I am so glad I have taken the summer off for book reviews and blogging in general. For the second time, the gracious people at Bethany House have had to contact me because I have missing blog reviews. I write the review in blogger and then edit it for an Amazon review, so I know it was here at some point. But drat, they keep dissappearing! So, long story short, here is my re-post of Death by the Book!!!
I received Murder by the Book by Julianna Dearing for free (!) so that I could review it. When I first started to read this, I didn't realize that it is the second book in a series (The Drew Farthering Mystery series). Interestingly enough, I have the first book in my Amazon "saved" basket :)
So, generally, when I read books from a series and miss the first one (or two), several things may happen 1) I am totally confused or 2) I want to read the first book (and don't because now I know what happens later) or 3) I'm not confused and may or may not want to read the first book. I am happy to report that I was not confused. Mostly. I was obviously confused enough to wonder if I had missed a book... but most of the holes were filled in as I read. I guess what clued me in is that I sort of felt like I walked into a group of people, who obviously new each other and each others histories, and I didn't. If a third book is written and I read it, I don't think I'll feel that way, so I got to know the characters fairly well!
Moving on! In case you couldn't tell from the title... this is a mystery novel set in the early part of the 20th century (took me a while to figure that one out too) in England. The main character (Drew Farthering) is a rich young man, the master of a large estate, who, with the help of his girlfriend (whom he is waiting for a "yes" to his proposal from) and friend, aide the police in solving several serial murder cases. Insert comment here about how he intermingled with upper and lower society with ease... and thanks to Downtown Abbey, I'm not sure it was all believable! He is, of course, successful, but the person who "did it" is not who I expected, until the end, when it's painfully obvious :) If I were to rank this book on a scale of 1 to 5... I'd probably give it a 3. I'm not inclined to go back and read book 1, I wouldn't pass up book 3. But, since I was left a little confused and it took me a while to get into the story, I have to knock a star or two off!
