Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer Review

This is my first book, and first review, of 2021! Footsteps in the Dark was published originally in the 1930s and it is a mystery novel that takes place in the English countryside when a group of siblings, Celia, Peter, and Meredith, move into a rundown estate rumored to be haunted. Admittedly, this isn't really the sort of book I've been getting into lately, but it is similar to a lot of what I read in high school, so I was excited to revisit a more classic version of the mystery genre!

What I enjoyed about this book:

- The humor! There were moments of this book that actually made me laugh while I was reading, which I wasn't expecting.

- The historical setting. Heyer's imagery is wonderful, especially when describing the estate.

- The mystery itself was engaging. I enjoyed trying to guess the possible culprits, although the cast is pretty small and the mystery isn't very complicated. That being said, it was still a lot of fun following along with the cast of main characters and putting together the various clues.

- The overall tone. This is a pretty light novel and has a lot of the more cheesy elements of old mystery books, which I really appreciated!

Parts of this book that weren't for me:

- There is a romance subplot, but it feels very weak. It comes out of nowhere initially and never develops in any meaningful way.

- This is a very slow paced novel with a lot of moments of chatting between plot points. If you're looking for a historical slice of life, you'll probably enjoy those conversations, but for me they happened far too frequently.

- The characters. More than a few of the main characters felt like they blended together and were a little hard to distinguish from one another, except by just tracking their relationships with each other.

I ended up giving this book a 3 star rating because I did enjoy most of what I read, but the aspects I didn't enjoy were just too present for me to go up to 4 stars. While I loved the lighter tone and humor, as well as the mystery itself, reading through so much dialogue that didn't feel relevant to the plot or characters was just a little too grating. I think there are better historical mysteries out there, but if you're just looking for something light and fun, this book is a nice read.

TW: Murder, alcohol and drug abuse, mentions of suicide, hanging