Book Review: The House on Vesper Sands

*Review is not for compensation or paid partnership*

First Thoughts:

I’m pretty sure that this is my first ever adult, gothic mystery book. Because of this I’m not sure if the problems I had with this book are because of the author/writing or because of my lack of experience in the genre. That being said, I’m willing to bet it’s the latter of the two.

I found myself kind of confused for the majority of this book. Timeline, characters, and setting were all a little muffled. I found myself having to go back and forth in pages and sections to make sure I was making the right inferences. I thought the first chapter was years before and it was going to be more of a haunting mystery so once I started getting into the meat of the story, I was surprise to find out that it was indeed all within the same time line. The first death was a precursor.

Writing: 3/5

One of the reasons for my confusion was due to writing style. I had a hard time engaging with the story and found my brain wandering constantly, unable to lose myself in the book. Because of that, I feel like most of the early details got lost to me unfortunately. O’Donnell has a very classic writing style. It’s truly a compliment and an adjustment. Once I got used to his style and tone I was able to find myself more attentive. I could appreciate his world building, plot orchestration and characters.

Plot: 3/5

I almost got too bored and gave up on this book in all honesty. I decided to stick out to at least the end of the first half. Once I reached this point, everything I had originally been confused about finally started piecing together and clearing up. All of the action and suspense happened within a span of 100 pages, three quarters of the way in. From this point on, I was hooked. This book gained its redemption. Parts of it began forming a beautifully haunting tale I began to appreciate. It had an arc very similar to the game of clue. You get set up with a crime/death, move on to the participants in the mystery, get important clues, reasoning, and conclusion - mystery solved.

The story follows the a Cambridge student, a detective, and a journalist trying to figure out the following questions:

case of the seamstress suicide - why did she do it?
Missing uncle - where did he go and what was he trying to warm against?
A string of missing working class girls - where have they gone, who had been interested and why?
A missing lord - why did he all of a sudden go missing after the seamstress committed suicide?

Characters: 2/5

Over the entire book you take on a total of three perspectives. You have the seamstress in the beginning who sets the mystery with her unexplained but seemingly very purposeful suicide. You have Mr. Gideon Bliss, a Cambridge student who travels back to London upon his uncle’s mysterious insistence (who he finds to be missing). Then there is Octavia Hillingdon, a journalist looking for more meaning in her career.

To be honest, I think this is where the book fell shortest for me. While I eventually came to enjoy each perspective and additional character involved with the storyline, I never connected with any of them. They all were important to the mystery but held no particular spark or meaning for me. I will eventually forget each one until prompted with the book.

Romance: 2/5

As far as romance goes, the majority of it is featured between Gideon Bliss and the girl he was crushing on last time he had visited his uncle. She and Gideons uncle go missing. Because of his relations with uncle and previous infatuation with this missing girl, he sets on with detective Cutter to find out what happened to them both with personal intentions. Here and there you get flashbacks at Gideon and the girls interactions. It was a brief summer romance that died out when he set back to Cambridge. There’s a conclusion to that too but I won’t elaborate as it’s the majority of the story.

Overall: 3/5

If the book had a better hook in the beginning, I could have seen myself enjoying this book way more. Unfortunately the set up just wasn’t enticing enough to hold my interest and therefore I think I lost a lot of important details that would have given this book the leg up it needed. I am not 100% convinced that mystery novels are for me but I’m still willing to give them a few more tries. I think as an avid fantasy reader, I’m used to high pace and vivid world building that I just did not get in this book.

For that, I’d definitely deem its lack of encouragement to my own personal tastes. Besides my own biases in reading, I don’t find much wrong with this book at all. Characters were probably the only thing I’d not blame on said biases. I do think they could’ve used a little more help writing wise. Or, maybe it is still a bias based on fantasy reading. I’m used to being totally taken with at least one character (main or side). I could appreciate each role the characters had in this book but I won’t be taking any of them in my heart or mind. They left no personal imprint.

Highly enjoy the classic writing style. Once I got settled into the book, I was able to appreciate the tone of the story. I might even try this book again. I think I will read a few more mysteries before that though so I have a better reference on what is good, great and bad when it comes to this genre.