Amazon.ca:Customer reviews: Through a Darkening Glass: A Novel

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 8, 2023

I enjoyed reading this book as it dived into WWII England"s Backcountry and remind me of those days when everything was simple and down to earth.. really recommend this book.

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canadianreader

Well-paced, well-written cozy mystery

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 1, 2023

A perfect read for a dark, dreary Fall evening leading up to All Hallows’ Eve!

I’m glad I took a chance on this WW2 historical fiction book because it was a unique blend of history, mystery and ghost hunting! It opens with an evacuation at Cambridge University due to unexploded ordnance and continues with Ruth’s retreat to the countryside in order to finish writing her book and provide a clean break. As more evacuees settle in fictitious Martynsborough, locals fear they have angered the ‘restless spirits’ but, for Ruth, it offers a distraction and she enlists the help of her neighbour to help investigate. She gets more than she bargained for!

So often with wartime historical fiction, the focus is on the battlefield or forces fighting against occupation. It was nice to have a homefront focus for a change. That being said, I didn’t feel the tension or suspense that I was expecting with a mystery. I would have eagerly traded the forbidden romance subplot for a nail-biting ghost appearance. Regardless, it was a well-paced, well-written cozy mystery highlighting buried secrets and offering a unique wartime fiction premise.

Congratulations on a terrific cover! This beautiful Atlas moth captured my attention and I had to know how it related to the title and the story… if you look closely, the peacock makes an appearance!

I was gifted this advance copy by Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

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Sophia Rose

WWII HomeFront Village With Secrets

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 23, 2023

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WWII Britain on the Homefront is an intriguing setting for what seemed an atmospheric mystery involving a ghost, secrets, and forbidden love. I was glad for the chance to pick up this historical mystery by a new to me author and was prepared for a few chills and thrills.

The prologue introduces a curious and enticing scene from 1910 that was filled with a palpable ambience. Next, the historical setting jumps to 1940 Cambridge where young Ruth Gladstone is studying literature, consternated by a situation involving an unwanted fiancé, and just a tad bit worried about the war going on when an unexploded bomb in her dormitory courtyard forces her to sleep on the couch of a grad assistant who isn’t thrilled at first and then Ruth seizes this opportunity to traipse to a little known northern village where her gran’s planning to stay with Aunt Vera.

Ruth is prepared to work on her big novel while hiding from Warren her fiancé, ahem, that is ruralizing and visiting with the great aunt she never knew about. But the village is teaming with mysteries and interesting situations from the white ghostly wraith, to odd thefts, a missing evacuee boy, an unsettling estate, and the traumatized wife of her neighbor who may or may not be all that she seems. Then there’s the too comfortable friendship and something more with Malcolm an injured war vet.

Through a Darkening Glass had me thinking it was one thing when it started with that creepy opening scene, but then settled into something else altogether. I had to get adjusted to not just a different tone and pace, but a different genre. I will take some of the blame when it comes to expecting a ghost story as the focus when it was more a historical fiction with interesting suspense plot threads. It’s the life of a small village and its secrets bought to the surface by a curious young woman as the catalyst. So, it was slow going and I struggled with the heroine. Ruth needed to grow a backbone and have a straight up conversation with her unwanted fiancé and she tended to leap to conclusions and get snoopy with her curiosity into other’s business in the manner of a pushy tabloid journalist. After the half-way mark, things picked up as Ruth and Malcolm’s sleuthing did start to bring out the answers to little mysteries and there was a growing cast of colorful side characters led by the intrepid and incorrigible geologist, Maude.

Many times the writing style kept the reader at a distance from the parts of the story that could have been dramatic or emotionally engaging by having things told by someone second hand or in a letter. So, there was a lot of potential spikes in this plot that went from vastly intriguing to moderately good.

I did end up invested in the outcome for all the players and was glad for the way things ended for several of the characters. There is romance in an unconventional way for that time period, but I think I would lead other readers to see this as more historical fiction since the romance isn’t the main focus- just one of them. Though I have mixed feelings about it and some of that because of my pre-read expectations, I do recommend it to historical fiction fans who like a bit of suspense at the heart of things. And, is there a wraith? I’ll let you wonder about that.

9 people found this helpful

The Passionate Writer

Almost, but not quite, hits the intriguing story mark

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 5, 2023

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This is an intriguing story, with many revelations dotted throughout, that maintains interest to the end even though it stumbles occasionally with lack of flow to the writing. It almost seems, at times, as though bits have been added after the story was written as there are pages which just seem to halt what would otherwise be a good narrative flow.

The author has clearly taken pains both to research the background to the story and fit in a good smattering of historical happenings. Even so, occasionally the conversational English sounds forced and false as well as colloquialisms which falter towards Americanisms. For example the use of 'purse' instead of handbag and, worst of all, the repeated reference to hair 'bangs' instead of 'fringe'. These really should have been edited correctly.

Get past these mild annoyances, however, and the story has charm, deals with peoples lives in a small village remote from the war, though they are still affected by it, and gives a good idea of what life was like under wartime and contemporary social restrictions during this period. I enjoyed it but felt that, under the control of a good editor, it could have been so much better.

6 people found this helpful

Matt Mansfield

Literary Mulligan Stew Served in Central England

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 23, 2023

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A pot with a little bit of everything thrown in seems to capture the essence of this literary offering. It’s got dashes of Daphne du Maurier dark gothic, hints of Edgar Allen Poe haunting, scoops of Rhys Bowen cozy mystery and splashes of contemporary spice.

But somehow you are not exactly sure what’s being dished up.

Set in the fictitious central England town of Martynsborough, near real Clitheroe, during the early years of World War II, RS Maxwell’s 2023 novel, “Through a Darkening Glass” initially follows young, would-be writer, Ruth Gladstone, escaping the Nazi bombing of London and an engagement to a soldier she has reservations about.

She is traveling with her grandmother, Edith, to stay with Vera, her grandmother’s sister, in Martynsborough where everyone local seems to know everybody else’s business and is suspicious about outsiders. And these reservations include strangers attracting unwanted spirits like a spectral young girl in white gown making random nightly visits.

Before long, Ruth is finding plenty of material for her first novel in the local haunts and uncovering disguised relationships. With her BFF, Maude, she does what she never saw herself doing before: hunting and shooting wildlife for suppertime during her hours when she is not tediously copying lines from reports as part of the government wartime bureaucracy.

Oh, and forming an adventuresome relationship with a man of interest, injured Malcolm, who is married to his disturbed, dazed wife, Edith. Sort of like Rochester from “Jane Eyre”. There’s the Bronte-like forbidding estate mansion with an intimidating guard and steamy conservatory protecting mysterious shapes that would have tantalized Raymond Chandler.

Malcolm sums about halfway through this tale: “We’ve got a dead girl in a pond. A strange manor house and a conservatory that everyone seem scared of, a male steward who sounds like something from a gothic horror novel, some frightened villagers, and a restless ghost wandering the flax field.” It’s complicated.

As Ellen, the local barkeep, says to Ruth, “Here in the country, things can get strange very quickly.” Without spilling the beans, it does not fail to get peculiar…possibly to the point where you may want to skim to avoid getting confused by one anticlimax after another.

The title of this tale, perhaps inspired by the protective blackout curtains required during the war, also happens to be the same for Ruth’s first novel. And it seems to borrow heavily from the Bible’s 1 Corinthians 13: “For now we see through a glass darkly…” Hmmm.

I still am unsure how to describe this novel.

(Here are links to my Amazon posted reviews of various Rhys Bowen’s stories:

2018 “What Child is This”: https://www.amazon.com/review/RB5F61B0OTY6L/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8

2019 “The Victory Garden”: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1GS79MM4HO00O/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8

2019 “Love and Death among the Cheetahs”: https://www.amazon.com/review/RUVT49GLYBZVR/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8)

5 people found this helpful

Marie

Great story, rushed ending

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 21, 2023

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This book was a little different than the
'usual formula' so I enjoyed that very much. However, the author seemed in a rush to tie up some of the storylines, some parts read as if someone is telling them as quickly as they can speak.

Katy

Great story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 4, 2023

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Whilst I agree with other reviews about the Americanisms, I don’t feel it detracted from what a good story this was. Loved reading a mystery set in two parts of the country I know well and it kept me hooked right until the end.

k

good story but some inacuarcies in the language

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 30, 2022

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Good story, not quiet finished yet, but mystery of the lady in white is good ,and I'm looking forward to finishing. Minor issues are that war time country people keep referring to a shotgun as a rifle, which just would not happen and a price of tuppence is written as 2p. It was part of a spoken sentence so should be written as tuppence which is how it would have been said.

One person found this helpful

Cicero

Excellent tale only spoilt by the use of Amercan English and language not from the time of the tale.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 25, 2023

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I throughly enjoyed this tale, or should that be tales? I have given it four stars as the use of American English, and vernacular not of the 1940s, slightly disrupts the narrative flow.

2 people found this helpful

B.D. Harpold

A small village becomes a destination for evacuees during WWII

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 5, 2022

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Through a Darkening Glass
R.S. Maxwell

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09NNHN5LY
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lake Union (January 1, 2023)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 1, 2023

Through a Darkening Glass by R.S. Maxwell has a lot of genre listings: Historical Fiction, Gothic, Fiction, Historical, Paranormal, Mystery, Adult and I am trying to decide which of these is foremost throughout the novel.

I agree that this is an excellent WWII setting and it reads like I am the main character experiencing the small remote village and its inhabitants from a POV aspect. So that covers the Historical Fiction, Fiction and Historical tags. Gothic? Yeah, I’ll agree to that one too, kinda.

Paranormal, Mystery and Adult will probably be the main draws to this novel. While there is some “ghostly/paranormal” sightings, I didn’t experience any real fear or terror from either the main character, Ruth, or any of the townsfolk. Mystery slips in when nobody really commits to seeing or knowing anything about the wraith sightings. It’s like the entire town is wrapped up in a tangled mess of secrets and lies.

The one exception is the man who said he saw a body floating in the lime pit and that he sees a wraith floating over the fields... they locked him up in a mental hospital. The facticity of what he saw is not really at issue; it's whether something so threatening to certain individuals should ever be made public. Obviously not.

Secrets and Lies: which comes first? I’ll go with the secrets, and this town has plenty of them. Covering up a secret? Well, that’s going to take a lie, or two, or three. The hard part is remembering which lie you’ve told, and to who, and did they believe you. Eventually they, and we, are all confronted with the TRUTH.

Now on to Adult. We have a couple barely brushing lips in a kiss with some roving hands that don’t really go too far, and then there’s the awwww GASP, the L word. Actually, I don’t think the L word gets used. It’s the use of suggestion and conversation that carries the LGBQT tag, which supposedly makes this a novel for adults. I disagree. Mature sixteen year olds and up gets my vote.

Speaking of votes, I give this 3 stars. Which from me means: Okay, enjoyable enough, plot/writing needed more. Would I read it again? No.

That may sound harsh, but I found the book to be terribly slow for the first 50% and the last half didn’t live up to the hype. Overall, I felt let down. Places where there should have been a buildup of suspense, emotions, and confessions all get passed over with a “The next day…” page and life goes on. Huh? Did I miss something? Yeah, I did.

This was a free ARC and I am giving this review voluntarily.

45 people found this helpful

5 star		41%
4 star		35%
3 star		18%
2 star		4%
1 star		2%

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