Read This!: Penhallow

By Georgette Heyer

Borders Spree… I only have three books left from my spree so we are getting to the end of the road.

Adam Penhallow is a tyrant who lords over his family, bending them to his will because he holds the purse strings. For his own amusement, he has gathered the whole family under his roof for a birthday celebration with the intent on keeping them at Trevellin, the family home. Tensions are running high and soon someone at the house feels that everyone would be better off without him.

This was a different murder mystery than most because you know who the murderer is right off as the narrator describes them committing the crime. The interesting part of the story was trying to figure out if the murderer was going to reveal themself or let someone else take the blame. I liked this approach as it was a different twist on a normal genre. I will also say that there was one shocking reveal in the midst of the story that I never saw coming. I thought I would be disappointed with this book since it took 250 pages or so before the murder was actually committed so I thought the mystery portion would be lame. But, the character development in the early part of the novel was crucial to the ending. And the ending made me go, “AHHHHHH!!!!!!”. In high school, I wrote a paper on Romeo and Juliet and how if Romeo wasn’t so rash, everything would have been fine. I felt the same way here.

PS I loved Aubrey. Of all of the brothers, he was my favorite because he made me laugh more than once with his flair in the midst of the manliness of his siblings.