Julie Klassen is one of my 'read everything she writes’ authors! She has a gift for writing interesting, believable characters, wonderful settings which you can see in your imagination’s eye as you read, dropping in interesting historical facts and details, adding nods to elements from Regency classics, and often giving a good dose of mystery too. The latter I especially appreciate, since I’ve been a big fan of cozy mysteries ever since discovering Agatha Christie’s novels while I was a schoolgirl.
Whispers at Painswick Court has all of the above, in spades! Anne Loveday has a tricky relationship with her father’s new young wife Nancy who is very eager to marry Anne off. But Anne is uninspired by her stepmother’s life of baby after baby, and misses her own mother as well as her married sister Fanny. Fanny married a kind man after her heart was broken and although her husband is clearly smitten, Fanny still frets over her lost first love. The unequal nature of her sister’s marriage is another reason why Anne wishes to avoid the married state.
Anne escapes her family by accepting an invitation to visit an old friend in Painswick, the Cotswold town where she and her sister spent many happy summers. However, her friend has ulterior motives for inviting Anne to visit and Anne finds herself acting as a nurse to Lady Celia Fitzjohn, who lives in the large and beautiful Painswick Court with her daughter who has ‘indifferent’ health, the household staff and a mysterious maid. Lady Celia is a lady who has very strong opinions and isn’t slow in expressing them, and she is not someone upon whom Anne looks favourably, believing her to be responsible for ruining her sister’s chance of happiness by forbidding the match between Fanny and her nephew Jude, Fanny’s ‘lost love’. Nonetheless kind-hearted Anne agrees to help.
The house is rumoured to be haunted by the ghost of Charles I. But it’s soon clear that she has more immediate and physical threats to worry about when Lady Celia is poisoned, and it appears that everything she thinks she knows about the residents of Painswick Court may not be as it seems. Then there’s the complication of her growing interest in a local doctor who has barely concealed secrets of his own.
I really enjoyed this novel. I liked the two Ann/es, and I also liked Miss Fitzjohn and her determination not to be seen as ‘frail’ – which she certainly achieves! There are lots of nice details, like the use of a goose feather in a lock to indicate ‘do not disturb’ and there are plenty of family complications, but though these are many they are not overpowering.
There are lots of nods to Austen influences, but they never seem heavy handed and it’s fun to spot them. The mystery keeps you guessing, and the suspicions shift from person to person throughout. The house feels gothic and mysterious, with tight staircases and conversations in the shadows by candlelight. The medical elements are fascinating. (The story includes two doctors, and Anne is a surgeon-apothecary’s daughter who has learned much from her father in terms of medicines.) The romance is light, sweet and engagingly done and it was nice to see how other relationships such as those between Anne and her stepmother, sister and Lady Celia were developed throughout too. Throughout, there are quite a few reminders that things in life may not be as they appear, and we’re shown that while things may not end up being as we’d thought or dreamed, there is still beauty to be found. Oh, and I love the way Katherine's own story unfolded!
I read a pre-publication version supplied by the publisher. No review was required. All comments and opinions above are entirely my own. (And it was nice to remember an evening dinner in Painswick last year, and the walk among the yew trees in the churchyard beforehand.)
