A Tale of Two Murders by Heather Redmond

I requested this from NetGalley because the cover was pretty and it’s a Dicken’s inspired novel! I like (and know enough) about his work that fanfic like this is interesting and something that I would like to try reading.

In A Tale of Two Murders, Charles Dickens is drawn into the role of a detective when the girl living next to his editor is murdered. Because another girl in the neighbourhood died the same way a year ago, and stricken by the lovely Kate Hogarth, his editor’s daughter, Dickens decides to find the truth of what happened.

Though he isn’t part of the upper class, the mother of the dead girl, Lady Lugoson, also suspects murder and she helps to open doors. However, Dickens soon comes across family secrets and he must decide which of the many suspects is the actual culprit.

To be honest, this book started off a little slowly for me. For some reason, I found the language a little clunky, which made immersing myself in the story and the time period harder. It was only after a few chapters that I managed to get into the rhythm of the story and start to wonder about who killed poor Miss Lugoson.

Apart from the language, one thing that made it harder for me to get into the story was that the murder plot wasn’t the most dominant. I felt that the start of the book was preoccupied with Dicken’s budding relationship with Kate Hogarth and that influenced his actions more than getting to the truth. While their romance is very sweet and I admire Kate for knowing what she wants and sticking to it, it felt like half or more the story was a romance, which wasn’t what I wanted to read.

Speaking of Kate, I really liked her character! She’s a sensible young lady, and it was refreshing to see the female lead portrayed as equally capable as the male lead. Although she couldn’t be there when Dickens made some important discoveries because they weren’t married, I like how she spoke her mind and wasn’t afraid to contradict Dickens.

I’m not too sure about how accurate the portrayal of Dickens was, though. He seems like a idealist romantic here, but I have read that his marriage didn’t go very smoothly, so I do wonder how accurately the book portrayed him.

Overall, this was a pretty enjoyable book. It took some time for me to get into the story, but I enjoyed it once I was caught up. If you’re a fan of Charles Dickens, you’ll probably want to give it a try.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.