By Kate A
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The Secrets of Gaslight Lane by M.R.C Kasasian is the fourth book in the Gower St. Detective series. It takes place in London in 1883. The book is about a young woman named March Middleton, who is the assistant to Sidney Grice, a private investigator that is also March's godfather. Mr. Grice became March's guardian after her father died at the beginning of the series, and she has been living with him ever since. March and Mr. Grice are asked by a woman named Charity Mortlock to solve the murder of her father, Nathan Mortlock, who owned a mansion on Gaslight Lane. While they are investigating this murder, the two detectives also uncover clues about the murder of the Garstang household that occurred in the same house about ten years earlier.
I read this book without reading the first three books in the series, so I might have enjoyed the book more if I had read them. Since I didn't read the first books, not every aspect of the story made sense to me, and the author didn't do a great job explaining what happened in the previous books. For example, it wasn't clear at first that March was living with her godfather because her dad passed away, but they briefly mentioned his death a few times throughout the book, so it gave me a basic idea of what happened. I definitely don't recommend reading this if you haven't read the books that came before it. However, I was able to gather enough information about the first part of the series to get a basic idea of what was going on.
I found the idea of the story interesting, but I thought the way the book was written made it a little boring. For example, during the middle of the book, very little would happen in each chapter, but near the end of the book, there were large amounts of information packed into just a couple pages. I would have enjoyed the book more if there was more stuff happening in the middle instead of everything happening in the last few chapters. This would have made the ending less confusing and the rest of the book more exciting.
Overall, I would rate this book 2.5 out of 5 stars. I found the story itself interesting, but some parts of the book were boring while others had too much information. There also wasn't much character development during this book. There may have been more over the course of the whole series, but in this book alone, the main characters didn't change much. I don't think this series is worth reading because although it's an interesting story, it got boring quickly, and I didn't enjoy reading it that much.
Overall, I would rate this book 2.5 out of 5 stars. I found the story itself interesting, but some parts of the book were boring while others had too much information. There also wasn't much character development during this book. There may have been more over the course of the whole series, but in this book alone, the main characters didn't change much. I don't think this series is worth reading because although it's an interesting story, it got boring quickly, and I didn't enjoy reading it that much.
Unlike a lot of other reviews, you mainly discussed here why you didn't like the book. I thought you did a really good job doing this, and specifically identifying what specific parts of how the book was written you didn't like. For example, instead of just saying that parts of the book were boring, you talked about how you didn't like that events happened quickly in some parts and over a long period in others. It does make sense that the book would have been more confusing if you read it without knowing the plot of earlier books in the series, but you also gave enough specific evidence to explain why it's not a great book overall.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your honesty with this book. A lot of people (like me) sugarcoat their reviews which makes it harder to tell whether a book is actually worth reading, but you were able to critique the book without calling it trash. I haven’t heard of this book, series, or author, but your rating would probably be higher if you read the first books before this one. I haven’t read many mysteries because I’ve found most of them to be really boring until the culprit is revealed, so The Secrets of Gaslight Lane probably isn’t a book I would be interested in reading.
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