4.5 rounded up

Honestly there are a few things in this that bothered me/that I liked less, but so much more that I genuinely loved, and I just had SUCH a good time listening to it (the audiobook is really good imo) that I just have to give it all the stars I think.

It was genuinely refreshing to have “old-maids” (early 40s) as characters in this historical setting. The book had me on the edge of my seat at several points. There are 3 main cases/adventures in the story, and on top of that the book deals with other threads like Julia’s breast cancer (another refreshing plot point for a book set in that time period), Augusta’s love story, her atheism, their research into an old mystery, Augusta’s family conflict with their brother—and I think the author juggles those quite nicely, though most of them are left opened for the sequels. Augusta is a fun narrator, and she is extremely progressive—perhaps too much in the sense that her politics and therefore the politics of the book are very modern, both in language and in approach. Not that there weren’t progressive people at the time but it would not have appeared in the same way. I don’t much care about historical accuracy in these kinds of books so it didn’t bother much, but I wish she wouldn’t have had ALL the right opinions. Some things were also tied up a little bit too neatly, and the love story was too insta-love for my taste (but still fun), and some other little things I wish had been different but overall I just really enjoyed myself and appreciated the unusual heroines, their bond with each other (and their friends/staff), the darker aspects of their cases (abusive husbands, child sex slavery, abusive mental institutions), and how mostly fast-paced and entertaining it all was.

I really don’t like that book cover though, and I don’t think it does it justice.