Murder at Heatherstone Hall

Juliana Mysteries #2

by Kathryn Reiss

A summer job, dangerous secrets... and death Sixteen-year-old Juliana is excited to work for the English grandfather she never knew at Heatherstone Hall, his ancient manor house-turned-hotel-and-spa. But beneath its elegant veneer, Heatherstone Hall is a place with more than one terrible secret. Soon after Juliana's arrival, the hotel is shaken by murder, and everyone-guests, staff, and Juliana's own relatives-are suspects. Who among them is a killer? Juliana discovers, to her horror, that she might be the next target. As she and her boyfriend Duncan race to discover the truth before the murderer strikes again, a tale from the past merges with events of the present-with staggering consequences. In Murder at Heatherstone Hall, Kathryn Reiss leads readers into a maze of suspense and old-fashioned sleuthing-tinged with a hint of the supernatural. Praise for Blackthorn Winter, the first Juliana mystery "Atmospheric... Mystery fans and Anglophiles alike will appreciate this creepy tale with a genuinely surprising (and thrilling) conclusion." -The Bulletin "Mystery fans will enjoy this well-plotted story which [combines] budding romance, family problems and murder." -Kirkus Reviews A masterful storyteller in the realm of mystery and time travel for teens, Kathryn Reiss has twice been a finalist for the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Mystery.

Genres: Mystery

344 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2015

About the author

Kathryn Reiss was born in Massachusetts, grew up in Ohio, and received B.A. degrees in English and German from Duke University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. After college, she lived in Bonn, Germany as a Fulbright Scholar, and during this time wrote the first draft of her first novel, Time Windows.

Ms. Reiss is an award -winning author of 20 novels for kids and teens. She has been a Writer in Residence for the Princeton Arts Council, a recipient of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grant for Writers, and has been a featured speaker with (among others) Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, The Northern California Library Association, The International Reading Association, Fresno County Office of Education, California Reading Association, The American Library Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English. She lives in Northern California with her husband and the last of her seven children still in the nest. She is a Full Professor of English at Mills College at Northeastern University, and also teaches in the low -residency MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Reviews

[Donnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just the thing for slipping into a cozy, grand old house in the English countryside for an afternoon. Not only that, we also get a Kathryn Reiss mystery with an actual murder.

Our heroine is the engaging Juliana—with a new job to master, a “new” grandfather to get to know, a supportive boyfriend and, apparently, someone out to kill her. With Juliana’s clever deducing, the reader is led through the maze laid by a murderous mind. Goose bumps will tingle before you’re finished.

[Heidi · Rating 2 out of 5]

It makes me very sad to write this, because Kathryn Reiss used to be one of my favorite Y.A. writers (as an aspiring Y.A. writer, I read a lot of books in this category.) The combination of character development and mystery and history in "Dreadful Sorry" (still her most popular book, according to Goodreads) and "Paperquake" I thought was boffo, and a model for the kind of novel I wanted to write. But really, "Murder at Heatherstone Hall" was dreadful. First of all, it completely lacked the sense of movement and excitement from those other books; it is a 'cosy' taking place in one location, an old manor converted to a hotel, and the characters were so lacking in definition I had trouble keeping them apart, and couldn't bring myself to go back and figure out who they were. The main character doesn't have much personality, or any particular emotional problem that she grows out of in the course of the novel, and I guess the best term for the whole mess was "static." And I thought that if I heard one more time about folding towels and making tea -- the main character has a job working at said hotel, I would... well, you know.

This is so hard to write. I know what kind of exciting writing Kathryn Reiss is capable of (or used to be capable of; maybe she's been taken over by a dopelgangger.) Maybe all those years of writing American Girl books has taken a toll on her abilities or interests.

I wish the other Kathryn Reiss would come back, because she was a pip.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the first book about 13 years ago (circa 2008)— it was in my high school library, and over the course of 4 years I read every single fiction book in that library. Which is either a testament to how fucking bored I was in high school, or how pitiful a library it was. (I went to an all-girls Catholic school where we were in training to become nuns or mothers. Literacy wasn’t really a prerequisite. I had classmates who thought Sarah Palin was the president. My parents regret everything.)

Anyway, I had no idea there was a sequel, so that was a lovely surprise!

It's definitely inferior to the first-- prone to melodrama and cliches-- but that doesn't mean it wasn't plenty enjoyable. Not the most difficult mystery to puzzle out, but like the first book, its strong suit is its beautifully atmospheric energy. Absolutely must be read under the covers on a dark and stormy night.

[Mills College Library]

Fiction R378m 2015