What a thrilling page-turner! The foundation is laid immediately, the protagonist introducing her eclectic dysfunctional family history and their idyllic village life. Even before the inciting incident, the pace was relentless. Maybury keeps you on the hook and ratchets up the tension with almost no regards as to how she's going to resolve everything.

In my mind, this is what pulp fiction is. It's well-written and well enough plotted. I enjoyed how laughably wedged in and unnecessary the romance was. There were also some insightful snippets of the female perspective which I wasn't expecting but of course welcomed. If only Persephone Crime existed... No grey covers allowed though, bring back the illustrated painting covers.

Aside: the older I get, the more I find that the real fiction in books is often the impossible combination between the characters' jobs and their lifestyle. An English biographer being able to support a brood of children in foreign country on this single income? And then all these grown-up children open up an amateur mosaic-making studio that receives enough commissions to make a living? Oh books, never change. ( )