that I was correct. She also mentioned other classics that she took some direct inspiration from, though those others I either haven’t read or don’t know well enough to have recognized the way she used that inspiration. Overall, I enjoyed the book and the characters and recommend it to fans of historical romance. Fans of mystery books may like it, too, if they’re not bothered by what I described above.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bethany House for providing me a copy of this book to review. ( )

I am great fan of this author and when I read the description that stated a twist of Jane Austen and Agatha Christie novels, I knew I had to read this one and I'm glad I did. Very entertaining and I'm impressed how the author creatively intertwined a Jane Austen style with Agathe Christie style. ( )

Julie Klassen doesn't disappoint in this mystery romance set in Regency England. Most of the reviewers did a fine job in describing the plot, so I won't repeat that. I like the characters and setting in a combination mystery and romance. ( )