Rebecca Lane has always felt a responsibility for her brother since he fell out of a tree on her watch when he was younger. Although she\u2019s been traveling as a paid companion for several years, Rebecca is summoned home by a letter from her brother\u2019s housekeeper stating that she\u2019s concerned about his behavior. When she arrives home, she finds that her brother has written a second novel, which he wants her to present to an author to pass along to his publisher. Rebecca must go to Swanford Abbey, where the publisher and the author who stole her brother\u2019s first novel are staying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reluctantly agreeing to her brother\u2019s proposal, Rebecca stays at Swanford Abbey, although she\u2019s not happy about it. She least expected to meet Sir Frederick, her first love, also staying at the Abbey. If things weren\u2019t complicated enough for Rebecca, she and the other guests are soon forbidden to leave the Abbey as the author has been found dead in his room. Fearful that she or her brother might be suspected, she is secretive around the investigating magistrate – who just happens to be Sir Frederick. As they both begin to recognize their feelings for one another, Sir Frederick also notices Rebecca\u2019s reticence, and wonders if the tender feelings he\u2019s unlocked for Rebecca are going to be over before they\u2019ve barely begun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019ve made it through that complex synopsis, congratulations! There is a lot going on in Shadows of Swanford Abbey<\/em>, although luckily Klassen does a better job of walking us through the story than I just did. If you\u2019re thinking \u201cthat sounds like a lot of coincidences,\u201d you\u2019d also be correct about that. This story is very coincidence-oriented, as I suppose a lot of mysteries are. Overall, I\u2019d give this novel three out of five stars. I didn\u2019t love it enough to read it again but didn\u2019t hate it enough to give it less than that. Let\u2019s talk about it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n As far as plots go, I thought this one was a little stretched with the whole brother-book debacle. I didn\u2019t really understand why Rebecca\u2019s brother wanted to use the same author who stole his first book<\/em> to get his second one published. We do learn why later in the story, although the reason just felt too manufactured as a red herring to be meaningful. It did add an element to the story, but not one that I bought into. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I did like the romance plot in this novel; I really appreciated how Rebecca didn\u2019t want to tell Sir Fredick everything but also opened her eyes to the fact that if her brother had committed a crime (because she and us readers knew that she didn\u2019t commit it), she couldn\u2019t bear the moral weight of hiding it from the law. As Rebecca got to know and trust Sir Frederick again, the more she felt open to sharing with him about her movements and ideas, and that was written really organically. I thought the interactions between Rebecca and Sir Frederick were spot-on and I respect Klassen\u2019s choice to make Rebecca a sensible woman!<\/p>\n\n\n\n As far as the mystery goes, I thought it was reasonably well-done. I won\u2019t say it\u2019s the most thrilling I\u2019ve ever read, but I didn\u2019t figure out the solution until it was revealed to me. I think it\u2019s very hard to fit a good romance and a good mystery into one novel; I suppose that\u2019s why my favorite romantic mystery series are series! Klassen does a solid job of creating both a compelling romance and mystery, although neither was stellar enough for me to want a second book about these characters. Which, by the way, I think is totally fine. It stands well on its own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I guess you can see why the synopsis was so long; that\u2019s a lot of plot going on in one book! If you\u2019re in the market for a very palatable, HEA, romantic suspense novel, give this a try. There wasn\u2019t anything about this book that really frustrated me in particular (yay!), but there also wasn\u2019t anything that made me forcefully recommend it to other people. In other words, this is just a solid<\/em> book. It\u2019s consistent, constant, and shouldn\u2019t disappoint the reader, which is very commendable and should make it appealing to a lot of audiences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rebecca Lane has always felt a responsibility for her brother since he fell out of a tree on her watch when he was younger. Although she\u2019s been traveling as a paid companion for several years, Rebecca is summoned home by a letter from her brother\u2019s housekeeper stating that she\u2019s concerned about his behavior. When sheContinue reading “Shadows of Swanford Abbey – Julie Klassen”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":405,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[33,42,43,52,120,165,169,205,283,287,293,344,351,352,375],"class_list":["post-403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-arc","tag-bethany-house","tag-bethany-house-publishers","tag-book-review","tag-england","tag-historical-mystery","tag-historical-romance","tag-julie-klassen","tag-murder-mystery","tag-mystery","tag-netgalley","tag-review","tag-romantic-mystery","tag-romantic-suspense","tag-shadows-of-swanford-abbery","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/shadows-of-swanford-abbey.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403","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=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":630,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions\/630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}