2.5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

I was very excited about this premise, a badass protagonist, underground railroad but make it magical, murder mystery. However, the plot fell flat for me. The first half of the book was at such a slow pace, it took me months to get 60% done. Although I loved Hetty and Benjy, the speed of the plot made it hard to feel fully connected to them. The book finally got interesting around the 75% mark, but then even the grand reveals did not feel that grand. When the mystery is solved and the villian revealed, I want there to be a sense of putting the pieces together myself and thinking, "how didn't I see this?!", instead the main characters had the villian explaining everything they had done and why, without any solving on Hetty an Benjy's part. I rounded down to a 2 star merely because of how long it took me to get through the book, but if I had read it in one go, maybe it would have been more of a 3 star. ( )

I really wanted to like this book and I was excited to read it, however, it was not what I had anticipated. I read about ten percent of this book and it was so difficult for me to understand what was happening. The writing did not flow, the imagery was complicated and difficult to envision, It read as if there were other books before or that I should know a backstory, but to my knowledge, there were no previous books. What I read was disjointed and confusing and I had no desire to continue. ( )

It took me a little while to become fully immersed in the story, and there's a lot going on with a lot of characters but, by the end, I had a good handle on who everyone was and how they were related to each other. But, wow, there's a lot going on.

I think I would have given this a 5 star rating except the motivation and plan of the Bad Guy seemed a bit of a stretch to me. I'm not giving anything away but when the reveal happened, I was left scratching my head wondering, "What? Really?"

With that said, I came to love Hetty and Benjy and their friends. I definitely want to continue with their adventures so I hope the next in the series is coming out sometime soonish.

We're discussing The Conductors on the next Cocktail Hour (10/1/22) so you can check that out if you want a much more in-depth review from all three of us.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ebook ARC. Of course I waited so long to read it, I was able to borrow the audiobook from Hoopla and my local library. January Lavoy is great as the narrator, by the way. I bounced back and forth between the audio and ebook as I had time for eyeball reading. ( )

‘The Conductors’ is a truly compelling debut that did at first have a rough start but page by page, I become engrossed in Hetty and Benjy, infamous duo that now solves crimes in post-Civil War Philadelphia, journey in discovering who were committing the horrific murders while they dealt with the bubbling feelings and well guarded secrets neither one expected during the course of their marriage of convenience.

It was a perfect blend of an historical novel with fantasy and mystery elements all in one that made this a riveting read that was just too hard to put down. This is ideal for readers looking for a well paced cozy whodunit mystery filled with a fascinating premise, subplots, magic, fantasy, and characters that standout.

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