Amidst all my prelim-reading, and a little bit of a summer cold, I actually finished a book. Totally tired, but I actually finished it. The book was Two for Sorrow by Nicola Upson.
I didn’t find out until about a hundred pages in that it was actually the third in a series about protagonist Josephine Tey, a real-life author and playwright in Victorian England. In this mystery, a local woman is found murdered and brutalized with tools in her clothing design workshop, with the backdrop of Tey writing a story about legendary baby farmers (and also real-life personalities) Amelia Sach and Annie Walters, whose exploits landed them in a double hanging.
The book was enough to keep me reading, but after finishing it, I don’t think I’ll be returning to the series. A reviewer online commented that it seemed that one of the other characters actually solved the mystery, and Josephine was just kind of…there…which I agree with. Plus, she had a lesbian sex scene when she could have been investigating, and actually attacks the murderer after their identity is revealed. However, the clues came at a relatively steady pace, with some good reveals, and it did keep me guessing. I actually was more interested in the long-deceased historical characters than those in the present day, especially when they cursed a bit too much for society ladies and talked about nothing at length.
Well, that was a short book review, despite the book being almost 500 pages. This book review was brought to you by Maybe (I Shouldn’t Have Taken That) Antihistamine.
Haha Sounds interesting if not exactly scintillating!
Actually Josephine Tey was quite POST-Victorian, having been born in 1896. Her first book was published in 1929, and she went on writing until her death in 1952. She’s quite a good writer, my faves being The Daughter of Time and A Shilling for Candles.
Sounds bizarre indeed!!
Seems to be!
I actually became interested mainly because of the bad review, he he