The Supper Club Murders is book #3 in the Smart Woman’s mystery series. Mother and daughter, Ursula and Pandora have been invited to a supper party at the castle of Lord and Lady Black. As the pair is joined by fellow book club members, Mirabelle and Bridget, they discover that they have been invited to a safari dinner, where they will travel around the village, dining with different people from town as they go. The more progress they make on the dinner, the more tensions begin to boil over between friends, family, and townspeople. Ursula and Pandora realize that the tension reached its boiling point when they discover the first of several dead bodies.
This book was a wild ride. I have not read any of the other books in this series, but they are on my TBR list now! The imagery alone left me wanting to actually visit the village and castle. I’m a sucker for any story that involves a castle in the first place, but then adding in so many nooks, crannies, and secrets, it was wonderful. The creepy atmosphere was enhanced with the strong use of description and personification. I enjoyed that all of the description and dialog had a very conversational tone because the reader hears everything from Ursula’s point of view.
Now that I have addressed how much I enjoyed the atmosphere, lets get to the important part, the mystery. I spent most of the book wondering when it was going to pick up and have something exciting happen. I’ll admit that I got a little bored reading about all of Ursula’s complaints and pettiness. However, any of my boredom was redeemed at the end. Everything that I thought was just filler, ended up being important. The complexity of the final outcome was very fun and well done. Every time I thought I had things figured out, I was wrong. Once I realized what had actually been happening, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I love when a good mystery sticks in my mind. The last quarter of the book flew by and left me with my mouth hanging open. The ending was moving and it left me wanting more.
The only parts of the book that I struggled a bit with was the characters. Ursula drove me nuts with her negativity. She seemed to hate everything and everyone. It was so bad that she barely expressed any positivity throughout the novel, taking away some of the roundness of her character. In her defense, she was in a horrible situation, walking around in the dark and in the rain with a whole cast of unlikable people, but one would think that she would at least find someone to think of kindly. Aunt Charlotte and Verity were the characters that I enjoyed the most. I was highly amused at Aunt Charlotte’s ignorance into any sort of references (I loved the Clue call out with all my heart). I will acknowledge that I may feel differently if I had read the other books in the series (I will update when I do). There were many references to things that had happened in previous books that I had a hard time understanding. I think I would have had an easier time understanding more of the supernatural elements if I had read the other books as well. Overall, I enjoyed how much they added to the atmosphere, but I didn’t always understand how they were adding to the plot.
As a last note, there were a few scenes, especially in the beginning couple chapters where I wasn’t sure who was talking. This problem sorted itself out as the book continues, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
3.5 stars, rounded up because of how much i enjoyed the ending
I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley and want to thank Joffe Books for the opportunity to read this book and find another interesting series.
The Novel Llama 