The Vanishing at Loxby Manor
By: Abigail Wilson / Narrated By: Laura Kirman
Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
Oh thank GOSH! A clean romance. But oh good cow… A verrrry clean mystery?
But p’raps I should preface it all with an emPHATic: I do NOT necessarily want bloooood in each of m’ murder mysteries, no gore, mind you. But a little bit o’ spattered brains would be nice.
Hmmm, I do believe I’m outing myself as a rubbernecking train-wreck watcher.
It’s kinda a train-wreck that now 21-year old Charity Halliwell finds herself in. No longer the innocent and desperately in love 16-year old dazzled by Piers Cavanaugh she once was, Charity is back for a yearlong stay at Loxby Manor to visit the family, and esPECially her dear friend Seline.
Instead of a grand welcome, Charity instead finds herself ushered into a darkened manor house, shuttled unceremoniously upstairs to have a supper tray brought to her: See no one, speak to no one… esPECially NOT Seline. Dude, where’s the funeral, Charity wonders.
Seline has other plans, however, and jaunts in to see Charity herself. She’s grown into a dazzling young woman, and tho’ she’s ALways been a decided flirt, this time she’s really gotten herself into hot water. Ever impulsive, Seline was caught kissing the Head Groom’s nephew; is that a SHOCKING development or what?! Never one to worry, Seline is chuckling it off as an aghast Charity wonders how the scandal is to be avoided.
But was Seline chuckling? Well, suddenly she stops when she looks outside, and sees something that first distresses her… then something ELSE… that kinda excites her. QUICK, she demands of Charity, Lemme have your black traveling cloak! And much to Charity’s dismay, Seline hotfoots it outta the house…
Never to be seen again that eve.
Soon Charity is in the thick of things as first old chum Avery Cavanaugh addresses this appalling new development (An odd note has been found in Seline’s room stating that nobody need worry, she’s off to wed the stablehand! ta-ra! and tally-ho! and all that). And then, even MORE appalling is when Piers Cavanaugh, who’s been away for five years, living disgraced and branded a coward for failing to show at a duel he himself demanded, shows back up at Loxby Manor. Now it’s like this see: Once TOTALLY in love with Piers, she’d been sent away, and whilst away, she received just one letter from him, one that severed their romance and severely wounded her.
He’s baaaaack….!
Together, the two must work in unison cuz Avery is NOT doing a good job of sussing things out, preferring to “face the fact” that Seline did indeed set off for a desperately ill-considered and sooooo scandalous! marriage to a servant. Plus, ol’ Avery is acting pretty gosh-danged odd, being all evasive about his comings and goings, sorta all-peeved when they have to keep asking him about occasional nightly glimmers of light coming from the ancient abbey on the hill (Haunted by a dead monk, doncha know!).
Piers and Charity struggle to get past their broken relationship, trying to become “just friends” even as sparks keep flying from them every time they just baaaarely touch. But Charity has a secret she’s keeping, one that brings her terror and shame. And Piers? Well, he too has a very closely guarded secret as to Just Why he skipped out on the duel that caused Society to give him The Cut-Direct.
Throw in a nervous Mama Cavanaugh, a doddering and bedridden Papa Cavanaugh who was kicked and blinded by a horse and who now stays in a shaaaamelessly disordered and ill-kept room, a Head Groom who starts receiving mysterious (And increasingly DIRE) missives from his missing nephew who was S’POSED to be gone from the county but is instead working for a Lord nearby. Add a secret society! Plus a Horserace Amongst Two Gentleman that miiiiight be sabotaged! Chuck in a corpse or two (ReMARKably bloodless!) with bashed in skulls!
And gosh, I gotta say I rather liked this all. At least it did indeed keep me in oodles of suspense. Now, of course I’m a boob when it comes to Mysteries (Tho’ I must protest that I’m getting better at sifting through red herrings), so I did NOT figure out whodunnit. Nope, still a Novice at that. THAT said, however, I AM doing far more of them, enough to say that, when the murderer WAS revealed it was a surprise, yes, -BUT- I was a trifle disappointed that it was one of those: Mustache-Twirling scenes whereby said murderer comPLETEly expounds upon the hows and wherefores and whys of the matter. I mean, couldn’t author Abigail Wilson reveal all that info in a slower, more methodical way? She was doing so well up until that point!
Still, as I said: Oodles of suspense.
Now onto narrator Laura Kirman. At first I thought I was in for a variety of poor choices as far as voices for characters went. Example: Toast of the Season, Diamond of the First Water, the beauuuutiful Seline has a scratchy, gravely voice. Huh? Whazza?! So when she disappeared I sighed with relieeeef as I did NOT think I could suffer almost 9-hours of her (I didn’t read the Publisher’s Summary from the sale at Chirpbooks, so I didn’t realize her disappearance was going to be part of the entire Mystery…). After that, Kirman was spot-on for each and every character: The amiable Avery who begins morphing into an enigma, the ever-increasing twitchiness of dearest Mama Cavanaugh, the debt-ridden, oh-so-in-love with Seline Hugh. And of COURSE our heroine Charity and our Hero Piers. Kirman DOES kinda sorta overdo it with the aforementioned Mustache-Twirling at the end there, but for the most part, she really brings in the power of the wind, the wildness of storms, the chilling rain, the dark dark dark of Loxby Manor and the eeriness of the Haunted Abbey.
Gothic, I tell you, much fun! I appreciate all the allusions to harsh weather and brooding darkness that Wilson wrote so capably. And of course, when the white cat Snowdrop is a soothing balm to Charity’s ruffled mind, YAY! A CAT!
So a little bit overdone on the Heh! Heh! HEH! and tho’ sexual assault was kinda sorta beaten into our heads, at least it was handled fairly tastefully and with dignity, and the growing mutual attraction did NOT besmirch the fact that Charity was violated and had trust issues (Saaaay, like the INSTANT Passion! Passion! Passion! of Rachael Anderson’s woeful My Brother’s Bride!).
Believable, a sloooow unspooling of clues, a Whodunnit that I truly gave up on figuring out, leaving me to listen with enjoyment as things trundled ominously along.
Just, gosh! How ‘bout some spattered brains with the skull-bashing?!
Hmmm, p’raps I AM a Fiend….!
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