wealthy widow of a nobleman, daughter of a famous scientist, and skeptic who only trusts what can be proven,
Meet Serafina Trent, A woman about to taketh Century London by storm,
It's London,, and everything is at stake for Serafina Trent, A woman of means but not the typical Victorian lady who feels her place is to be seen and not heard, When her brother's most recent female dalliance, a beautiful actress, is found murdered, all evidence points to him, Especially since the actress had just rejected him in a most public manner, Now everyone believes Clive is headed for the gallows, Everyone, that is, but Serafina,
Determined to prove her brother's innocence, Serafina finds herself working with unlikely alliesincluding Dylan Tremayne, a passionate storyteller and actor with a criminal past.
This novel will hold fans of mystery and history spellbound until the very last page,
Victorian England comes alive in this intriguing new series from one of Christian fiction's favorite authors, I appreciated that our main character I is not spindles but only sensed two dimensions to our lady Trent, The storyline was a quick and easy read without any surprising twists and turns, I did enjoy our support character Dylan Tremayne though a bit trite that he is drop dead gorgeous and down to earth.
I didnt realize this was a Christian fiction before reading it, It did add a refreshing dimension, When I am looking for an easy read then I would read another book in this series, It took me forever to finish this book, It was ok but I wasnt interested in it, I think the author didnt really know the Victorian era well enough for this story to be authentic, I love historical mysteries and this was a good one, I enjoyed the differences between the two main characters, Lady Serafina and Dylan, She had a scientific mindset and he had a creative one, It made for some interesting interaction between them, particularly when it came to Dylans faith, I did figure out who the killer was, but it was almost at the same time that they did, Full review at my website, My complaints are many:
Serafina Trent is the widow of the Viscount of Radnor, She has a son. Therefore, Serafina is the viscountess and her son is the viscount, She would be addressed in company or by servants as "Lady Radnor" or "my lady, " Her son would be "Lord Radnor, " In this book, she's nonsensically called "Lady Trent" or "Lady Serafina" or "Lady Serafina Trent" or "Viscountess" and her son is referred to as "the future Viscount of Radnor" and this may well be the most stupidly annoying thing in the entire world it's not really that confusing a system surely an author or their editor could do the faintest smidgen of research and fucking get it right
I don't care about the proselytizing what I mind is the all but maybe two of the cast of characters, who are all of them white, British people living in London in, talking like they are all acknowledged atheists.
The completely improbable hero is said to be "converting" people to Jesus, but everyone he talks to would have been at least nominally Christian already.
God damn it, "Tremayne" is a Cornish name, not Welsh!
And Welsh people don't talk like leprechauns!
And no one deliberately got tanned back then!
And Serafina is so annoying and absurd and "oh I'll just invent a gas stove tee hee!" and isn't it a scream when she just trashes Charles Dickens to his face for writing fiction and oh my God HOW IS SHE NOT THE ONE WHO GETS MURDERED
I made it to pageand then my throat got sore from snarling.
An enjoyable novel from one of Christian fiction's most prolific writers, A pretty decent mystery story that actually relies on clues and deduction, which is a rare treat for most mystery readers, My only complaint is that the book takes several awkward pauses for relationship development that really seem shoehorned into the story rather than a part of it.
I have very mixed feelings about this book, I picked it up at random because of the title, The cover description was really catching, A lady detective in Victorian London With and actor/ storyteller sidekick How could I not enjoy that Well,
here are my issues.
: Dylan Tremayne the sidekick is described on the book cover as: "a passionate storyteller and actor with a criminal past" If you remove "passionate storyteller" and replace it with "evangelical christian" you'll get a better idea of Dylan.
Now I like Dylan, or rather I want to like him but he is so one note, He doesn't have an inner conflict or turmoil to give him depth, All of his issues are in the past and though he tells you about them they don't add much flavor and so his lack of depth really bothers me more than his CONSTANT spouting off about god in like every line out of his mouth.
Which does, in fact bother me and leads to issue two, . .
: I didn't know I was settling in forpages of "GIVE YOUR SOUL TO JESUSlt SINNER!" Somehow, I missed the line on the back of the book that said "Victorian England comes alive in this intriguing new series from one of Christian fiction's favorite authors.
" I can read Christian authors, my long time devotion to Orson Scott Card is testament to that but I hate being preached at all the time.
I hate pushy religious nuts, For me, that element took me out of the story a lot,
: Issue three: Lady Serafina Trent, From the book: "A wealthy widow of a nobleman, daughter of a famous scientist, and skeptic who only trusts what can be proven.
Meet Serafina Trent, A woman about to taketh Century London by storm,
It's London,, and everything is at stake for Serafina Trent, A woman of means but not the typical Victorian lady who feels her place is to be seen and not heard, "
Exciting, right Sounds like a heroine you can really get behind, Well dear lady Trent suffers from the treatment a lot of female characters do, In order to get across the idea that she is strong, independent and smart she is written as an insufferable bitch, We are told that her father is a brilliant scientist who raised her the same way, They don't believe in imagination I know lots of scientists with active imaginations, its how we get inventions or fanciful things, Lady Trent is the widow of a bad marriage, though no one will tell you why it was bad forpages, only that he didn't beat her and she watches for signs of heryear old son being like his father when he's out playing and using gasp his imagination.
Because of her marriage she doesn't believe in love, or puppy dogs or butterflies,
There's an early scene when she's talking to her maid, who tells her that she's being courted by a man she thinks is about to ask for her hand.
Serafina tells her that getting married is akin to putting young girls on the bock at a slave market, When she sees her rant upsets the girl her way of toning it down is to tell her " be careful, Louisa, Don't expect too much out of married life, " And then she goes to a dinner party, insults most of the guests, including Charles Dickens and solves a minor mystery which is how we know that she's got the goods.
Serafina is mean and insufferable and a know it all a lot of the time, but what really bugs me is when Dylan shows up with his preaching she pretty much lets him run the show.
She actually gets to a point where she tells him to think for her, Gag me. C. Auguste Dupin E. A. Poe's original detective character, whom Serafina is supposed to be modeled after never told HIS sidekick to think for him, Holmes never told Watson! I just couldn't really believe that she really did so little in this novel, Dylan did way more detective work than she did.
So why did I give it three starts Because while it got my goat in those areas it was an enjoyable mystery.
I liked the Newton/ Trent family interaction, I still want to like Dylan, I'm hoping in the next book that he'll get some real depth, I'm also hoping that the author will, now that he has established them make both Dylan and Serafina more human, So I rated it three mostly on hope because I couldn't bring myself to read the second one on anything less.
I gave up on this after getting throughinterminable pages, hoping against hope that it would improve, Maybe I was drawn in by the cover Maybe I was too excited about a regency mystery novel Whatever the reason, I'd like that.
hours back please.
If the author tightened up the prose, didn't make the characters into caricatures of themselves, and didn't repeat absolutely everything three times on a page it might be a good book.
But I find that I don't even care whodunnit at this point, Oh, and these caricatures of people aren't even consistent! Our heroine doesn't believe in exercising her imagination nor her son's, but she's been busy inventing a new type of oven.
How does that compute If she can't imagine the stove, how can she invent it Argh!
From the hater of ingenuity to the sexy leading man immediately lusted after by our heroine's sister to the onedimensionally evil members of Scotland Yard there's no room for compromise.
Ugh.
it was good!, but i called it, . . still, I'm looking forward to the next book Not terribly impressive in terms of writing style, but charming enough to keep my interest.
Quite a long one, though! I think that's due to its "paintbynumbers" flavor explaining the obvious to make sure you didn't miss the meaning or the clues.
It gets annoying quickly. The characters were rather flatly drawn although I adore Dylan it makes me wonder if Lynn is the one who gave them spice see the Cheney Duvall, M.
D. series. I have the next one, A Conspiracy of Ravens, ready to go! I really do enjoy Gilbert Morris books, He smoothly weaves the gospel into his charming novels in a way that never sounds forced or cliched, It's always pure fun. The writing style of this book is somewhat confusing, There was also some really questionable scenes in the book that just didn't seem plausible,
For example, within the firstpages of the book, the main character is invited to a dinner party, Who's attending it is ridiculous:
The guest list:
I mean, it's technically plausible but what are the actual chances that this is even in the realm of reality
Maybe I'm reading too much into it.
It's also worth noting that this book is heavily religious,
I mean I enjoy a good Christian historical fiction from time to time, but this book went overboard on religion, to the point where it's somewhat annoying.
The reason I gave it two, was because by the end the author did actually manage to get me invested in the story line.
.
Access The Mermaid In The Basement (Lady Trent Mystery, #1) Chronicled By Gilbert Morris Hardcover
Gilbert Morris