A Fatal Illusion is the 11th Lady Darby historical mystery by Anna Lee Huber. Released 20th June 2023 by Penguin Random House on their Berkley imprint, it's 368 pages and available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
Set in the 1830s in Scotland, this is a long running series with distinct and well rendered characters who are believably three dimensional. It's the 11th book in the series, but works well enough as a standalone. The author is quite adept (and prolific) and provides all necessary backstory in the narrative itself. Since it follows on from earlier books in the series, readers should be prepared to encounter spoilers if read out of order. The mystery and resolution are self contained in this volume however. The author is also familiar for her interwar British series, featuring Verity Kent. Both series are well written and enjoyable and surprisingly dissimilar from one another.
Lady Darby is more refined, more earnest, and more cerebral than Verity. Both are very well written and readable, but entirely different setting, time period, and atmosphere. This volume sees Lady Darby and her husband/partner Sebastian, as new parents, investigating an attempt on Sebastian's father's life. If the attempt wasn't robbery, was it politically motivated or are there secrets even Sebastian doesn't know about his father's relationships and dealings?
The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 10 hours 30 minutes and is capably narrated by series narrator Heather Wilds.
She reads the characters distinctly and does a good job of
differentiating the accents. Except for the dialogue (which she does
competently), I found her voice unobtrusive and neutral, in a good way.
Four and a half stars. More than competently written, engaging, and
cleverly constructed. It would be an excellent choice for public library
acquisition or substantial binge/buddy read.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment