Information
Goodreads: The Curse of Penryth Hall
Series: Ruby Vaughn #1
Age Category: Adult
Source: Library
Published: 2023
Official Summary
An atmospheric gothic mystery that beautifully brings the ancient Cornish countryside to life, Armstrong introduces heroine Ruby Vaughn in her Minotaur Books & Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning debut, The Curse of Penryth Hall.
After the Great War, American heiress Ruby Vaughn made a life for herself running a rare bookstore alongside her octogenarian employer and house mate in Exeter. She's always avoided dwelling on the past, even before the war, but it always has a way of finding her. When Ruby is forced to deliver a box of books to a folk healer living deep in the Cornish countryside, she is brought back to the one place she swore she'd never return. A more sensible soul would have delivered the package and left without rehashing old wounds. But no one has ever accused Ruby of being sensible. Thus begins her visit to Penryth Hall.
A foreboding fortress, Penryth Hall is home to Ruby's once dearest friend, Tamsyn, and her husband, Sir Edward Chenowyth. It's an unsettling place, and after a more unsettling evening, Ruby is eager to depart. But her plans change when Penryth's bells ring for the first time in thirty years. Edward is dead; he met a gruesome end in the orchard, and with his death brings whispers of a returned curse. It also brings Ruan Kivell, the person whose books brought her to Cornwall, the one the locals call a Pellar, the man they believe can break the curse. Ruby doesn't believe in curses—or Pellars—but this is Cornwall and to these villagers the curse is anything but lore, and they believe it will soon claim its next victim: Tamsyn.
To protect her friend, Ruby must work alongside the Pellar to find out what really happened in the orchard that night.
Review
Sometimes I get the sense that some books are sold on setting as much as on premise, and The Curse of Penryth Hall is one such case. Set in Cornwall and imbued with local folklore, the story promises to be an intriguing mix of potential magic and real villianous crime. Unfortunately, it fell short for me with flat characterization and choppy organization, and I was not nearly as mesmerized as I'd hoped.
Protagonist Ruby seems to have an interesting life and backstory, but it's difficult for the reader to grasp why that is as information is dropped at random intervals throughout the book. The story opens with the revelation that Ruby lives with someone who is her employer but also a father figure and she throws scandalous parties and has wild sexual liasons in his house and likes to get drunk. . . . Practically none of this seems important to the rest of the story. Ruby may reference she's a free-spirited party animal, but she doesn't do any of that in the actual story. Instead, readers get other relevaltions about her past and traumatic experiences and previous employment thrown in sporadically and confusingly. I had no idea who Ruby really is as a person.
Worse, she doesn't even feel like the kind of person who solves mysteries. This is an issue I come across occasionally in mysteries, where the protagonist doesn't seem to be doing much to, well, solve the mystery. Maybe they tag along with someone else or have an idea here or there or some clue sort of comes to them. But Ruby doesn't feel active in a way I would have liked to see. I can't imagine reading the sequel because she doesn't come across as a detective to me. I have no desire to see her involved in a second mystery.
There are some twists to the mystery itself, which I think I could have guessed if I were paying more attention, so that was nice. I like mysteries that are solvable by the reader and not reliant on extra information the characters get but the reader never does, and Armstrong does put in some good clues. There's also the fun touch of deciding whether you as the reader want to believe in supernatural explanations or real-world ones, as both are presented as possibilities.
This just was not for me. Frankly I would have DNF'ed it except I rarely do that because I feel obligated to just finish everything I start.
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