Lady Emily Mysteries book 17
by Tasha Alexander
GENRE : #historical-cozy-mystery
My rating: ★★★★☆
Actually 3,8 stars rounded up to 4.
An old castle in Scotland, an ancient Celtic festival and a murder!
In parallel, a story dating back 200 years earlier, when people were afraid of witches and every woman was at risk of being accused of witchcraft!
Since the month of October is the month of Halloween and I'm too weak to read anything horror, this seemed like the right read to get into the right spirit, while remaining in my comfort zone.
___PLOT___ Lady Emily, her husband Colin Hargreaves and their three children are on holiday at Cairnfarn Castle in Scotland, guests of Jeremy, Duke of Bainbridge, Emily's dear childhood friend.The atmosphere is cheerful and lively, also thanks to a folklore event of Celtic origin that is being celebrated. Music, dancing, rum punch...everything is going well until Jeremy's gamekeeper is found dead and horribly disfigured.
In the same village approximately 200 years earlier, ancient rituals, phrases that could seem like magic formulas and people foreign to the village were not welcome and the risk of being accused of witchcraft was around every corner or rather behind every slothful and manipulative person.
____********_______********____
EMILY and COLIN _ the 2 MAIN CHARACTERS __
Reading a book in this series every now and then is like meeting up with a couple of my old friends.
I like them both either considered separately or as a couple.
COLIN: handsome and charming, intelligent and always loving and with great consideration for his wife, but also always responsible, thoughtful and realistic.
EMILY: always loving and admired towards her husband, but also independent in her choices and stubborn in pursuing her goals, beautiful and sweet with her husband, but sometimes a little too reckless and not inclined to follow his judicious advice.
Parents of 2 biological children and one of their wards, always careful in raising them, leaving them free to follow their passions but not without a certain discipline. Despite having been married for a decade, this couple does not lack romance and sentimental outpourings.
I love the fact that although the series is titled Lady Emily, in reality, the investigation is the work of both of them and there is great chemistry between them.
In the first books of the series, they acted separately and Lady Emily was always in the foreground and her husband was more of a secondary character, as time passed and the series grew, I can say that both are protagonists and I like this a lot.
__ ALREADY KNOWN SIDE CHARACTERS __
Bainbridge's two quirky aunts add a humorous touch to the story.
They are two spinster sisters, very old but with a lively brain and an adventurous spirit, they know everything about everyone and don't mince their words.
Jeremy is a loving nephew, a loyal friend and a duke who, despite self-deprecatingly calling himself useless, actually cares for the people of the village and does his duty with great sensitivity.
I like all these characters because together with Emily and Colin's 3 children, they help create a "cozy" atmosphere and bring more than a smile to the reader's face.
__ SETTING AND OTHER CHARACTERS ___
I haven't read all the books in the Lady Emily series, but I've read 11 of them including this one and I have to say that unlike the others, the setting here is barely intuitive.
There are usually detailed descriptions of both the location where the story takes place and historically important buildings and monuments, as well as the atmosphere.
Here, apart from the wind from the moors, you can't really breathe the air of the Highlands and the small Scottish village... nothing evocative or suggestive in my opinion and this is one of the two things that lowered my rating for the book .
____MYSTERY___
----> In 1905 : Halfway through the book I thought I was so clever and had guessed the truth, but it wasn't like that and above all the culprit was really really unexpected!!I had a lot of fun making conjectures and hypotheses and until the end I was on tenterhooks, I couldn't wait to find out who the murderer was and several times I was tempted to go and peek at the back of the book, but I resisted!
Well done Tasha Alexander, the solution to the mystery was truly something I never expected.
A little more disappointing and hasty was the solution to a parallel mystery, also in 1905, connected to the murder.
----> In 1676: Up to 70% of the book, the protagonist of the story, set in the 18th century, kept me in suspense: her first-person narrative is full of suspense, the characters around her are ambiguous in their speeches, mysterious in their arguments and I really feared that the story would end in a dramatic way.
So the writer achieved her aim here too (to create an atmosphere of uncertainty, anxiety and deep emotion... but then without revealing the details everything was resolved in a way that was perhaps a little too easy, I don't know how to explain... .
I was expecting something more impressive and this is the second thing that lowered my rating for the book.
Anyway, I was happy with the happy ending for the characters in this story.
__ HISTORICAL PART ___
Unlike the other books I read in the series, here there are no historical notions or real-life historical characters except for the fact that the character of the mystery set in 1676 is inspired by two real-life black women, about whom the writer talks to us briefly in his notes at the end of the book.
Another historical reference is the witch hunt and the witch hunters who, in order to prove the fake, invented and falsified the evidence, you will also find a brief mention of this in the author's notes.
*****
This is one of the few series that I usually read in no particular order, each book in the series can be read as a standalone, but if you read them starting from the first one you will be able to enjoy better Emily's personal story (her engagement , marriage, children and all the recurring characters who contribute to creating a cheerful and pleasant atmosphere).
Thanks for reading my opinion and as always I ask you to be lenient with my English since it's not my native language.
If you want to know more about OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES, you can read some reviews here :
BOOK #2 : A Poisoned Season
BOOK #3 : A Fatal Waltz by Tasha Alexander
BOOK #4: Tears of Pearl
BOOK #5: Dangerous to Know
BOOK #13.5 : Upon the Midnight Clear ( Christmas novella )
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