The Secret Staircase by Sheila Connolly has Kate Hamilton working on her plans for the Barton Mansion in Asheboro, Maryland. Her first order of business is to find a contractor. The third one on the list seems like the best fit for the project. He discovers a hidden staircase in the kitchen with a body laying at the bottom. It turns out that the man has been there since the late 1800s and someone murdered him. This is not the type of history Kate wanted to uncover on the Victorian home nor the family that occupied it. Not long after the kitchen work begins, a second man is found dead inside the mansion. Kate wonders if there is a connection between the two deaths and sets out to get answers. The Secret Staircase is the third book in A Victorian Village Mystery series. I like the premise for this series which is why I have kept coming back to it. I grew up in German Village in Columbus, Ohio and nearby there is a Victorian Village. I find myself, though, unable to get into the story. It is told in the first person, so we are subject to Kate’s thoughts (she has so many of them). Kate seems to have an endless list of questions and list of items to accomplish (but she does not write them down). If she is going to get this project completed, Kate needs to get organized (and be more professional). She also needs to get over her self-doubts (she goes on endlessly about them). Kate needed a contractor for the project who does reconstruction not renovation. Most people would have used a search engine, but Kate kept asking people if they knew a contractor. I wondered if Kate owned a computer (or any office supplies). There are quite a few characters in the story. We are given basic information on them, but they are not fully fleshed out. I like Carroll, Lisbeth, and Bethany. Josh seems like a nice man, but how many times do we have to hear about his looks. The author’s descriptions of the mansion allowed me to visualize the beautiful Victorian home. However, the details about the renovations were dry and repetitive. The story moved at a slow pace and many details were repeated at least three times (sometimes more). The research into the Barton family is interesting (some parts were more fascinating than others). It just became dreary at times (the research part). I found this series different from Sheila Connolly’s A Museum Mystery series. I wanted this series to be more like the one featuring Nell Pratt. The mystery was fascinating. I was curious to see how everything would tie together. I was beginning to wonder if any progress would be made on the Barton Mansion. As you can tell, I did not enjoy my experience with The Secret Staircase. There are good bones, but it did not come together into a pleasing whole. The Secret Staircase is small town cozy with staircase surprises, a kitchen conundrum, fine food, congeries of research, and a pair of murders. ( )

This is a nice mystery taking place in a town that is trying to become a Victorian village. I really love the characters. My favorite character is Kate. She is working hard to fix this Victorian home so it can be used for tours. Kate is trying to bring this town back to life but of course their is a death that she must help solve. I enjoyed this story and hope to read many more of the books in the series. I received a copy of this book from Minotaur for a fair and honest opinion that I gave of my own free will. ( )

The Secret Staircase is the third book in the Victorian Village Mystery series by Sheila Connolly.

Kate Hamilton plans to revitalize her hometown, Asheboro, MD, into a victorian themed town are moving along. She has decided to renovate the mansion of Henry Barton first to have it become the centerpiece for the renovation of the community. Her plans are first to bring the home up to code and improvements to the kitchen to hold events for groups. The first concern is to find a contractor who will respect the historic building. After interviewing two contractors who didn’t meet Kate’s requirements, she met Morgan Wheeler, who wanted to believe in restoration and had experience with restoration. She now had a contractor she was sure she could work with.

While inspecting the kitchen, Morgan was perplexed by the proportion of the room; he felt that the wall might have been added at a later date. It was possibly added to cover a staircase that the servants would have used. Morgan tapped on the wall and guesses that the wall had been added at a later date. He went to his truck for his scope and made a small hole to insert the scope. Once he had the scope in the hole, he could see a body lying at the bottom of a small staircase. Kate called Detective Reynolds. It is thought that the body might have been there since the 1880s. That was the last time any remodeling had been done at the mansion.

When Carroll Peterson, who’s been researching the life of Barton and cataloging his papers, arrives, Kate asks her to look for anything that might be a clue as to who the body might be.
When an electrician arrives, two begin wiring updates and finds a loose floorboard which proves to be the hiding place for a diary of Barton’s wife. This diary has provided the first information that has been discovered about Barton’s wife. Not long into the renovation, another body is found at the foot of the basement stairs. The body turns out to be a contractor Kate had interviewed and rejected. She felt he was too interested in inspecting not mansion and not looking for what work needed to be done. At first, it appeared to be an accident, but it is determined to be murder after the police investigation.

I’ve loved all of Ms. Connolly’s books, and this was no exception. The books are well-written, and her stories give you a sense of being in the story. The characters are well developed and interesting.

This book will probably be the last in the series as Ms. Connolly passed away in 2020. Hopefully, the author had started book four or had at least had it plotted out. If so, I would love for the publisher to contract another author to continue this interesting series. ( )

Since the last book, things are moving right along in the tiny Maryland village of Asheboro. After the sizable donation from Mid-Atlantic Power, Kate and her board have been able to start work on restoring Henry Barton’s shovel factory and have even begun planning for the restoration of the Barton’s Victorian mansion. If all continue to move forward, they should be able to begin work on Main Street before too long. Kate and the town’s, dream of creating an authentic Victorian Village – complete with downtown area, mansion, and factory will save the town from totally disappearing. So much is riding on the success of this project, and then … they find a body hidden in a closed-up stairwell. Why is the 100-year-old body in the stairwell? What happened to the man? Was he murdered? Did he fall down the stairs and die? Why would anyone wall him in? Since the house has been closed up for over a hundred years, they’ll probably never know the answer. But when another body is found – a very recent death – also having fallen down a stairway – well – things get curioser and curioser.

Kate vacillates between feeling positive about the project and apprehensive about it. Has she bitten off more than she can chew? The publicity around finding not one, but two dead bodies at the Victorian mansion could very well keep donors from contributing to the project, so Kate, Josh, and Carroll know they have to pull out all of the stops to learn the personal history of the reclusive Henry and Mary Barton. Learning that may help them solve the mystery behind the 100-year-old corpse. Is the second body related to the first in some way? Is it some weird family feud? The victim wasn’t a very pleasant fellow, so who did he anger enough to kill him?

This was a thoroughly enjoyable story. The mystery (both of them) was intriguing and the solution unexpected. There were lots of clues to follow and lots of suspects to clear before we finally have solutions. I also love following along with the overarching story of Kate leading the charge to turn Asheboro, Maryland into a vintage Victorian Village similar to Williamsburg, VA. I hope you’ll give this book a try and love it as much as I did. I definitely miss this author and all of her lovely series.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. ( )

This is the third and I'm assuming final book in this series. Kate Hamilton has returned to her hometown of Asheboro, MD to attempt to revitalize the area by taking the abandoned home of Victorian era Henry Barton and create a Williamsburg-like Victorian village. Constant issues arise - a hidden staircase with a dead body, and later on another death on a staircase - Kate is beginning to question if the Barton project will ever have clear sailing, but the discovery of the diaries of the former mistress of the house yields fascinating details previously unknown.

I truly enjoyed this series and it saddens me that the author is no longer with us and cannot continue to recreate the Victoria town that is Asheboro. It is a great loss to those who enjoyed Ms. Connolly's writings. ( )