How to Seal Your Own Fate
Kristen Perrin. Dutton, $28 (320p) ISBN 978-0-593-47404-4
Perrin’s atmospheric if overstuffed sequel to How to Solve Your Own Murder finds heiress Annie Adams settling into her new life as owner of the Gravesdown Estate near the English village of Castle Knoll. The grounds, along with a vast 17-bedroom country house, were left to Annie by her great-aunt Frances, who spent her life cataloging the transgressions of her friends and neighbors in a series of personal diaries. Past and present collide when Peony Lane—a local fortune teller who, back in 1965, predicted Frances’s murder—suddenly arrives at the estate. She tells Annie that she needs to investigate the life and death of Olivia Gravesdown, a member of the family that once owned Annie’s estate who died under suspicious circumstances many years earlier. A few hours later, Penny is found dead in Annie’s solarium, an ornate knife protruding from her back. Chapters following Annie’s investigation and detailing her complicated love life alternate with excerpts from Frances’s 1967 diaries, which illuminate Frances’s own romantic entanglements and touch on a horrific car accident that claimed the lives of three members of the Gravesdown family. Perrin mixes gothic and cozy tropes with a steady hand, and Annie is a suitably plucky heroine, but a few too many red herrings muck up the plot. Still, it’s an entertaining ride. Agent: Jenny Bent, Bent Agency. (Apr.)
Details
Reviewed on: 02/04/2025
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Hardcover - 978-1-5294-3010-3
Paperback - 480 pages - 979-8-217-06758-9
Paperback - 978-1-5294-3011-0
Paperback - 978-1-5294-3012-7