Many thanks to NetGalley and to Storm Publishing for letting me see an advance reader’s copy of The Body in Rookery Barn by Kate Hardy.
After moving to the tranquil Norfolk countryside, recently widowed Georgina Drake has simple plans. But when she discovers the body of her latest holiday cottage guest, everything changes.
Billed as ‘a totally gripping cozy mystery’, I wasn’t expecting the ghost, and when I encountered it, I actually put the book down for a few days. Nowhere did it say this was a paranormal mystery and the ghost pulled me up short.
Now I knew, though, I tried again, and this time I persevered and finished it.
I did enjoy the story, once I’d got over myself with the ghost, but then I found the ghost’s tale far more interesting than the present-day murder mystery. It’s very well written and quite sophisticated, especially for a cosy.
There are too many characters to keep up with, though, and I had to keep referring back to who was who. Many, I think, didn’t need an actual name and would have been fine with just a descriptive noun. That would have got around using the same initial a few times – we had four Gs (and a J…) and four Bs.
I liked the main and supporting characters but wasn’t bothered about many of the walk-ons, and I didn’t much like the victim either.
It does slightly come across as written by an American person and published by an American company. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just think when everything is so English/British, including the author and the publisher, then the language and the punctuation should be English/British too.
But I did enjoy the story. I enjoyed meeting the main people and look forward to catching up with them again. And I did like the setting.
Five stars.
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