The Peacock Room | Anna Sayburn Lane | Review

Blurb

A literary obsession.

An angry young man with a gun.

And one woman trying to foil his deadly plan.

When Helen Oddfellow starts work as a lecturer in English literature, she’s hoping for a quiet life after the trauma and loss of her recent past. But trouble knows where to find her.

There’s something wrong with her new students. Their unhappiness seems to be linked to their flamboyant former tutor, Professor Petrarch Greenwood, who holds decadent parties in his beautiful Bloomsbury apartment.

When Helen is asked to take over his course on the Romantic poet William Blake, life and art start to show uncomfortable parallels. Disturbing poison pen letters lead down dark paths, until Helen is the only person standing between a lone gunman and a massacre.

As Helen knows only too well, even dead poets can be dangerous.

Review

The premise of this novel is unique & refreshing, a murder mystery set in the literary world. That tagline 'even dead poets can be dangerous' caught my attention.

All the settings & characters were drawn so vividly you could easily imagine being right there alongside them. 

I was kept guessing who the killer was until the end, I guessed to a certain point but the writing it so brilliant eventually you don't trust anyone, all the twists, turns, and misdirects kept me on my toes.

It missed out on 5⭐ because it took me a few chapters to really get into but it is certainly worth sticking with and I really enjoyed it in the end!

So much so, that I'm off to track down book one of the Helen Oddfellow series and I'm keeping my fingers-crossed book three is in the pipeline.

A huge thanks to Anne Cater & Anna Sayburn Lane for gifting me a copy in return for an open & honest review.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

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