A quick read gothic mystery, this book held my interest well. I loved the atmosphere and characters (Ruby was such a strong lead!). The historic setting and town were well done, and the folklore felt authentic. I look forward to a reread come fall, cozied up with some tea and a storm. It's a perfect fit for the season!

2.5 The premise of this soo excited me, but I ended up struggling with a lot of elements. I did love the historical/gothic setting of the house and grounds, I'm always up for a curse-element, and there was a twist I hadn't expected. The plot was slow moving for me and at points seemed repetitive when the main character, Ruby, would investigate, get hurt, and have to be saved by Ruan. Ruan's role as a Pellar left me confused and didn't fit into what I wanted in the story. Neither of the main characters were overly likable for me and their relationship seemed forced. At parts I felt like I missed a backstory to the characters or history of the house which lost me a few time but later on I would put it together like "Oh, that explains it". While I struggled with some elements, I can see others really enjoying it. Thanks for the publisher for sending me a review copy!

4.5⭐️ Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

I loved this read! It had a gothic atmosphere that I like, Agatha Christie vibes, found family, and great world building. Ruby reminds me a lot of the main character Phryne Fisher in “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” - a wonderful Australian tv show. A female crime solver with lots of moxy! I would love for Ruby to have a series where she solves crimes! I would pick up another book in a heartbeat!

A gothic manor murder mystery. A woman delivers a box of books and meets up with her old friend whose husband is found dead in the orchard.

This cover drew me right in and I was so excited to read. I had a good time reading this. I was surprised to see it was a debut? And cant wait to see what else this author publishes! This stories setting and mystery will make for a perfect fall read! Be sure to push it to the top of your TBRS!

This was a quick read and the mystery had me guessing until the end. The story was interesting and I liked the time period the book was set in. Loved how they played the fear of curses of the time period against what people are capable of doing to each other.

Thank you to St. Martins press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review,

This was a very atmospheric mystery in its descriptions, especially of the titular Penryth Hall which was appropriately creepy. There was a lot of time spent with building the characters and there was almost a found family feel to relationship which added a nice lightness. I would not categorize this as thrilling mystery, there were definitely thrilling moments and twists throughout to keep you guessing. At times this almost felt like cozy mystery especially with building of the small town where Penryth Hall is located and all the meddling townsfolk. There is also a touch of some sort of supernatural to two of the characters that I found interesting but it wasn’t fully explained and I wish that was clarified. In the end I enjoyed this mystery and found myself want to spend more time with the characters and would love to visit them again.

I found this book a little hard to get into. It did get better. The title and description drew me in to begin with. The characters were believable but it took awhile to gather enough of their back story to have an idea of who they were. Ruby sets out to deliver books to a man in the Cornish countryside and visits an old friend while there,only to find herself involved in a gruesome murder. Ruby must work with Ruan, the village Pellar,to solve the murder and prove that there is no curse ready to also take the life of both her friend and her young son.

The Curse of Penryth Hall is a fun romp through the Cornish countryside post WW1. Ruby Vaughan, after a harrowing stint in the war, has found herself at home in Exeter with an elderly gentleman who is a comforting acting father, and coincidentally her employer. Ruby is a modern young woman who is exceedingly wealthy as well as unconventional. When Ruby undertakes a seemingly simple assignment to deliver a box of books to her old haunt in Cornwall, she finds herself reconnecting with her dear friend Tamsyn in her ancestral home, against her better judgement. But strange happenings seem to accompany Ruby wherever she goes and when Tamsyn's husband, Sir Chenowyth, turns of dead, Ruby is compelled to investigate, somewhat to the chagrin of Ruan, the local healer (also referred to as a Pellar, whatever that is!). The connection between Ruby and Ruan is instant, but is it good? As sightings of ghosts abound, the search for Sir Chenowyth's killer gets stranger and stranger, and Ruby herself becomes a target, but of who? And why?

The book is engaging, leading the reader hither and yon in a quest to figure out who dunnit. Was it Tamsyn? Mrs. Pembroke, the trusty housekeeper? The vicar, a real sleazeball? Or is it the Curse which has plagued the village for generations? Hugely entertaining, The Curse of Penryth Hall is a real page turner, one you won't be able to put down until you've reached the end!

The story is good. I feel like the mystery side of it was well thought out, but the scene was never really set? I feel like the scene could have happened anywhere because we never really get a feel of them being in Cornwall. It just lacked imagery.. They could have been on a deserted island and the story would have remained the same.

"The Curse of Penryth Hall" by Jess Armstrong is a gripping gothic mystery with atmospheric settings. However, the pacing could be uneven at times.

I really enjoyed the plot and the female main character - Ruby. It was a good read, however, I did have some issues with it. There were definitely some plot holes in the storyline that I just couldn’t make sense of. I also feel like there were a lot of grammatical errors (but hopefully those will get ironed out before the official release).

Set in post-WW1 Britain, The Curse of Penrith Hall is about Ruby Vaughn…her past and present. Ruby is a disgraced American heiress who was exiled to Britain after she was caught in a dalliance with a married man. Her parents shipped her off and told her not to come home. Ruby enlisted as an ambulance drive during WW1 and became reckless after her parents and sister were killed in the sinking of the Lusitania. During this time, Ruby had a friend and lover, Tamsyn with whom she thought she would travel the world after the war. Despite their relationship, Tamsyn craved stability and she married Sir Edward Chenowyth, moved home to Cornwall and had a baby. Ruby winds up living with and working for Mr. Owen…an antiquarian bookstore owner in Exeter who loves her like a daughter and lost his wife and sons during the war. Mr. Owen send’s Ruby to Cornwall to deliver a mysterious trunk of books to Ruan Kivell, a “folk healer” inn the same village where Tamsyn and her husband now live. Meeting Ruan is a life altering experience as is seeing Tamsyn again. Ruan may or may not be a witch, or Pellar as the locals call him, and Tamsyn’s husband just died. Was Sir Edward murdered by a human or is he another victim of the Chenowyth curse? Ruby and Ruan race to find answers before the curse or killer strikes again.

Is this a series? It had better be a freaking series! I loved that the main character was kind of a hot mess (when we meet her she is very hungover) and I loved the very gothic mystery at the heart of it. I did not love that the relationship between Ruby and Pellar was kind of left hanging. I hope we get more in this series!

Review copy provided by the publisher.

This is a very Gothicy Gothic. There's a creepy house, there are villagers who know secrets, there is tragic history of various shapes between various characters that is Tainting! Their! Present! Lives! And of course there is a horrible, horrible murder, with supernatural elements that may or may not have anything to do with it.

Ruby is a flapper trying to recover her spirits after the horrors she saw nursing the wounded in WWI. She assists a bookstore owner (there is remarkably little of this, please do not read the book for this) who sends her on an errand...right into the neighborhood of the last person she wants to see. Who is of course someone she does see. And with whose fate hers is inextricably intertwined.

INEXTRICABLY INTERTWINED. Because it is that kind of book. DOOM DOOM DOOM that kind of book. BALEFUL SERVANT that kind of book. Coincidental dream or is it that kind of book. There are a few consistent usage errors I really hope get picked up in the copy edit, since this is an eARC, but in general this was a pulpy fun read and I was glad to spend an evening with it.

I admit that the first bit of The Curse of Penryth Hall was slow going, and I thought about putting it down. Then suddenly I was 65% through the book and completely invested in both the characters and the narrative. Armstrong does an excellent job of weaving a gothic tale of Cornish curses and witches with the modernist angst of post WWI Britain with touches of Golden Age mystery. Ruby Vaughn is a disaffected heiress haunted by memories and uninterested in the supernatural world, but when a delivery of rare books puts her in contact with a former lover, the spirit world comes to her unbidden. Is there a curse? A run of the mill murderer? Ruby and the local healer, a man who holds a strange fascination and connection for her, race to find out before more villagers are killed. This novel is an excellent set-up for a future series, and I think the some of the roughness of the writing will smooth with practice. Recommended for mystery readers who don't mind a bit of piskie dust.

10 out of 10 would reccommend this book! Really fed my soul. I definitely couldn’t get enough of Ruby’s wit. I hope there’s a sequel!!

Summary: Ruby Vaughn survived the rigours of WWI and the deaths of her parents to live in Exeter, England with her elderly employer. He asks her to deliver a box of valuable antique books to Ruan Kivell in Cornwall. When she does so, Ruby decides against her better judgement to pay a visit to her old friend (and apparently, lover) Tamsyn who lives in Cornwall with her aristocrat husband and small child. Ruby feels ill at ease in the creaking old mansion, and she awakes from a terrifying nightmare to find the master of the house gruesomely murdered in the orchard. Despite their love/hate relationship, Ruby and Kivell work together to uncover who actually murdered Sir Edward.

Thoughts: This was a relatively quick read for me, and I enjoyed the gothic undertones as I knew I would. The setting in the countryside and the atmosphere of superstition and occult folklore adds to the overall tension and sense of gothic thrill. However, Ruby’s backstory was revealed piecemeal over the course of the book, which was rather confusing. I enjoyed the friction between Ruan and Ruby, but it felt unnecessary to try to develop this into a love affair. I feel it is better as a prickly and reluctant partnership. However, I really enjoyed the dynamic between Ruby and her employer, which was amusing and sweet. Given that the novel is described as a Cornish mystery, I felt that the author could have done much more to “set the scene” and make the reader feel like they were visiting Cornwall. Really the mystery could have taken place anywhere. Overall it is a good debut effort which could develop into an interesting series. Thanks to Minotaur and NetGalley for the digital copy.

A charming and atmospheric folk mystery that effortlessly balances cozy and eerie, heartbreak and found family, this novel’s greatest strength lies in its protagonist — Ruby is a triumph. The supporting cast is dynamic, intriguing, and provides the delightful experience of watching characters both deeply bonded and entirely strange to each other in the throes of a curse — supernatural or human, they are undoubtedly blighted.
If characters are the strong suit, the mystery itself and its revelations are perhaps the weakest; it speaks to the engaging prose and delightful cast that this is not particularly to its detriment.
A novel ideally poised to launch a series, I highly recommend it for any winter tbr.

Wow! This book was wild.
Overall, I think this was a good story. It felt a bit slow, and there were times that I wanted to stop reading. But it kept drawing me back in, and I ended up finishing it. I think the ending was pretty strong, and I did not see where the story wound up. There were so many twists, turns, and red herrings that I was blown away by the reveal.
I think what bothered me the most about this book was the odd language choice. The protagonist is referred to as "lover" and "maid" from numerous sources that don't make much sense? I've read many books from this time period and never run into this before. It made me wonder if there was a language barrier between author and target reader.
Thanks to Net Galley for the book to review.