A Vanishing at Loxby Manor: A Regency Mystery

Regency Romance and Mystery — I'm a voracious reader of Regency romance, and when I can find them, I enjoy your Regency mysteries as well. This charmingly combines historical mystery and romance. The novel has several storylines going on at the same time, perfect for a book of this length. The central mystery has to do with the disappearance of the heroine's good friend, who happens to be the hero's sister. After we're told about this, mention of the “vanishing” fades into the background for much of the book as we learn more of the hero’s and heroine’s pasts and the secondary characters, including the hero's other family members and friends. I thought the mystery should have been more front and center, though I certainly enjoyed the second-chance-at-romance aspect of the book as well. Both the hero and heroine have difficulties in their pasts that appear to prevent them coming together in the present. Both are sympathetic characters. The hero is sweet and swoon-worthy, committed as he is to both his family and the heroine. While the author hinted at some sort of sexual misconduct/assault of the heroine while she was in Ceylon, at no point does she state what precisely happened in the tea garden with not too gentlemanly gentleman; I wish she had done so, as I was curious about what was such a crucial event that held her back from marriage. I will admit to being genuinely surprised at the ultimate villain of the piece, though I had some inkling that all was not as it seemed with him. The pacing of the book was uneven, slow at first, but then things really ratcheted up quickly at the end of the book. I don't feel like the author foreshadowed enough, though, especially about the secret society, which turned out to be very important but was sprung on us late in the game. While some might see this as a Regency Gothic, I thought it lacked several elements key to a Gothic mystery or story. Perhaps because of the romance, it didn’t seem moody or “spooky” enough to be a real Gothic novel. The narrator of the audiobook did a good job with the female characters, but I thought most men sounded the same. All in all, though, I found this to be a very enjoyable audiobook and ebook. I received a free copy of both the audiobook and the eBook, but that did not affect my review.

The Vanishing at Loxby Manor is the first book that I have read by Abigail Wilson and I am very excited to read more by this author now. I thoroughly enjoyed this mysterious story from start to finish. I listened to the audio book version and overall I enjoyed the narration. The author changed voices for the different characters and occasionally I wasn’t fond of a couple of the voices, but the main characters were voiced very nicely and I was definitely drawn into the story right from the beginning. The mystery of Seline’s disappearance and the feeling that things were not quite right at Loxby Manor truly drove the story. I loved that Charity and Piers came together with a second chance at friendship and perhaps something more as they worked to uncover the strange happenings going on in the area. The overall mystery kept me guessing for most of the book and I found the second chance romance delightful. I received a complimentary of this book. All opinions are my own.