In The Solarium

3/5 ⭐ While this story started great and had some really great qualities, it, unfortunately, fell flat for me. I tend to avoid historical fiction and I had hoped that the murder mystery aspect would help. And I think it would have if it had actually been about the murders. But instead, they became almost an afterthought. I was drawn in by the attention to detail and well-developed prose but after a while, it was overwhelming and tedious. It felt like it took forever to get to the point and while some build-up is good, this was too much. This is definitely for someone, but not me. 6/7/22 *This review was previously posted on my Google Site.

  5/5 ⭐ I am not the biggest fan of historical fiction, but there was something about this one that just captivated me into reading it all in one day. Maybe it was the fact that the present-day scenes were more frequent than the flashbacks to the past. Maybe it was the museum and artifact talk that made my little nerd heart happy. I really can't put my finger on what it was. But I was left at the end of this with the biggest satisfied grin on my face. It opens with the scene that changes the life of one of our main characters, Margot, on the night of a party that went horribly wrong. And the friendship that bloomed between her and Josephine, a resistance fighter, in a prison cell during World War II. Back in the present time, Evie is tasked with preparing Josephine's possessions for showcase in an exhibit to honor her life and work as a popular mystery author. Exploring her past raises more questions than answers as Evie, her son, Hugo, and the museum curator Clement search for...

5/5 ⭐   As an avid Christie fan, I just knew I had to read this story. I was only a little nervous about disliking it because I am such a fan but oh boy did Marie Benedict deliver a fantastic take on a mystery never to be solved. Between the flashbacks of a happier time to the events that have baffled us for decades, I couldn't have imagined a better scenario to be played out. While I knew that this was just a take on the events of Agatha Christie's disappearance, it was so well written that at moments I forgot. Her description of the characters makes it feel so real and believable that if I only knew this to be the truth I would believe it. Benedict manages to recreate the early 1900s with ease. The dances were full of new young people, with the war that no one thought would come to be looming over them. Uptight, traditionalist mothers not afraid to share their opinions, English gardens filled with old trees and colorful flowers. And beyond that, the emotions and actions of th...