Silent In The Grave by Deanna Raybourn Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Silent In The Grave
Book Review: Excellent Victorian Mystery
Summary: 4 Stars
I love opening sentences that grab you from the start and make you long to curl up and just read away. Silent in the Grave has such a sentence: "To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor."
Silent in the Grave is a Victorian mystery set in London. Lady Julia Grey's husband has died of the heart disease that has killed many of the males in his family. About a year after Edward's death Lady Grey finds out that Nicholas Brisbane was hired by her husband to discover who had been sending him very threatening letters and that Mr. Brisbane suspects the death was murder. Together Julia and Brisbane set out to discover the truth behind Edward's demise.
Although this is a mystery, it is also the story of Julia Grey's growth as a person of independent spirit and mind. A proper Victorian Lady she faces some unpleasant truths about her husband and her life that change her into a person with her own personality and not the one she is `supposed' to have. The budding relationship between her and Nicholas Brisbane does not proceed in the usual and rather clichéd way either.
Although I suspected some of the parts of the mystery, many of them were a complete surprise. The story was well plotted and all the characters were nicely fleshed out and believable. The last line of the book is the perfect set-up to the next book Silent in the Sanctuary. I can't wait to read of the further adventures of Lady Julia Grey and the brooding and mysterious Nicholas Brisbane.
Book Review: Excellent first time author.
Summary: 5 Stars
I was searching for a book I could really sink my teeth into. I found it with Deanna Raybourn. She is an author to watch for. The minute I picked up her book and started reading I couldn't put it down. It begins with Lady Julia's husband Edward dying. She is told by Nicholas Brisbane that he thinks Edward was murdered. Lady Julia doesn't accept this until a year later when she finds evidence that Nicholas might be right. There are twists and turns as you read on with more information surfacing about all the characters. You won't be sorry to read this author. I can't wait to start the next one in the series.Book Review: Fascinating historical mystery
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this book because Amazon had recommended the 2nd book, Silent in the Sanctuary, and it sounded pretty interesting. Since it was the 2nd book, I bought this one as well so I could read them in the right order.
Plus I read the first 2 sentences online and I was hooked. Despite the fact I was reading something else when this arrived, I put that down so I could read this.
This book was well worth the purchase! The glimpse at upper crust life in the 19th century just made the mystery more enticing. Lady Julia, the sheltered 9th child in a rich but odd family, starts the book by saying that she didn't meet Nicholas Brisbane over her husband's dead body. It should be noted that her husband was still twitching on the floor.
What an opening! And the rest of the book did not disappoint. Lady Julia is fully dimensional, Nicholas Brisbane is appropriately mysterious. The supporting characters (family members and servants, Fleur and Dr Bent) are fleshed out and varied enough to be interesting. I'm hoping that Fleur shows up in the second book, which I am going to start reading as soon as I finish this review.
The attention to detail was fascinating, but never intrusive. The pace was slow, but it moved at the pace it needed to in order to give the right amount of atmosphere without smothering you with it.
Highly recommended.
Book Review: Formulaic but engaging
Summary: 3 Stars
Nicholas Brisbane fits the profile of the bodice-ripping, nostril-flaring hero, and our heroine fits the profile of the plucky, prone-to-mistaken-conclusions ingenue.
What raises this book above the Harlequinesque is the author's generally crisp writing and her generally period-accurate language. And at the end of this book, when the reader is certain of the inevitable union between hero and heroine, Ms. Raybourn extends the foreplay into the next book, postponing that climax.
One of the most interesting characters is Aquinas, Grey House's butler. His story could carry a book. Indeed, his might be a meatier story than that of Lady Julia.
Overall, Silent in the Grave is an easy, pleasant read.
Book Review: Forsaken by Clio
Summary: 1 Stars
The book begins with a fine opening line. Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there. The author claims a major in history, but there is nothing authentic or convincing about the historical setting. The characters, especially Lady Julia Grey, are unconvincing and inconsistent; I found it impossible to believe that Lady Julia was a well-born Victorian, her actions defying credibility. Masquerading as a man? Hobnobbing with gypsies and prostitutes? Accepting a sister's Sapphic sex life without a qualm? Lodging a very modern (and somewhat tiresome) protest against anti-Semitism? I found none of this believable. Although, to be fair, it's not clear that the characters would be any more convincing in a modern setting, so bizarre are their actions and reactions.
Still, as I toiled through this book's 500-odd pages (cringing only slighly at the pretentious and sententious quotes that wasted at least one page at the beginning of every chapter), I did find myself wondering at the apparent compulsion some American authors feel to create aristocratic British sleuths. British writers such as Dorothy L. Sayers and Margery Allingham, conversant with the language used by their aristocratic countrymen and -women, could pull it off. Those less familiar with the sociolinguistics of the British upper classes have a much harder time creating characters who speak like, behave like, react like credible lords and ladies. Historical fiction is even more demanding, requiring not only a sense of place but of time as well. The late lamented Kate Ross, in her Julian Kestrel novels, managed to create a wonderfully believable sleuth who moved in a carefully constructed Regency setting, setting nary a jarring footstep out of time. While I wanted to like this first novel, I found myself comparing it very unfavorably to the talented Miss Ross's oeuvre. To paraphrase advice once given to Tony Hillerman, "If you must write mysteries, at least leave the nineteenth century out of them."