Book Review - Deanna Raybourn's Silent in the Sanctuary
Silent in the Sanctuary by Deanna Raybourn
Published by: Mira Books
Publication Date: January 1st, 2008
Format: Paperback, 489 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy
Lady Julia Grey has been recuperating in Italy after the scandalous events that ended in a fire at her house. Yet staying in Italy with two of her brothers and her newest sister-in-law is starting to wear a little thin. Therefore a summons back to the family estate for Christmas is just what she thinks she needs... though her brother Lysander might disagree as he has gotten married without their father's permission. Bringing along a rather adorable and young Italian count, Julia Grey arrives at the deconsecrated Bellmont Abbey. There not only does she find her rather distant poor relations, Emma and Lucy, ensconced in the house, but Lucy has brought along her fiance, Sir Cedric, with the intention of being married from the Abbey over the holidays. But family is to be expected, and Nicholas Brisbane isn't family. The enigmatic dark knight who she had a previous run in with... and it may have resulted in their lips running into each other, is also at the Abbey after not once contacting her since they solved her husband's murder. She had been trying to forget him and that's hard to do when he shows up for Christmas! Yet here he is affianced and celebrating the holidays with her family. She'll just have to distract herself with Alessandro. She KNEW he would be useful! Yet Julia can sense that her father invited Nicholas for some other reason than just to celebrate the season and Nicholas's unexpected upcoming nuptials... and soon things start to go amiss. The new curate, Lucian Snow, is suspicious of the gypsy encampment on the land, especially when Julia's jewels go missing. It's not long before the long winter nights close in on them and they become snowbound with someone with a mind to murder. Soon Lucian is dead and Lucy is confessing to the crime! Lady Julia knows this is all wrong, which means she'll have to team up with Nicholas to get to the bottom of things before the snow melts. Why can't life be simple?
After the first book in this series I was uncertain as to whether I wanted to pick up the next one. But the fact that I already owned it combined with so many people whose opinion I respect loving this series I was willing to give it another go. I mean, it wasn't that I hated the first book as such... there where redeeming qualities, like Julia's crazy family... and seeing as this was about the holidays with said crazy family, it looked like it would fit the bill. A family, reunited at their crumbling estate for the holidays, when the snow traps them inside with thieves and murderers... and that's just the family members they like, this sounded like my jam and for the most part I heartily enjoyed it. For quite awhile the book had me in it's spell. All the secrets and plots and double crosses. Jewels going missing, a possible ghost, inappropriate liaisons and engagements and marriages. I was in happy little mystery land but then the spell broke. The story went on overly long and started to drag. I date this failing to when the snow melted and they where no longer trapped. There's something delicious about a locked room mystery that loses it's allure once they can just walk free. Because in the end, it's the tension that kept me flipping the pages, and sure, some people would say that the imminent melting of the snow provided the best tension, and I might be willing to agree, but the actual melting, no, because this allowed some of the guilty parties to walk free. While this might be more true to life it does not a satisfying ending make. An ending that wasn't neat or tidy and was too broad and sloppy because while I figured out what was happening Deanna could have derailed my theories yet didn't, instead just using the twist from Agatha Christie's The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding. I call shenanigan's on Deanna Raybourn. While I guess if you're going to steal, steal from the best... but Lady Julia isn't Poirot and Deanna isn't Dame Agatha. Yet.
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