Thank you, NetGalley, Kensington Books, and Anna Lee Huber for the advanced copy of Murder Most Fair, the newest book in the Verity Kent series. It comes out on August 30, 2021. Verity and Sidney are finally making a 5-year overdue trip to see Verity\u2019s family, all of whom have been hearing her mother say how callous Verity has been in the family\u2019s time of grief for not returning. Verity lost her older and favorite brother Rob in the war, and her other two brothers and sister have had to bear up against their mother\u2019s insulting grief for five years while Verity has been burying her own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Verity brings her elderly German Tante Isle with her to her family\u2019s seat as she\u2019s fled her homeland with her maid due to some threatening notes. While Verity enjoys renewing her acquaintance with her Aunt, the rest of her relationships with her various family members are full of tension. As Verity tries to avoid her grief in the place that holds the heart of it, she does anything she can to distract herself, including meddling in her family\u2019s relationships – oh, and solving the murder of Tante\u2019s maid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t mind the Verity Kent series – however, after reading Murder Most Fair<\/em>, I can officially say that I prefer Lady Darby. I think Huber writes Lady Darby with just a squeak more of truth and authenticity; it seems that Huber might have more experience with self-confidence issues (Lady Darby) than personal grief. Verity is written well, but I just don\u2019t get sucked into her emotions like I do Lady Darby\u2019s. I also feel like the relationship between Verity and Sidney is a little too ambiguous; they seem like they make some progress outside of the books, but readers never get a clear picture of where they\u2019re at as a couple. I\u2019d like that to be a little more clear-cut so that I can better understand the perspective that each is coming from.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Verity and Sidney take a few steps forward and a few steps back in their relationship, they work together well when they have a case to solve. They work to keep each other safe and are respectful of each other\u2019s strengths and weaknesses, which is nice to see. They actually remind me a ton <\/strong>of Milo and Amory Ames from Ashley Weaver\u2019s series. Even the way they\u2019re written is extremely similar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of cases, I don\u2019t think that this case was the most complicated that Verity and Sidney have dealt with. It could have been a more remarkable plot, considering that we took a break from the Ardmore problem in this book (which was totally fine with me because it has been going on for so many books that I\u2019m fairly confused, now). But, this novel was more about Verity facing her loss and her fears, and I\u2019m glad that Huber took the time to do so. It shows some serious character development and I\u2019m looking forward to seeing her progress in the next book. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What I\u2019d really like to see in the next book is more about Sidney; we\u2019ve seen a lot of Verity and have an idea of what she went through during the war and how it affected her. But, we don\u2019t really know how Sidney is dealing with the aftermath of the war or how he feels that he\u2019s damaged. He makes a point in this book of saying that if he could help heal Verity, there was a chance that he could be healed in the future as well, and I\u2019d just like to know more of what he\u2019s dealing with. He doesn\u2019t talk about it much (understandably!) but I\u2019d like some insight even if it\u2019s just from Verity\u2019s perspective. She mostly just mentions that Sidney won\u2019t talk about it with her, but she never discusses any guesses with us either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The writing was flawless, as usual – Huber always does an excellent job. I would like to look deeper into both Sidney and Verity, but if the series is long-running, that may come. I do prefer Lady Darby, but I won\u2019t stop reading Verity Kent anytime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thank you, NetGalley, Kensington Books, and Anna Lee Huber for the advanced copy of Murder Most Fair, the newest book in the Verity Kent series. It comes out on August 30, 2021. Verity and Sidney are finally making a 5-year overdue trip to see Verity\u2019s family, all of whom have been hearing her mother sayContinue reading “Murder Most Fair – Anna Lee Huber”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":361,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[30,52,120,157,165,282,287,293,320,326,456],"class_list":["post-358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anna-lee-huber","tag-book-review","tag-england","tag-historical-fiction","tag-historical-mystery","tag-murder-most-fair","tag-mystery","tag-netgalley","tag-post-wwi","tag-ptsd","tag-wwi","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/murder-most-fair.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":637,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions\/637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}