Audiobook ARC Review: Eleanor Swift #20

A Midwinter Murder by Verity Bright

Read by Karen Crass

Publication Date: December 24, 2024

Summary from NetGalley:

Homemade baubles, reindeer-shaped cookies and snowy walks across the rolling moors… but Lady Swift’s festive plans are ruined when a body turns up!

Winter 1924. When Lady Eleanor Swift unexpectedly finds herself a guest of the reclusive Duke of Auldwyke, she’s determined to enjoy Christmas with all the trimmings at his sprawling manor house. And that includes kisses under the mistletoe and cozying up by the fire with her fiancé, dashing detective Hugh Seldon.

Instead, the season of goodwill turns frosty as she finds the Duke’s studious secretary, Mr Porritt, dead in the storeroom. Clasped in his chilly hand is a golden pendant in the shape of a rose. The Duke denies ever having seen the necklace before. But Eleanor can see the lies in his eyes… Did it belong to his mysteriously absent wife?

Hugh and Eleanor must ditch relaxing with hot cocoa in favour of interviewing the Duke’s holiday guests. Every suspect has a secret they’d kill to keep: the socialite with the false name, the Sir with a questionable inheritance and the husband hiding a crack in his marriage.

As the blizzard outside rages, Auldwyke Hall becomes cut off. Trapped by the snow, Eleanor and Hugh must skate around the increasingly secretive Duke to unwrap the identity of the killer. But does the answer to the secretary’s murder lie with a ghost of Christmas past? And when an attempt is made on the Duke’s life too, they realise the killer is closer than they think…

ARC provided by Bookouture Audio via Netgalley for an honest review.

Confession:

I have not read any of the previous books in this series, but this one read enough like a stand alone, that I wasn’t bothered in anyway not knowing anything about the characters or their stories. This was a very clever and enjoyable read and I am thinking about checking out the rest of the series now.

Karen Cass did a marvelous job of portraying Lady Eleanor. She has a great voice and really conved all of the emotions well. She also did some very nice voices and accents for the other characters. I really enjoyed listening to her and would choose another book that she has narrated.

Lady Eleanor Swift is a fine young lady who is smart, witty and inquisitive. She is also very brave and is not afraid to protect those she cares for. There were a few quirks to her personality that I wasn’t very sure of. Like how she treats her staff as if they were friends. Her relationship with her butler, Clifford, was especially puzzling. He seemed more like a close uncle that she was very fond of rather than a servant.

Eleanor and Hugh’s relationship is very sweet and loving. It has of course developed over the course of many books, but they seemed to get along quite well. There was a bit of tension between them though that mostly had to do with how they were going to sort the differences in their social status. Ladies simply don’t marry police detectives. But I am sure they will sort it out and it certainly didn’t cause huge problems between them.

The mystery was well done. Lots of nice clues and red herrings galore. My only issue was that the culprit was someone who had been mentioned early on in the story, but then not seen until the big reveal. I am not a big fan of this style of mystery as it feels like a bit of a ruse to the reader. Also there were times when I felt like Hugh didn’t do a very good job of being a detective, he actually seemed a bit dim at times. Eleanor was the one who seemed to pick up on a lot of the clues and then told Hugh what was really going on.

I loved the writing and the setting. The descriptions of the english countryside and the type of shooting they were doing were well done. There was lots of attention to details especially when it came to the food and clothes. Some of the food sounded delicious and made me hungry. The descriptions of the other guests and the servants were also nicely done.

This story is full of humor and Christmas fun, which made it the perfect read for this time of year. I do recommend the audiobook, as the narrator does a fabulous job. As I said before, it didn’t really matter too much that this is the 20th book in a series. I enjoyed it just as much as any other cozy mystery. Fans of the series will love this just as much as those of you who are not familiar with the series.