'Til Death Do Us Part by Amanda Quick
Published by Berkley on April 19th 2016
Genres: Historical
Pages: 352
Goodreads

“She belonged to him.”

FINAL DECISION: This book was good in many ways but didn’t live up to my expectations for an Amanda Quick book.  The mystery so central to the story was just meh and I found to romance good, but not one that I’d want to reread.

THE STORY: Calista Langley owns a Victorian matching agency where she introduces men and women looking for companionship.  A stalker begins sending her gifts that creep her out because they are mourning gifts personalized for her.  When Trent Hastings, author of a series of detective stories comes to her to complain about Calista involving his sister in her matching agency, the two strike sparks off one another and soon seem to be meeting all the time.  Calista seeks Trent’s help in discovering who is stalking her.

OPINION:  This book had the setup to be a really good story with Trent’s initial mistrust of Calista and a creepy mystery.  For me, however, everything about this story sort of petered out and by the end I was only mildly interested in the romance and the mystery.

I thought the conflict between Trent and Calista was resolved so quickly that it eliminated most of the tension between the characters and made their romance nice but not particularly compelling or memorable.

Instead, the story rested on the mystery of who was stalking Calista.  Unfortunately, that story was not good enough to rest the entirety of the book on.  I quickly figured out the villain and thus there was no surprise reveal in the book for me.  Because there was more emphasis in the book on the mystery than the romance, I needed a better, scarier, more compelling mystery.  This one did not engage me enough.

WORTH MENTIONING: I would classify this book as historical suspense with a dash of romance.

CONNECTED BOOKS:  ‘TIL DEATH DO US PART is a standalone.

STAR RATING: I give this book 3 stars.