Customer Reviews

Consequences of Sin

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Consequences of Sin" is a wonderful read that kept me up all night. There is no easy way to categorize this book which is both a satisfying mystery and a historically true romance. The author, Clare Langley-Hawthorne, understands the complexity of divided loyalties. Her heroine, Ursula Marlow, is an Oxford graduate, a rich heiress, and an aspiring suffragette living in Edwardian England. She is a young woman who must deal with a world where the rigid societal hierarchies based on class, wealth, and gender are only beginning to be questioned. The death of her friend's lesbian lover not only sets up the plot of this fascinating mystery, but details the choices that a young spirited woman must make as she leaves a cosseted world of privilege. This is an immensely satisfying book where love, commitment, and passion must all be weighed against the strict conventions of a country that has yet to be touched by the upheavals of the First World War.

I guess I must have missed buying a copy dusted with the 'good review' hypnosis powder, because unlike the other reviewers I believe this thing is a stinker. It's written as if the author's only contact with the word 'research' is reading Barbara Cartland and Georgette Heyer. The plot is good, that's the only thing that kept me reading, but the characters are cardboard. You just want to reach out and slap the heroine who is alternatively passive and aggressive, then smart and stupid, by turns. During the first chapter I thought this book was just a slow building parody of the woman detective romance novel, but in Chap 2 I realized the author was trying to write a serious book. If she had spent some time reading P.G. Wodehouse or Elizabeth Peters (Barbara Merz) and applied their over the top technique to her writing, this thing could have been a delightful romp. As it is, it's painful to read more than one or two pages at a time. Awful, awful, awful writing.

Given that this debut novel and first installment in a series by Clare Langeley- Hawthorne features an Oxford educated young woman of the money classes, who is also a suffragette, comparisons are bound to be made between this new series and Gillian Linscott's excellent Nell Bray series. Being a fervent fan of the Nell Bray series, and given that I really enjoyed "Consequences of Sin" my verdict is that while there are more differences than similarities between the two series, there is much to enjoy about "Consequences of Sin" and that there is much about Ursula Marlow that Nell Bray fans will approve of and take to.

While Ursula Marlow's father, the self-made industrialist wants his only daughter to marry well and settle down, Oxford educated Ursula (who also happens to be a suffragette) wants to decide her own fate, without any parental pressures. And when a fellow suffragette, Winifred Stanford-Jones, and close friend finds herself accused of murder, Ursula decides to do all in her power to help Winifred, much to her father's dismay. And when in the course of her investigations, Ursula discovers that Winifred may be taking the fall for some kind of vendetta against her father and his business associates, Ursula's resolve to discover the truth and absolve Winifred only strengthens. If only she can get her father and his lawyer, the maddening Lord Wortham, to see that she is no longer a child to be placated and soothed...

Like the other reviewers, I stayed up all night to finish this book. "Consequences of Sin" may not be the most suspenseful read of the month, but the author has cleverly layered her book with enough intriguing plot twists to keep things humming and interesting, and so kept me happily ensnared till the very last page. Add the absorbing storyline to the book's taking and engaging heroine, and you have a novel that pleases on every level. So that while "Consequences of Sin" did not quite compare vintage Nell Bray novel, "Consequences of Sin" still was a very good read, and I for one, am eagerly looking forward to the next installment in this series.

If you've got anything crucial to do, I suggest you do it before sitting down with Consequences of Sin! Once you get into it... there goes your weekend. This one is a little gem, packed with international intrigue, well-researched history, a little love, a marvelous touch of humor, and enough dead bodies to keep you guessing. Toss in the wonderfully appealing, sharp, yet naïve Ursula Marlow and you've got a book that, in the end, leaves you eager to find out what sorts of sinister mischief will come in book two! Hats off to Langley-Hawthorne for a smashing debut.

First Sentence: When the telephone rang downstairs so early that Saturday morning, Ursula Marlow knew it could only be bad news.

Ursula Marlow is the daughter of a wealthy businessman. She is Oxford educated and a suffragette; a transitional woman in a period of change. A friend has woken next to the body of her murdered lesbian lover and calls Ursula for help.

After the victim's father commits suicide, Ursula uncovers a link to an expedition 20-years' ago to Venezuela. In spite of danger, tragedy and men trying to protect her, Ursula is determined to prove her friend innocent.

At the beginning, I was afraid both the book and the character was going to be quite light and vapid. Boy was I wrong. The protagonist, Ursula, does begin as indulged and a big whiney but transforms into a brave, determined and strongly independent woman. She is a woman caught in an interesting time of social revolution; women moving from the Victorian era to a modern era of independence and the right to vote.

The author did a wonderful job of conveying sense of place. Even more so, and more rarely, the author creates a very strong, evocative description of sense of loss and grief. The story has good suspense, and excellent twist, a climatic ending wherein the protagonist saves herself, and a nice romance that is very well done.

I did have a couple small quibbles: the author overused the description of "a single lock of hair falling..." and, when the heroine is rendered unconscious, it is always for several days. I really did enjoy the story and shall definitely read the next in the series.

In this historical mystery, the heroine is an unlikely Edwardian character: Ursula ("Sully" to her intimate friends) Marlow is an aspiring journalist, an heiress living in London's posh Belgravia neighborhood, and an Oxford graduate. Clearly, she is a young woman with her own mind. One indication of that is her role as a suffragette, something frowned upon by many in her social circle, who wonder how she will ever gain a husband when she is so very willful?

Ursula lives with her father, who seems to understand her better than anyone, but he worries about her, particularly her reckless bravery and determination to do the right thing. He knows the world is more complicated than that, but shielding his only daughter from harm may be more than he can achieve.

The mystery truly begins when a close friend of Ursula's from the suffragette movement calls her in the middle of the night to come help. There's a dead woman in her house, and she has no idea how the murder occurred. Ursula is convinced of her friend's innocence, despite what the police have to say about her background and likelihood as the perpetrator of the crime.

Everyone around Ursula, including her father and his trusted counselor Lord Oliver Wrotham, try to convince her to drop her pursuit of the case. Certain that her friend is innocent, Ursula digs deep and uncovers startling information that links the case to her own father and his friends. The connection is a mysterious scientific expedition down the Orinoco River in Venezuela and a massacre of the local Indian population.

Ursula follows the trail to its end, but more murders occur, and pieces of the missing puzzle gradually come to light. In all, it's a satisfying mystery, with just the right amount of character development and clues meted out along the way. It's also a charming story for its period detail and unusually modern heroine.

Christine Zibas, Book Pleasures

For anyone who loves English mysteries (and Edwardian-mysteries at that), they will love Clare Langley-Hawthrone's first novel, Consequences of Sin. Consequences of Sin reminds me of Anne Perry's mysteries, only I think this one is much better written.

Twenty-two year old Ursula Marlow is an Oxford graduate of political history who desires to be a journalist. Her father is insisting that she find a suitable husband. Instead, she immerses herself in the suffrage movement in London. Her father, Robert Marlow, is a self-made man of considerable means. When a fellow suffragette is accused of murdering her female lover, Ursula comes to her defense. The police are quick to frame her friend, Winifred Stanford-Jones. But as Ursula tries to discover the identity of the real killer, she finds ties to an ill-fated expedition to South America over 20 years ago. Not only that, but her father figures prominently in those long-ago events. Ursula's life is in danger and it is imperative for her to find the killer or face being killed, herself.

I thought that Consequences of Sin was a smashing book! I felt as if I was back in England in 1910 between the fog, the high-drama, the servants, the customs, the food, the dress, etc. Langley-Hawthorne is turning this into a series and already has already published novel number two, The Serpent and the Scorpion. I look forward to see how this series develops.

Consequences of Sin, the first episode in the new mystery series starring Ursula Marlow, was simply one of the best murder novels I've read in awhile. The book totally took me by surprise giving me much more than I ever expected to get out of it. The cover design gives the future reader the impression that the story will be a light and fluffy feminist cozy mystery, while in fact, in actuality, this is an extremely well crafted well plotted convoluted crime puzzle to unravel. It will take you down many paths and lead you to many startling revelations that you wont see coming as you devour chapter after chapter.

When Ursula gets a midnight phone call from her friend and fellow suffragette member Freddie (short for Winifred), she is whisked away to Freddie's home to find her friend hysterical due to a dead female body in her bed. Not knowing who to call or what to do, Ursula phones her father's lawyer and friend Lord Oliver Wrotham. Upon his immediate arrival he urges Ursula to leave promptly as to not be seen on the premise and to avoid causing her family unnecessary scandal. Freddie unfortunately is taken to prison, charged with murdering her lover Laura, the daughter of one of Ursula's father's business associates.

Not satisfied with leaving Freddie's case in the hands of the law, Ursula soon endeavors to take matters into her own hands, and begins to try and solve the crime and find the murderer herself. Soon more young women are turning up dead, and as the pages turn into the thick of things, Ursula's own father is also shot and killed. The story moves quickly and the scenes get quite heated as each turned page adds more to the mystery and as Ursula unburies some deeply hidden family secrets. After her father's funeral she journeys into the house attic and as she digs deep into her mother's old trunks, Ursula uncovers facts that lead her to believe her own father had something seriously horrible to hide.

Wild escapades throughout the English countryside and a riveting ocean journey aboard the famed ocean liner, The Lusitania, has Ursula disguised as a man and bound for South America's Orinoco jungle. The story maintains a fast pace and is very exciting as the chase is on to find the answers that will free Winifred from prison. A romantic interest for Ursula is also nicely entwined around the thread of mystery, and the story's ending brings an engaging page turning climax and a rather shocking ending that reveals macabre events in her father's past and a killer gone mad with revenge. I can't praise this new series and promising author enough, and I plan to immediately dive into The Serpent and The Scorpion, the second of Ursula Marlow's adventures.

I was intrigued with the characters in this book and the writer doesn't disappoint on that score. There are great possibilities for future novels set in the halcyon years before World War I would change Europe. A main character who is intelligent, relatively independent and committed to winning the vote for women is very promising. It is a good read, though the plot has several holes that one hopes he writer will improve in her future outings.

When her friend, Winifred, discovers the murdered body of her latest lover, Laura Radcliffe in her bed, she calls on Ursula to help her. The two had become friends when they both attended Oxford University and more recently, suffragette meetings in the city of London. Of course, Lord Oliver Wrotham is appealed to for his legal expertise in the case, and he proceeds to do his best to help Ursula discover the truth to clear her friend's name.

The next dilemma that Lord Wrotham is called upon to sort out has to do with an old journal about an expedition down the Orinoco River in South America. Ursula's father, wealth mill owner Robert Marlow, had received it in the mail, along with a threat that his only child would be murdered as a result of what happened during the expedition. Little did he know that the villain's son (under an assumed name) was his own choice for marriage to his daughter Ursula.

In the middle of the book there is a smattering of information about the brutality of the police against marching suffragrettes, some discussion regarding the lives of poor and downtrodden women, as well as housemaids who become pregnant and are thrown out on the street. However, it all seemed to me as if the facts were taken directly out of the pages of a history book in order to justify the storyline. Ursula has a fortuitous meeting with a newspaper reporter and he is able to find information that helps both of them to discover the reason for Laura Radcliffe's murder. Of course, Ursula is chastized for daring to speak to a person of such a lowly station.

The plot as well as the characters in CONSEQUENCES OF SIN seem highly unlikely, especially Ursula's journey down the Orinoco disguised as a man to discover what happened to the supposedly murdered botanist Ronald Bates during the Radcliffe Expedition. Ursula is portrayed as a woman who chafes against the conventions of her time, a typical theme in mysteries of bygone days. I gave this book 3 stars.