Malcom and Suzanne Rannoch Historical Mysteries
BOOK 2 by Teresa Grant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The start of this book was a bit boring to me, but then finally after a while I got into the story and I really liked it.
THE REASONS I WAS BORED IN THE BEGINNING:
1) The prologue was definitely too long and full of unnecessary details that didn't serve the mystery... after the previous reading had been fantastic, reading a boring prologue made me ill disposed towards the book and after the first chapter I already thought I didn't like it and that I would have abandoned the series.
2) Even the first two chapters failed to capture my interest: the murder of a despicable woman I didn't care that it was solved, in the book everyone was attracted to her, but the truth is that from the very beginning a selfish personality devoted to power is evident, she was a dirty blackmailer even towards those who loved her.
3) The two protagonists are married, but apart from the fact that they have a son and get along well in bed, they seem like perfect strangers and there is always an air of embarrassment between them.
... I couldn't find a reason to appreciate this book, but perhaps I was still under the spell of the previous book (which I loved) and therefore I decided to continue reading, all in all, the plot on the back cover sounded interesting:
__THE PLOT__ November 1814, Congress of Vienna. The elite of Europe ( sovereigns, ambassadors, princes and even the tsar) are negotiating the fate of the Continent after Bonaparte's exile on the island of Elba.
Suddenly one night Princess Tatiana, the most beautiful and talked about woman in Vienna, is found murdered during an ill-timed rendezvous with three of her most powerful conquests.
Suzanne Rannoch has tried to ignore rumors that her new husband, Malcolm, is also one of Tatiana's lovers and since both she and her husband are among those summoned to the appointment and find he was the one who found the body, they decide to investigate...
WHY I CHANGED MY MIND and APPRECIATED THE BOOK
...of course, by reading the book, the reader uncovers that there are many other hidden reasons to investigate on the murder, reasons that husband and wife keep hidden to each others.
1) Investigating together, facing dangers, saving each other's lives, the two characters begin to open up to each other and we discover that actually they are deeply in love with each other but they dare not admit it openly because of their past and their fears.
The 2 main characters finally exude warmth, the reader's heart warms up, the secrets are revealed little by little, giving rise to new trust in the partner and the hope of being truly loved by the other one.
2) The characters that revolve around Malcolm and Susanne are several, many of whom really existed in history and who played decisive roles in the society of the time.
At the beginning of the book we find the whole list of characters and those who really existed are marked with an asterisk and this was very useful to me, since as I met the characters in the book, I enjoyed reading their life summary on Wikipedia, it gave me a way to have a broader view of that historical moment and that historical event and of course of those impressive people.
3) Although for a good part of the book I wasn't interested in finding out who killed the libertine princess (I was more interested in discovering the secrets of all the characters, in fact throughout the story EVERY CHARACTER has secrets to hide), in the end the killer wasn't obvious at all !!!
In the last chapters I thought I knew who the killer was, but actually it was all EVEN MORE COMPLICATED, the AUTHOR WAS REALLY INGENIOUS and THE ENDING REALLY SURPRISED ME!
I was going to give this book 3 stars, I liked it, but I wouldn't read it again and I thought maybe I wouldn't continue in the series, but then the complicated web of lies and secrets surprised me a lot, more I got fond to Susanne and Malcolm and I really wish to spend more time with them by reading book #2 in the series (although not right away), so I've rated the novel 3.8 stars and rounding up to 4.
Well, I hope I was able to express my feelings about the book in a right way, since English is not my mother tongue, if not please forgive me.
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