A Murderous Persuasion
Series: A Jane Austen Tea Society Mystery Book #2
Author: Katie Oliver
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Page Count: 302
My Rating:
Book Summary
Phaedra Brighton is on the case when an innocent murder-mystery weekend turns into the real deal, in the newest Jane Austen Tea Society Mystery.
Phaedra Brighton has her life all figured out—she has a profession she enjoys, a wonderful (if exasperating) cat, and a cozy carriage house on the grounds of her aunt’s inn. She needs no Captain Wentworth to sweep her off her feet (though, she would not mind a Mr. Darcy).
But when Aunt Wendy decides she is selling Laurel Springs Inn, Phaedra faces losing her beloved home. In a last-ditch attempt to drum up more business, Phaedra convinces Wendy to host an immersive Persuasion-themed murder-mystery weekend. It is a fool proof plan to draw attention to the establishment in the hopes of saving it.
Until make-believe becomes reality and one of the participants winds up dead.
With more suspects than she knows what to do with, Phaedra finds herself on the hunt for a killer once again. But with time running out, Phaedra quickly realizes that with this investigation, there will be no second chances.
More Facts for Readers about our Sleuth & Setting:
Main Sleuth: Phaedra Brighton
Best friends (sort of): Lucy Liang and Marisol DuBois
Physical Description: Phaedra is white, either late twenties or early thirties and her appearance is a mirror of the famous Jane Austen character, Elizabeth Bennett.
Location: Laurel Springs, Virginia
Profession: Jane Austen scholar who teaches nineteenth century literature at Somerset University, a small liberal arts college.
Time of Year: August
Pet: Himalayan Cat name Whickham “Wicks”
Love Interest: Possibly Mark Selden, but she’s pretty put off by the idea of dating.
Family: Phaedra has a younger sister, a mom, dad (married), and Aunt.
Diversity? Yes! While most characters seems to be white, there is some diversity in culture and physicality. Lucy Liang is Asian (she’s adopted so I think we’ll learn more about her ancestry in the 3rd book), Marisol is plus-size and respectfully described and handled as a character, Mark Selden is white but he’s from England so it’s nice to not have all Americans, especially given the Jane Austen theme, Detective Morelli is described as being from an Italian family although he himself is American.
My Review
Just like with book 1 in this series, I have ‘A Murderous Persuasion’, book 2, by Katie Oliver a 3 star ranking. I was really hopeful that this book would be a higher rating because I thought book 1 was just trying to do too much establishment, unfortunately many of the issues I had in book 1 persisted here as well.
- The main sleuth (in her twenties or thirties) was still hung up on same old high school boyfriend, and he reared his head in this book. I just kept internally screaming ‘let it go!’ at the main sleuth the whole time, and as suspected, revisiting that high school flame served no purpose, and was just really weird and cringy to read about.
- The main sleuth was once again very irrational toward what is supposed to be her romantic interest? It was so hot and cold (and not in a good way) that I wish the author just hadn’t included it. I know he’s supposed to be the Mr. Darcy (and now the Captain Wentworth) character in book 1 and now book 2, but it’s painful to read. Phaedra just acts really left-field toward poor Mark Sheldon.
- There were again, too many characters and way too much backstory – it was hard to keep it all straight and rather than adding red herrings or welcome sidetracks of thought – it made the mystery really muddled and hard to get back into every time I picked the book back up.
- I found the main sleuth’s treatment of her aunt pretty distasteful – she really should have spoken up with what she witnessed or suspected. Why you would let your aunt be in an embarrassing situation I just don’t understand. I know it’s all fictional, but there are still reasonable expectations of what a person should and shouldn’t do within the world that author built.
- I also kept wondering ‘how the hell much did this murder mystery week cost these characters in the story’??
But it’s not all bad! There are nice descriptions and a lot of elements that a cozy mystery should have. If the sleuth was more likeable, if there were less characters and random side-stories happening, and more focus on the mystery itself, it could have gotten up to a five. I think the author had really good intentions here, it just needed to be paired down and cleaned up.
