Reviews

Murder at the Mansion by Sheila Connolly

theavidreaderandbibliophile's review against another edition

3.0

Murder at the Mansion by Sheila Connolly is the beginning of A Victorian Village Mystery series. Katherine “Kate” Hamilton left her home of Asheboro, Maryland after high school. Katie currently works at Oriole Suites Hotel in Baltimore and is surprised when she gets a call from Lisbeth Scott, her best friend in high school. A storm went through Asheboro a few weeks ago causing severe damage and many of the residents do not have insurance to cover repairs. The town is on the verge of going under and they want Kate’s assistance. The town council had been convinced to buy the Old Barton home (a beautiful Victorian mansion) by Cordelia Walker. It turns out she had personal motivations for the venture and her plan would not benefit Asheboro. They are hoping Kate can use her skills to come up with a viable and inexpensive plan for to resurrect the town. Kate tours the Barton mansion and meets the caretaker, Josh Wainwright. She is surprised to see it in such beautiful condition. It is like stepping back in time to the Victorian era, and Kate begins to formulate a plan. As Kate exits the mansion with Josh, she finds her high school nemesis, Cordelia Walker dead on the front steps. Detective Reynolds of the Maryland State Police Criminal Division is in charge of the case, but he could use someone local to be his eyes and ears. Since the Oriole was bought out, Kate has the time to aid the town and Detective Reynolds. While in Asheboro working on her plan for the town and researching the Barton family, Kate delves into Cordelia’s life looking for clues. What had Cordelia uncovered that got her killed? Join Kate on her inaugural mystery in Murder at the Mansion.

Murder at the Mansion contains good writing and with varying pacing. The story starts out strong as we are introduced to Kate. I like the main character as she is smart, likeable, hardworking, and willing to help her hometown. Kate does need to work on her self-confidence (don’t we all). I like the books concept of a struggling small town with a beautiful Victorian home. If something is not done to draw in tourists, Asheboro will die quickly. The Barton mansion sounds gorgeous. I just loved the descriptions of the Victorian masterpiece (I would love to own this home). I like the vision Kate came up with for the town and I am looking forward to seeing it come to fruition in future books in this series. The mystery has layers to it which are revealed as Kate searches for clues and I like that the mystery ties into the Barton mansion. I wish, though, that it had been harder to pinpoint the guilty party. I found the pace to vary throughout the story and it was especially slow in the middle. There was too much repetition and speculation. I feel that the book needed further editing. If Murder at the Mansion had been tightened up, it would have been a much better cozy mystery. I was curious as to why Kate did not look up information online. She kept wanting details on the original owner of the Barton home, but she did not do the obvious. There is mild foul language in the book (and it is not needed). Overall, I thought Murder at the Mansion was an intriguing first novel in A Victorian Village Mystery series. I am giving Murder at the Mansion 3 out of 5 stars. I am curious to see what happens next as Kate works to save Asheboro.

holly_keimig's review against another edition

4.0

A fun new cozy series! Kate must turn around a town whose main attraction is an old mansion.

aliciagoeser's review against another edition

funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

thepeacefulmuser's review against another edition

2.0

Good premise, meh dialogue, narrator too much in their own head

jupiter2932's review against another edition

2.5

 Okay, I'm going to be honest here: I read this book less than a month ago and I've already forgotten almost all of it.

It doesn't help that I listened to it on audiobook; I have ADHD, so audiobooks have traditionally been more difficult for me to get through than paper copies. And I was stressed out when I read it, so probably if I had given it a go on a different week, and if I'd read the mass market I have somewhere, it might have stuck with me a bit better.

But honestly, I don't think I'd be raving about it anyway.

I do remember the basic setup: a hotel manager gets laid off and goes to her hometown to fix up a historical Victorian house as part of a plan to draw more tourism and business to the town. The rest of it, though, is already kind of fuzzy. I vaguely remember the murder and whodunnit, but frankly it just didn't stick with me. I like cozy mysteries quite a bit, and I've liked other books by this author (her apple orchard series), but this one just didn't click for me. I think I have the rest of the series in paperback, actually, so I might just give those a go, but I can't say I highly recommend this one. 

pulchro24's review against another edition

mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

chelle493's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

2.75

hdechamp's review against another edition

1.0

I don't know if its because this book was the first in the series or what, but I spent the whole book waiting for more information. It literally just ended and it was ridiculously frustrating to not learn anything. You literally don't even get a physical description of the main character. We didn't meet Cordy. We didn't learn about the town. The whole point of the book was trying to find out about the house, but we learned NOTHING about the house or its former inhabitants. I think this book was a waste of my money and I don't recommend reading it because it was boring and moved too quickly with weak support in plot and character development.

mamap's review against another edition

1.0

Disappointing on 2 fronts.
1) It said it was a Victorian Village and I thought that meant written about Victorian times
2) One story wasn't finished - oh, they solved the mystery, but the whole Clara Barton letter were left out. Annoying.

And the dialogue was very forced.

littletaiko's review against another edition

3.0

This is the first in a new series by the rather prolific author. The story opens with Kate living in Baltimore and successfully running a hotel. Her best friend from high school has come to town to ask her to help save the small town that they grew up in. The town has fallen on hard times and they need some ideas on what can be done if anything. Kate agrees to help. Not soon after she gets to town, her high school nemesis has been murdered. In a switch from the usual cozy, Kate isn't under suspicion nor is anyone related to her. She actually isn't doing that much investigating into the death, but instead is focused on her plan to help revitalize the town. In fact the book really doesn't feel like a mystery at all as the resolution was rather anti-climatic and not terribly surprising. I loved that she did a crossover with one of her other series. An added bonus was learning more about Clara Barton - I was unaware that she ran The Office of Missing Soldiers after the Civil War and helped find thousands of missing soldiers