Review of Hattie Vavaseur
Posted: 29 Aug 2022, 19:08
[Following is a volunteer review of "Hattie Vavaseur" by M. Rebecca Wildsmith.]
If the movies Ghost and The Sixth Sense had a love child that was born and raised in a 1920s cozy mystery with a side of romance, that child would be Hattie Vavaseur by M. Rebecca Wildsmith. In this fun and intriguing supernatural mystery, Hattie is an elderly, prim and proper British woman who winds up at an old mansion full of mysteries that she needs to solve in order to piece together her own forgotten past. With the assistance of a bubbly and melodramatic clairvoyant, Hattie also gets roped into finding the murderer of an American salesman who has no idea how he was poisoned, nor by whom.
There are so many positive points about this book. I’ll begin with the characters, inside and outside of the lavish estate which Hattie has taken residence. Each person has his or her own unique personality that is expressed in a terrific way. Not all of them are likeable people, but they all bring out strong emotions in one way or another, which is exactly what a story is supposed to accomplish. The book is also packed full of exciting plot twists and turns. There were several, “Whoa, I definitely did not see that coming” parts, along with plenty of funny, heartfelt, and angering moments. The descriptions of the characters and the surroundings were vivid enough to easily imagine the entire setting, without being overdone. There is also just enough romance thrown in to sweeten the plot a bit more.
I honestly have no real negative aspects to relay. The only thing I found even mildly annoying was Hattie’s brashness towards other people, but even that eased up more and more as the story unfolded. Some may feel that it starts off a bit slow or draggy, but I can assure that it picks up early on and just keeps getting more thrilling as it goes along.
I am sure this book was professionally edited, as I didn’t find a single error. The only issue was that there were single italicized letters randomly placed within some of the words. But I’m sure that was some kind of formatting glitch, likely when converted to the PDF file. There was no reason to think it was done as typos.
I have rated this book with an astounding 4 out of 4 stars. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it from beginning to end. I would highly recommend it to any fan of cozy, paranormal mysteries, especially set in the early 19h century. Another note is that there is absolutely no profanity or sexual content, so readers who take offense to that have nothing to worry about.
******
Hattie Vavaseur
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
If the movies Ghost and The Sixth Sense had a love child that was born and raised in a 1920s cozy mystery with a side of romance, that child would be Hattie Vavaseur by M. Rebecca Wildsmith. In this fun and intriguing supernatural mystery, Hattie is an elderly, prim and proper British woman who winds up at an old mansion full of mysteries that she needs to solve in order to piece together her own forgotten past. With the assistance of a bubbly and melodramatic clairvoyant, Hattie also gets roped into finding the murderer of an American salesman who has no idea how he was poisoned, nor by whom.
There are so many positive points about this book. I’ll begin with the characters, inside and outside of the lavish estate which Hattie has taken residence. Each person has his or her own unique personality that is expressed in a terrific way. Not all of them are likeable people, but they all bring out strong emotions in one way or another, which is exactly what a story is supposed to accomplish. The book is also packed full of exciting plot twists and turns. There were several, “Whoa, I definitely did not see that coming” parts, along with plenty of funny, heartfelt, and angering moments. The descriptions of the characters and the surroundings were vivid enough to easily imagine the entire setting, without being overdone. There is also just enough romance thrown in to sweeten the plot a bit more.
I honestly have no real negative aspects to relay. The only thing I found even mildly annoying was Hattie’s brashness towards other people, but even that eased up more and more as the story unfolded. Some may feel that it starts off a bit slow or draggy, but I can assure that it picks up early on and just keeps getting more thrilling as it goes along.
I am sure this book was professionally edited, as I didn’t find a single error. The only issue was that there were single italicized letters randomly placed within some of the words. But I’m sure that was some kind of formatting glitch, likely when converted to the PDF file. There was no reason to think it was done as typos.
I have rated this book with an astounding 4 out of 4 stars. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it from beginning to end. I would highly recommend it to any fan of cozy, paranormal mysteries, especially set in the early 19h century. Another note is that there is absolutely no profanity or sexual content, so readers who take offense to that have nothing to worry about.
******
Hattie Vavaseur
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes