Lady Emily Hardcastle is an eccentric widow with a secret past. Florence Armstrong, her maid and confidante, is an expert in martial arts. The year is 1908 and they’ve just moved from London to the country, hoping for a quiet life.
A Quiet Life In The Country by T E Kinsey
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Parts were definitely enjoyable and one I was happy to read. I mostly fell in love with the cover which was enticing and a promising delivery in the actual read.
I loved the characters and the relationships they had, the connections were well-executed. There was a bit of spunk in the main characters and the bantering between them made it much more entertaining to read. For me, it was the driving force of the book. I also liked reading about the setting and overall depiction of country life.
I did get the feeling that as the plot went on, there was something seemingly forced. Both in the spirit of building up the story and attempts at political correctness.
The back-and-forth dialogue of figuring out the crime together both in retrospect and as it unfolded became a bit monotonous especially when I realized half way through the book, maybe the story was more about the character relationships rather than a solving of a crime itself, which is ok, just not what I was looking forward to reading about every time I picked up the book.
It didn’t quite take me back to the time in which it took place like I’d hoped. Perhaps the modernization of the perspective through a few bits of inner thought and dialogue were purposeful to bring the reader into today’s world, maybe something fresh to agree upon, but for me, it took me out of the story. Because of that it seemed there was a missed opportunity to take advantage of the spunk, sharpness, and honesty that the character traits could have built upon.
I would like to explore more stories from this author.
Check out the audiobook at Libro.fm
