Thank you so much to Quercus books for giving me access to this book! It seemed right up my alley so I was really looking forward to reading it. I was provided with an electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was not otherwise compensated for this post and all thoughts and opinions are my own.
There are two strands of narrative in the book. In the first, Frances Adams is seventeen. It is 1965 and she has two good friends - Emily and Rose - and a boyfriend. There are three lads the girls hang around with. The girls visit a fortune teller, and she tells Frances that she will be murdered, and that the bird will betray her, and that she should be aware of the queen in her hand, or something like that. Emily's surname is Sparrow and she does end up betraying Frances, so Frances deeply believes the fortune teller. She becomes obsessed over the next few years - and indeed her life - about solving her own murder before it even happens.
She changes her will to exclude her niece and instead to include her great niece, Annie. Annie and her mother live in a family house in a posh part of London. Annie has sent some of Frances' belongings to her in her posh house in the countryside, in this tiny town, and Frances asks Annie to visit. Annie's mum is an impoverished artist so she and Annie are lucky to live in such a fancy house, but I digress. Annie has never met Frances but she goes on to the small town to meet Frances. She meets with the solicitor - one of the boyfriends from the sixties - and they head to Frances' house. She married the local lord of the manor which explains why she's so rich.
And she's now dead. It seems like the fortune teller's warning did eventually come true. Her nephew Sebastian and his grabby wife think everything will be left to them, but actually Frances' will is a strange one. Either Annie or Sebastian must solve the murder, or the house and land will be sold to developers to become a housing estate. Clearly this is going to go down like a bucket of cold sick in the town, and it means Annie and her mum would lose their house in London too.
Annie sets about solving the murder, but she comes up against absolutely everyone. The house isn't safe for her. She doesn't know who she can trust and who she can't. Oliver, the estate agent, seems out to sabotage her. The local police officer is a total dish but he won't want Annie to show him up and solve the crime before him...
I did generally like the book but I think that there were too many characters and it needed whittling down a bit. I did sometimes find the back and forth between the two time periods confusing and I think some further editing was needed. But I found the story compelling. Frances also had a room full of the sins of basically everyone in town, which may come in useful in further books. I would definitely keep a look out for the next one! I'm giving this four out of five and I liked it.
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