Rebecca B. (bookmuncher) - , reviewed on 3/30/2017 + 64 more book reviews

This is another entertaining historical mystery/thriller from Deanna Raybourn. Lady Julia Grey returns from a restorative 6 months traveling in Italy with two of her brothers, during which she's recovered emotionally and physically from the distressing events of Silent In The Grave but has not entirely put the attractive but elusive Nicholas Brisbane out of her mind. Returning to her ancestral home for Christmas with her brothers, new sister-in-law, and a young Italian friend and admirer, she finds an unexpectedly large and varied house party that includes Brisbane, his new fiancee, and assorted aunts, cousins, and siblings and is replete with unexplained undercurrents, Gypsy prophecies and possibly supernatural occurrences. As the party become housebound by a snowstorm, murder and other crimes ensue, and Lady Julia and Brisbane must once again team up to solve the mystery, revealing family secrets and stolen jewels along the way, while Julia balances her competing interests in both Brisbane and the young Count Alessandro.

Julia Grey remains an engaging narrator and her world is interesting and well drawn. I found the mystery and its resolution a little under-clued, which is why I would rank this as somewhere between mystery and thriller, but that may just be me; and for a heroine dealing with a classic enigmatic/withholding love interest, she does less wallowing than many I found myself occasionally wondering if she and her family didn't have slightly too modern opinions for their Victorian era, but the author deserves credit for dealing with that point, through repeated mentions of the family's reputation for eccentricity.

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