Murder at the Mansion

Victorian Village Mystery Series, Book 1

By: Sheila Connolly

Narrated by: Emily Durante

Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Katherine Hamilton's goal in high school was to escape from her dead-end hometown of Asheboro, Maryland. Fifteen years later she's got a degree in hospitality management and a great job at a high-end boutique hotel in Baltimore. Until, that is, the hotel is acquired by a chain, and she's laid off.

When Kate's high school best friend calls with a mysterious invitation to come talk with the town leaders of Asheboro, she agrees to make the trip, curious about where this new opportunity might lead. Once Kate arrives, the town council members reveal that their town is on the verge of going bankrupt, and they've decided that Kate's skills and knowledge make her the perfect person to cure all their ills.

The town has used its last available funds to buy the huge Victorian mansion just outside of town, hoping to use it to attract some of the tourists who travel to visit the nearby Civil War battle sites. Kate has less-than-fond memories of the mansion, for personal reasons, but to make matters worse, the only person who has presented a possible alternate plan is Cordelia Walker - Kate's high school nemesis. But a few days later, while touring the mansion, Kate stumbles over a body - and it's none other than Cordelia.

©2018 Sheila Connolly (P)2018 Tantor

Murder and g rated romance

I truly enjoyed the history and fun in this book. A little more descriptive comments on the are ar round the town could have helped

it said Heading optional

loved the narrator and the story, altho predictable was entertaining. I would read another if in a series.

Great listen even if you aren’t an academic!

I enjoyed the narrators pace and voices through the read. I look forward to listening to more of her work. More, though, I liked the story so much! Especially nice was Connolly’s attention to academic research methods. She wove in the academic work details and the research sabbatical quite nicely.

interesting but a little slow

a lot of wine and everything moved slowly. didn't love the repetition. and sometimes the logic was uneven.

Great story

I liked the characters and the whole story. I will look forward to the next in series

A good read.

This is a light & fun book. The mix of mystery & romance is just right. It made me want to visit the town & talk to the characters.

Not too tense good bedtime reading. Good writing

Narrator good clear diction.
Good techniques of planting questions in reader's mind and frequent reviews

I wanted to love it

The narrator is fantastic! That is the best part of the book. But the characters.. are Boring. Sooo boring. As the author says in the beginning of the book, she was “in that invisible group” in high school. The main character drinks regularly has ‘one glass of wine’, talks endlessly about the details of business plans to save the town and, most importantly has nearly zero interest in any form of romance. It's as though the author wants to ram home the point that "Some women? Have more important things to think about than men!" That's all well and good but, holy cow it makes for a boring book. I don’t know exactly how to explain it but, it’s as though the protagonist is the most unexciting, unromantic, regular, middle of everything, “popular girl hater” ever. The books seems written to appeal to that “invisible, man hating, career oriented, borderline teetotaler, woman." Honestly... maybe it does?

Good book.

this was a good book slow in some parts but all in all it was good and the narrator did a good job.

Intriguing story line

I enjoyed listening to this book. The characters are well developed and the narrator did a good job telling the story. There were twists and turns and the ending was a surprise. I recommend this book and plan to read more by this author.