The Hanged Man

Pros: great protagonist, interesting mystery, subtle romance

Cons:

Alexandrina Pendelbury is goddaughter of Queen Victoria and a member of Her Majesty's psychic service. On Christmas eve she's called in to do a Reading for a suicide, but the emotions surrounding the crime scene are strange, and the identity of the victim propels her into investigating a series of mysteries.

In many ways this book reminded me of Jaime Lee Moyer's book, Delia's Shadow. Though this one takes place further in the past and in England, rather than San Francisco, there's a similar feel to the books, with their minimalistic paranormal elements and light romances (The Hanged Man's being very subtle and unobtrusive).

I loved Alex. She's intelligent, no nonsense, and prefers fight to flight. Her difficult family relationships add a touch of sympathy and edginess to her character. She's not afraid of breaking the rules if it gets her closer to her end goal and she knows how to compartmentalize tragedy, dealing with it at appropriate times.

The mystery was entertaining and had several good twists, including the surprising inclusion of a rare paranormal creature that was a joy to see in a book again.

It's a quick read and the start of a new series that I will definitely be following.

I don't think there's anything more enjoyable than a well-thought out Victorian mystery with just a touch of the supernatural.

The characters were absolutely magnificent, very well fleshed-out and had lovely banter. I couldn't get enough of their witty repartee.

Besides the characters, the most interesting part of this book was the writing. It fit the atmosphere to a degree but there were certain turns of phrase that didn't click in meaning for me. I had to rely heavily on context clues for some parts. The execution however, was a different story from the writing style. I greatly appreciated the fact that the author built the world and characters up as the plot went along. There's no heavy exposition to bog down the beginning of the novel and stump the reader.

The murder mystery plot was done fantastically well and the dissemination of the investigation was thrilling and compelling to read about. The combination of her majesty's Psychic Serivce working with Scotland Yard made for a hilarious pairing for solving crimes.

This novel ended with ‘no she didn't!' and ‘haha wait, are you serious? Haha excellent!' moments that perfectly wrapped up the all the loose threads. I can't say more or I will end up spoiling something but suffice to say that this book set up a potential series quite nicely.

I would no doubt want to read more about this world and Alex's position in it but I'm not sure if there will be more books to come. In any case, this was an amazing romp of a book and just what I needed.