This feature is in association with NetGalley.
Many thanks to NetGalley and to Storm Publishing for letting me see an advance reader’s copy of Murder at Raven’s Edge by Louise Marley.
Milla has returned to her childhood village after an eighteen-year absence. Ben is returning home from London after a disastrous meeting with his ex-wife. Add in some really bad weather, and we have the start of an intriguing mystery.
I did enjoy the setting for this book, but I found the names of the places a bit weird. They were all related to witching of some kind, yet the book isn’t about any witchery. The author’s missing a right trick there.
The storyline was interesting, with plenty of twists and turns, but I was a bit confused as the story bounced around from place to place, person to person a bit too much. It’s difficult to get the mix right, though, and I’m hoping Book 2 in the series is easier to follow.
Characterisation was very good. I could see the main players and I enjoyed reading about them. There were just too many to get to know in this first in the series, and many of them had very similar names to make it that little bit more confusing.
We had Binx and Ben; Amelia, Anya and Ash; Misha, Milla and March; Sam and Sophie; Cameron, Cavill and Chopra; and Kiran and Kieran. Aside from there being more than six letters in the alphabet with which to start character names with, we didn’t really get to know all of these different people well enough to justify them even being mentioned. And some of the names were just too similar.
Finally, the book could do with a thorough proof-read by the publisher, as there were some silly, sloppy mistakes and continuity issues.
Two detectives in a room were changed to three. A wallet was found to be ‘devoid’ of money after a twenty-pound note had been left in there. Two people turned in for the night (separately, not together) without mention of a meal one of them had cooked at the top of the scene. One surviving child turned into two surviving children. And one of the detectives should have excused themselves when it was clear they had a personal connection to the case.
I had to carry on reading to the end, though. The mystery certainly gripped me from the start and had me making wild guesses of my own. I’m looking forward to reading Book 2 and catching up with everyone again.
Four stars.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
