The Secret of Pembrooke Park: Abigail Foster fears she will end up a spinster, especially as she has little dowry to improve her charms and the one man she thought might marry her–a longtime friend–has fallen for her younger, prettier sister.
When financial problems force her family to sell their London home, a strange solicitor arrives with an astounding offer: the use of a distant manor house abandoned for eighteen years. The Fosters journey to imposing Pembrooke Park and are startled to find it entombed as it was abruptly left: tea cups encrusted with dry tea, moth-eaten clothes in wardrobes, a doll’s house left mid-play . . .
The Secret of Pembrooke Park is Klassen’s best book to date! I couldn’t put this one down. With a love square – got that, square, not triangle – the romance factor is incredibly high. It’s the chivalrous, hold-the-door kind of romance, and today’s modern love-at-first-sight pales in comparison.
It has all the elements of the proper British life – servants below stairs, special wardrobes, and afternoon tea. You can live vicariously through Abigail as she experiences romance and tries to uncover Pembrooke Park’s secrets.
My favorite part of this book was Klassen’s writing style. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t figure out the secret – partly because there were more than one, but mostly because of how she trickled out the information, bit by tiny bit, always keeping the reader engaged and enthralled and craving more. It was a masterful and suspenseful way to keep the plot moving.
And that’s good, because this is Klassen’s longest book to date – but you wouldn’t know it. I devoured this story in about three sittings, eager to read and turn pages and find out what happened in Pembrooke Park.
If you like to read stories with mystery, intrigue, missing people, lost fortunes, formal estates, hidden treasures, secret messages, love, history, and scandal, The Secret of Pembrooke Park is definitely the book for you.
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
