Audiobook13 hours
The Blackstone Key
Written by Rose Melikan
Narrated by Jane Collingwood
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
1795, and a young woman travels from Cambridge to the Suffolk coast. Her name is Mary Finch, and she has been invited to meet her wealthy uncle - and so end a family estrangement that has held fast for more than twenty years. Smart, courageous and blessed with good looks if not good fortune, Mary is excited by the prospect of adventure, and the chance to escape a miserable future teaching at Mrs Bunbury's school for young ladies. But a whispered warning from a man dying on the road, who carries a strangely familiar watch bearing her uncle's initials, exposes her to a ruthless conspiracy that threatens not only her family's reputation, but her very life...
Author
Rose Melikan
Rose Melikan was born in Detroit, Michigan. Since 1993, she has been a Fellow of St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. Her academic research centers on 18th and early 19th British political and constitutional history. She lives in Cambridge, England with her husband.
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Reviews for The Blackstone Key
Rating: 3.41538472 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
65 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Mary Finch travels to her uncles and on the way she meets a dying man who warns her she is in danger and has her uncles watch. She is aided by the dashing Captian Holland and Paul Deprez who both seem to be after her attentions. This book starts really well, but then for most of the middle section of the book the story seems to lose it's sparkle. The last section of the book picks up again and all ends well. Mary is quite likeable and to me seemed like a Miss Marple type character but a younger version. Captian Holland is very dashing and has all the ladies swooning after him, and I think we haven't seen the last of Deprez. An ok read but could have been a lot better as I think the story lost the plot abit in the middle.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was a nice book with some unexpected twists and turns in the story. I liked the ending even though it might have been a bit predictable. I'm not going to activly search for the 'next' books in this serie, but if any of them would wander upon my path I wouldn't be averse to reading it!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While occasionally this story lagged a bit overall it had interesting echoes of Daphne Du Maurier and other writers like that. Our heroine, Mary Finch, leaves teaching to meet her estranged wealthy uncle and along the way finds herself nursing a dying man which leads to being embroiled in mystery and peril and a friendship which might lead to love.Written by a history scholar the details are well done and there is attention to the propriety of some of what Mary does, even if she does have a tendency to blunder in where angels might fear to thread!I enjoyed it, made me want to go back and re-read some Daphne Du Maurier, which I devoured when I was a teen.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great blend of mystery and historical events. Melikan is well versed in historical detail. Good romantic element as well. The hero is easy to like and Mary is an intriguing character. Leaves plenty of space and opportunity for the next installment of the series. (I think we will be seeing Deprez again.) The book really makes the reader think about how incredibly difficult it was to deal with the class structure of the time and how one was judged by lineage and wealth. I am trying to figure out why I gave it four and not five stars. There was something about it that is keeping me from giving it 5 but I can't put my finger on it.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Rose Melikan's 'The Blackstone Key' harkens back to women's novels of the mid-twentieth century - think Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart without the romance and suspense. Melikan's strong point is the background and historical accuracy, but her plot and characterization are not as well done. Her heroine Mary Fitch, a teacher in a ladies' academy, is traveling alone to visit an estranged uncle. Along the way she encounters the winsome British artillery officer, Captain Holland, and a murder victim, who seems to have a connection to her uncle Edward. Add to this a mysterious deserted house, White Ladies, smugglers, a sophisticated West Indian planter and his unsettling henchman, and a stereotypical comic chaperone, and we have a standard mid-1950's set up. It's not so much a question of what 'The Blackstone Key' does wrong, as what it fails to do right. It lacks that spark that makes the characters come alive; unfortunately I found it to be more ordinary and slow moving than sparkling or exciting. However, no one novel can possibly please all readers. So I suggest that a potential reader glance over the first chapter; that should give her a fair idea of the rest of the book. For me, it was a workman like novel that failed to hit the entertainment mark.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5‘The Blackstone Key’ is a 1790s-set spy/smuggler yarn with a pretty young girl as the heroine. Definitely not a bodice-ripper, but this is nevertheless a class of novel we have seen many times before. The heroine amazes all with her intelligence, insights and ability to see what everyone around her cannot, all the while worrying about her place in the world and what will become of her.The story rolls along and is well-plotted, keeping us guessing until the end (well, near the end, anyway). The characters are well drawn, if a little stereotypical (but I think that may be the point here – this is an adventure yarn, as the blurb says, in du Maurier style).Many Napoleonic and Victorian thrillers, when not set in battles, are placed in London. Although this book has a London-based denouement the majority of the action takes place in a country village and this is depicted quite nicely.Certainly sold as adult fiction, I think this will appeal more directly to older teenagers.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mary Finch, a schoolteacher, receives a letter from her uncle, inviting her to visit him. On her way there, she encounters a Mr. Tracey, injured from a carriage accident, lying in a ditch at the side of the road. In his possession is a watch belonging to Mary's uncle. Her arrival at her uncle's house leads to a mystery and adventure involving everything from smugglers to European politics. Along the way, Mary is assisted by Captain Holland, but she can't help finding herself attracted to Mr. Paul Deprez, a handsome gentleman from the West Indies. The author is a scholar of late-18th and early-19th century political history, and she does a wonderful job of explaining the politics of the period, without dumbing things down. The coded messages were an added plus to this well-crafted book. Where the author is less knowledgeable is in the area of social history; there were certain things that a few of the characters did that made me think, "that would never have happened back then" (I read quite a lot of history and historical fiction). The characters in and of themselves are well-drawn, though I thought the elderly Mrs. Tipton was a bit of a caricature (she's an elderly, eccentric termagent with a tongue sharper than a knife). Other than that, this is an entertaining, lighthearted, and fun read. The author doesn't make 1795 England into a trip to Disneyworld the way that Lauren Willig does in her Secret History of the Pink Carnation series. I'm looking forward to reading further books in Melikan's series. I'd love to find out what happens next.