Not my usual read, and sadly didn't quite tick the right boxes for me so I DNF. A bit too historical, cosy crime for my liking. Having said this, and as I say with all books I DNF, generally I can see the appeal to their market, and will continue to recommend this to people it is better suited too!

The Horror of Haglin House by M. R. C. Kasasian is a Victorian mystery thriller. But the writing has some major flaws. With every chapter, new characters enter, and everything goes haywire. I couldn't understand anything, even after trying so hard. The language was so weird and different. I feel I am a bit harsh on the author, but I couldn't help it. The only best thing about the book is its cover and title. I had high hopes for the book. The book only deserves two stars.

La scrittrice di thriller Lady Violet Thorn, dopo essere stata abbandonata all'altare, si è ritirata nella cittadina di Montford, nel Suffolk.
La pace di Violet viene disturbata quando uno sconosciuto le chiede aiuto, sostenendo che un'amica è tenuta prigioniera nella sua stessa casa. Il visitatore sembra così spaventato che Violet, nonostante il suo scetticismo, si convince a indagare.
Una donna viene uccisa fuori dalla casa di Violet, poi un'altra uccisa in città e, man mano che le morti si moltiplicano, Violet si convince che tutte conducono a un unico luogo: la sempre più inquietante Haglin House, e chi vi abita...

Ad aiutarla ci sono la sua protagonista Ruby Gibson, un'avventuriera che si mette in pericolo e sventa complotti con grande abilità, e l'ispettore di polizia Hefty. Le loro voci si intromettono di continuo, rimproverando e commentando ogni situazione in cui Violet si trova.

Questo è inizialmente divertente e interessante, ma alla lunga diventa può annoiare il lettore.
Avevo apprezzato maggiormente la serie di Gower Street, ma anche questa protagonista ha i suoi lati positivi e con qualche accorgimento potrebbe diventare una simpatica versione femminile di Sherlock Holmes

Ringrazio Canelo e Netgalley per la copia omaggio

"The Horror of Haglin House" by M.R.C. Kasasian is a gripping mystery novel that takes readers to the Suffolk market town of Montford. With a fresh and witty take on the classic crime genre, this novel promises an enthralling read for fans of mystery and suspense.

A fresh and mysterious story. The dialogue is witty and the banter charming. The characters are fun and full of life. I was guessing until the end.

This is such a tricky book to review because of the mixed emotions it invoked!

On the one hand, it is a really good, fun mystery story with really unique and memorable characters. I could honestly give it 5* on these basis alone! On the other hand, however, there were two distinct problems with the story that made it almost impossible to read until I got the hang of it.

Firstly, main character Violet’s jilting is introduced at the very beginning, briefly mentioned throughout, then revisited at the end, but it never seems to relate to the main plot and just confused the introduction of the characters at the beginning of the book, making it more difficult to find the flow of the story at the start.

More importantly and with greater negative effect though, was that Violet is such an imaginative author that her characters constantly speak to her in her head. As in, she has two main characters of her own books (a female adventurer-detective and a fussy male deductive-detective) who comment on everything that happens during the plot, frequently intruding on both the action and the dialogue in a way that is both irritating and confusing for the reader and slows the plot for no real benefit. I actually loved the idea of this, but there is way too much of it here – less would have been more!

Despite these issues, once I got the hang of the writing style and characters (which took a few chapters), I really was hooked! Violet herself, and Friendless, Agnust and Gerrund (her ‘servants’) are all utterly brilliant and I could read endless books of their adventures together. The humour really made me laugh and the repeated twists to the story kept me guessing right up to the very end.

This really would be one of my favourite books, if it had been trimmed a little more for clarity’s sake. I still want to read more though, and will be keeping an eye out for book 2!

My thanks to Canelo for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Horror of Haglin House’ by M.R.C. Kasasian.

This is the first in the Lady Violet Thorn series of Victorian mysteries. July 1894 and Lady Violet is preparing for her wedding. When she arrives at the church, there is a letter from her fiancé Jack Raven. He has jilted her at the altar.

A year passes and Violet has withdrawn to Break House in the Suffolk market town of Montford where she is focusing on her writing career. She has established herself as an author of adventures starring Extraordinary Investigator Ruby Gibson. I expect these were penny dreadfuls.

Violet soon becomes involved in a real life mystery when a stranger tells her that her friend, Dolores Poynder is being held captive by her physician husband in Haglin House. This seems to be the perfect opportunity for Lady Violet to exercise her sleuthing skills in real life.

While this sounds a good premise for a Gothic mystery, I found the plot confusing and there were rather a lot of underdeveloped characters. What made the narrative even more difficult was Lady Violet’s constant internal conversations with her fictional characters: mainly Ruby Gibson and police Inspector Havelock Hefty. This might partly be down to her fondness for absinthe, the Green Fairy.

In addition, there were quite a few disturbing scenes, including an organised fight between a dog and rats, plenty of descriptions of effluence in various places and some grisly deaths. Now while I am fine with historical authenticity, it felt a bit too gritty especially given Lady Violet’s class.

Overall, I found ‘The Horror of Haglin House’ a rather disappointing, convoluted read. The constant stream of consciousness with her characters was especially distracting and led to a lack of engagement with the actual plot. This was only my second experience of M.R.C. Kasasian’s writing so it’s hard to comment on how it compares to his other novels.

This will hit the mark for niche Victorian read, but the crime thriller part occasionally got lost in the dialogue between Violet and the fictional characters in her brain. I appreciate what the author was doing, and I think this isn’t a mark against the book, but it is something that in my read through of the arc felt like a quirk that held no weight to the consequences of the plot to merit how much of it there was and how it seemed to take away from the thriller aspect. If this was more a character physiological-centered story than a thriller I think I might have gone in with the right mind set. Either way it was cozy, and I did enjoy it and I think more people will enjoy it than not.

The Horror of Haglin House is a new series from M R C Kasasian and if you have read his other work and liked it then you will like this. Violet is a lady novelist who has removed herself to a small town to write but a stranger comes to her with a problem. A woman is being kept prisoner in Haglin House by her husband and they ask for Violets help. How can she refuse? This has a lot of the same characteristics as Kasasians previous series; characters with physical quirks, slow servants, plenty of local dialect and tongue twister names. I did find it a bit muddled and slightly impenetrable at first and the mystery slightly silly at points. It’s like a sort of farsical horror and I’m not sure it works. The maid is also incredibly annoying. This didn’t quite hit the target.

I really liked this book, it was different than anything else I've read which was a breath of fresh air. I will be recommending this to my friends, and auto buy this author!

I see what this book was aiming for but to be honest... the amount of pages were unnecessary.
Violet being deemed as an expert was not quite believable just because she writes thrillers. But the story itself wasn't exactly bad, it was just that it felt the story was buried under a lot of detail that could have been edited out.

Grateful for the opportunity to dive into the ARC of this book, though it didn't quite captivate me enough to reach the final page.

I did not finish this one, it was not for me, I couldn't relate to the characters, and just did not care for the story.

Unfortunately this just wasn't the book for me. The book was very slow paced and seemed to include things of no value to the overall story. The characters were okay but I struggled to connect with any of them. As a result, I found myself tuning out while reading this and struggled to stay engaged.
The cover on this book is gorgeous though!

This was an odd bit enjoyable read, and I liked it more than most reviewers seemed to. I loved the concept behind it and enjoyed the interactions between the author and her characters as she attempts to solve a real life mystery.

Interestingly the one thing that other reviewers seemed to like was the one thing that I didn’t: The humor. I found the “banter” kind of irritating and not especially funny. But the story was good and I disagree that it was bloated or overlong.

For anyone worrying about the Horror classification, I don’t think the book should truly be classed as such. It’s more of a Mystery, and though there are few gross parts, it’s not truly scary at all.

This book was weird and twisty a Victorian cozy mystery that had the sleuth and crime writer talking and interacting with her imaginary characters as if they were in the room - this was a very fun and different historical cozy mystery ! Enjoy your reading !

This was not a good book. It was long, convoluted, gross and just not well written. I love a good horror story but this was not "good". Wouldn't recommend

Jilted thriller writer Lady Violet Thorn has withdrawn to the Suffolk market town of Montford with two servants and her leading character, the adventuress Ruby Gibson, for company.
Violet’s peace is disturbed when a stranger asks her for help, claiming that a friend is being kept prisoner in her own home. Her visitor seems so afraid that Violet, despite her scepticism, is persuaded to investigate.
A woman is killed outside Violet’s house, then another murdered in the town and, as the deaths mount up, she becomes convinced that they all lead to one place: the increasingly forbidding Haglin House, and whoever lives there…

Wow… this book could have been epic as the characters were FANTASTIC and the storyline gave off feminist Sherlock Holmes vibes which is LOVED… but… and it’s a big one… the CONSTANT diatribe from the protagonist’s fictional characters in her head throughout the novel just completely ruined it for me. There was TOO much of it, literal word vomit of no consequence that added absolutely nothing to the storyline. Cut this all back and edit accordingly and you would have a wonderful start to what could be an epic series.

Often times I had no clue what I was reading because of the Old English or kind of peasant-like language. But overall this was an original story, which makes you shiver time and time again throughout the story because of the unbelievable horror.

I gave the book three stars because the language made it hard to read as a non-native speaker of the English language. I also thought the dialogues in her head were sometimes making it a bit confusing. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The book is about thriller writer Violet Thorn. She lives in Suffolk with her two servants and her leading character Ruby Gibson. Violet is living a quiet life until that quietness is being disturbed by a stranger asking for her help. The stranger claims her friend is being held captive in her own home by her newlywed husband, a well known doctor in the town Violet lives in. Violet is hesitant but will investigate the case. Then all of a sudden a woman is killed right in front of Violet’s house and things start to take a turn for the worse. Murders continue to happen and it’s up to Violet to solve this mystery, while hoping there won’t be too many gruesome happenings along the way.

I've loved other books by MRC Kasasian but this wasn't it for me. I just felt like all the characters were so unlikable and i didn't really care about them. The writing was a bit of a slog too and this didn't help with the character problem. I wish i loved it as it reminded me of previous works in places but it just didn't mirror what i expected from it. I would read more by MRC Kasasian but probably not in this series.