Death in the Castle is one of those books I was aware of, wanted to read, and yet never got around to it. I jumped at the chance to read it when Open Road published this edition, but once again I let it grow dusty. For that, I must apologize. Because Death in the Castle is a delightful little book. In no way as serious as Buck's other works, it is the kind of book I that feels like a sunny afternoon. Thanks to Open Road Integrated Media and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My sincere apologies for the severely delayed review.

Death in the Castle is a very light book and yet one theme it ponders on is rather heavy. This is one of those books that evokes the end of an era, specifically the end of landed gentry and nobility in the UK. Castles are immensely expensive. We all know this, but I saw it myself when I went on a castle tour in Scotland in 2016. None of these castles can be upkept properly. They are too vast, with too many rooms and too much history, for any one family to look after. Even England's National Trust isn't able to support all the different historic landmarks and buildings that populate the English countryside. Death in the Castle takes place in one of these crumbling castles, but it also shows the crumbling of this "upper class". Sir Richard is still responsible for the people on his lands, they depend on him for new roofs, plumbing, money, food, survival, everything. While it is a responsibility he technically takes seriously, it is also one he feels entitled to. It is a fascinating, if, again, mildly humorous, insight into the mind of a man who considers himself superior to the point he loses touch with what is real and normal. England is a modern country, but I would argue it still has quite some people wandering around whose mindset relies on this kind of feudal reality in which an elite takes care of the working people. Seeing an American author dissect it so clearly and use it for entertainment was, honestly, kind of funny.

Sir Richard and Lady Mary are the owners of an aging castle. With no children, there is no heir for the castle and its vast estates and so they stand before a choice. Sell it to the government and have it turned into a prison or raised for an atomic plant, or, perhaps, sell it to an adventurous American who plans to take it with him to America. (I've got a bridge to sell him...) Supporting them are Wells, an old butler, and his grand-daughter Kate, who is somewhere between an adopted daughter and maid. As negotiations over the future of the castle take place it becomes clear that neither Sir Richard nor Lady Mary are entirely in touch with reality. Kate is most definitely the protagonist of the novel, in that it is her fate, her life, that the reader will care most about. She is a delight, but she is also a damsel. John, our American interloper, is the perfect potential knight in shining armour, but he has his own baggage. This is very much a light novel, despite some of its more Gothic-leaning scenes. It's Gothic-light!

Pearl S. Buck is a Nobel-prize winner, but Death in the Castle is not a capital-l Literary effort. It is a fun book, well-written, with characters who know exactly what kind of book they're in. To a certain extent all the characters are caricatures, the Nobleman, the Spiritual Wife, the Mysterious Young Woman, the Old Retainer, the Exciting Newcomer, etc. Each of these is recognisable and is a staple for anything Gothic-related. And Death in the Castle definitely plays with elements of the Gothic genre, setting up jaunts into the damp dungeons or hinting at unseen spirits and hidden rooms. But at its heart, Death in the Castle is a jaunt through a mildly dark forest with a sunny valley within sight. And it is perfect for that. This novel doesn't pretend to be something it isn't. It moves with ease between banter over dinner, lovelorn glances, and haunting appearances at midnight, and all of it is enjoyable. Whether I should have picked this as my introduction to Pearl S. Buck, I don't know, but I did have a delightful two hours reading this. I did very much enjoy the added bibliography and photos of Buck's life which elevated the Open Road Integrated Media edition for me!

Death in the Castle is a delightful romp of a tale. It is full of sunshine, dark dungeons, attractive Americans, and decaying nobility.

This is the first book that I've read by Pearl Buck but since she wrote so long ago it might be my last. I had high expectations from the title. The characters fell a little flat for me but I did enjoy the setting.

This is obviously a work of the very skilled writer (I admire Pearl S. Buck), but the novel itself is not a great piece. I have had mixed feelings when reading it - the talent is undeniable, but the story is dated, not taken and expressed well and the certain pathos present is not the love for the subject, really.
The story in a nutshell is a case of "out with the old, in with the new" - but both the old and the new are seen through an opinion-coloured glass - maybe a part of it might be because the authoress herself was a part of the "new" - an American. Who surely is a lover of the "old" (given her strong connection to the rapidly changing China of her lifetime), but not a part of it, not British. So she had a pathetic, skewed, influenced-by-memories love for the "old", but her hopes and energies strongly identified with the "new". Wrong on both sides, in my opinion.

But the talent of Ms Buck is undeniable even here. Her descriptions of the characters is vivid and well-portrayed, her feeling of the place is strong and she can make you being connected with her story - as she made me. I discuss this work fiercely, but this simply means that I care (and I really do not care about many of today's proclaimed "masterpieces", which are blabberings in a gold cover, honestly.).

Thank you Pearl S. Buck and Open Road Integrated Media for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Sir Richard and Lady Mary need to sell the thousand year old castle which has been in the family for hundreds of years. Sir Richard has no heir to pass the castle on to, and if he doesn't sell the English government will turn it into a prison or a powerplant. John Blayne, an American, wishes to buy the castle, but he wants to take the castle apart piece by piece and bring it to America and make it into a museum. Sir Richard does not know this and this becomes a source of conflict.

Oh boy, I love some historical fiction, and I LOVE a mystery. Especially together. But unfortunately this one just left me needing more.

This was surprisingly enjoyable! Having only previously known Pearl Buck from The Good Earth and her association with China, I wouldn’t have expected her to write what feels like a quintessentially English novel, a tale of an elderly and increasingly impoverished couple, Sir Richard Sedgely and his wife Mary who are struggling to maintain their ancient ancestral castle. Along comes a rich American who wants to dismantle it and take it back to the United States with him. This solution doesn’t go down too well with Sir Richard, as can be imagined. What follows takes a rather gothic and frankly unlikely turn but it’s all good fun and a charming light read, but certainly not one to be taken too seriously.

Feels like an "easy reader" mystery; stock characters with precious little interesting action or dialogue and a large heaping of class chafing. This was a real slog for me and I had to huff and puff through the final third. A hard pass.

Death in the Castle, by Pearl S. Buck

Sir Richard and Lady Mary find themselves in a difficult situation: the big castle they leave in, together with its fields, is too expensive to be maintained and they need to sell it. Their options are few: a prison or a power plant, but they do not like any of them.

This is when Mr. Blayne appears; he is a potential buyer for the castle, but under a strange condition: he wants to take the Castle to Connecticut – rebuild it there and make a museum out of it. Sir Richard and Lady Mary change their minds every 3 paragraphs, and Kate, the butler’s daughter, is absolutely against this sale.

I had read 85% of this book and the first murder had not yet been committed. This was the first thing that disappointed me. I should also mention that the book is shallow. In many times you believe the story will have a deeper turn, but it hasn’t. Everything is too cliché, and I really did not like it, with all due respect to the Nobel-winning author.

This book should definitely NOT be in the thriller/mystery section, as it is an almost-romance one.

Unfortunately I do not recommend it.


Denise

While Pearl S. Buck is most famous for The Good Earth, a Pulitzer prize winning novel that most American students read in school, she also published other novels, most that are comparable in writing quality. Death in the Castle is a delightful mystery that tells the story of Sir Richard Sedgeley and Lady Mary, who live in the castle, but are so impoverished that they have put it up for sale. However, since the castle has been in their family for centuries, they just can’t let it be sold so it can be turned into a state-run prison or moved to America to become a museum. When a wealthy American comes to look at the castle with the intent to purchase it, Wells, the butler and his daughter, Kate deal with him; Sir Richard is in denial and cannot accept the fact that the American wants to move it brick-by-brick to America. Lady Mary sees ghosts, and believes they will tell her where treasure is hidden in the castle, and Sir Richard is possibly not right in the head. All of this comes together in a very suspenseful mystery with surprising results.

It goes without saying that Buck’s writing is excellent; few authors are so good that they receive numerous awards (Buck not only received a Pulitzer, but also a William Dean Howells Medal; she was also the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for literature). It is very different, however, from some of her other novels. She is a master in her portrayal of characters; they are very unique, yet believable. The book seems to be fairly lighthearted, and is a fast read, but the actual death in the castle is not what most readers assume – a dead body and a need to find the murderer - and the ending is not at all expected.

Highly recommended, Death in the Castle is a delightful, well-written suspense/thriller and will be enjoyed by readers of all ages.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

This was not one of my favorites, I think that might have something to do with how long ago it was written, I'm just used to faster paced books than was previously the norm. The characters didn't seem very developed, nothing was jumping off the page for me

The problem with this book is the author can't make up her mind about what kind of story she wants to tell. She was inspired by an English castle, as were many others. She tries her hand alternately at the common plots. At first it's a Gothic ghost story, then it turns to a manor house mystery. Before things go very far in that direction, a bunch of comic characters show up, in the form of an eccentric American millionaire, his Greek chorus of crew-cut American engineers and assorted P. G. Wodehouse flavored lawyers and villagers. People run around pointlessly and mislead each other, which is fine for a comedy, but the book is not funny. Next the book gets more serious and threatens to become a comedy of manners, before veering off into a juvenile and unsatisfying romance. Finally, the book finds its footing (but far too late) as a story of noir corruption, ancient sins and violence, contrasting English social repression with American ruthlessness about the past.

Taken a few pages at a time, the book is well-written, with signature Pearl S. Buck style and charm. The characters, even the comic stereotypes, are drawn incisively and memorably. If these virtues were hung on a hackneyed by consistent plot, this could have been a fine example of any of the types above. But without any consistency to the story, it's just a mess.

I received this ARC from netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

Sir Richard and Lady Mary need to sell the thousand year old castle which has been in the family for hundreds of years. John Blayne, an American, wishes to buy the castle, but he wants to take the castle apart piece by piece and bring it to Connecticut and make it into a museum.

Lady Mary and Kate, the butlers granddaughter, are trying to communicate with the ghosts in the castle, they need to say where the treasure is hidden, then they won't have to sell the castle.

Originally published in 1956. Clean language and appropriate for younger teens, a sweet ghost story.

3☆

I loved The Good Earth, so I was looking forward to this book. Unfortunately I did not like it one bit and had to DNF it.

I have read other Pearl Buck novels and always found them engrossing from the first chapter. This one is no exception!

I'm not entirely convinced, it is partly a ghost story, partly a mystery story. But somehow it seems to be missing some tension,some thrilling anticipation.....

I've always associated Pearl Buck with stories set in China so this was a nice turn up for the books.
An ancient castle, a very English old couple, a butler and jack of all trades and his daughter Kate loyal stalwarts and the brash American who wants to buy the castle and transfer it (naturally) to Connecticut! His reasoning is that there are more people there who will appreciate the paintings he intends to hang in the castle converted to a museum.

You knew you were going in blind in this one. Very early on there are lots of fantasies being played out, especially with the older couple who seem to live in years gone by in the actual times of Kings and the part that the family played in whatever role they did. The fact that they thought the sale was a straight forward one with the castle merely changing hands not changing places was an added twist to the story.

The novel was not a mystery thriller for me in the real sense but it did make for interesting historical fiction. The characters were a little too defined for me, with Kate the maid not acting or speaking like a maid at all. However the interest in the story was the castle, its history, its future and the bit of romance that was evolving as we went along.

Goodreads and Amazon review up on 19/1/2017. Review on my blog mid May

I struggled so much when reading this novel. I could not get past the immature writing style that seemed so at odds with the story and its setting. I couldn't take it seriously at all. The characters are not well developed at all; the novel just jumps straight into dialogue, and I found myself rereading quite a few pages to understand what exactly was going on. I also didn't really feel the historical vibe; in fact, there were aspects where it was quite "modern". While the writing jumped in terms of conversation material, the plot itself moved at a very slow pace. At the end of the day, it took a great deal of effort to concentrate and finish this novel, and it wasn't worth all of that for me.

Sir Richard Sedgeley and Lady Mary have lived in Starborough Castle for many decades. Yet, no heir has ever arrived and the couple has problems of maintaining the castle. They even have to admit tourists to the old building to get along. An American investor seems to be the solution; he wants to buy the castle to transform it into a museum. However, only when John Blayne arrives do they understand that his plan is to dismantle everything to transport it to Connecticut. Kate Wells, the maid, is strongly against it and begs her master to think it all over. Lady Mary quickly brings forward that this idea must be strongly against their will, leaving it to John Blayne to understand who “they” are. In the night, strange things happen at the castle and the next morning, people are not the same anymore.

Pearl S. Buck is mainly known for her novels set in China which also awarded her the Nobel prize for literature in 1938. This novel here, however, is quite different form the writings you’d expect from such a laureate. “Death in the Castle” is much more in the tradition of classic ghost stories of the 19th century. It provides all the ingredients necessary: an old spooky castle, an elderly couple, a young woman open for paranatural doings, the butler who seems to hide something and the outsiders who come to spend a night in the old walls. We have some peculiar and inexplicable things happening in the small hours giving the characters the creeps.

Despite all this, I did not really find the story that thrilling. Most of it seems to be too much of a construction to flow smoothly. The characters are too flat to really raise any interest and there is not development at all. Even the love story between Kate and John Blayne is not convincing, he is immediately attracted by her, but she seems to be either stupid or too distracted to really understand what is happening. All in all, most of the novel is oversubscribed to my taste and thus too stereotypical, especially for an author of Pearl S. Buck’s reputation.

The plot is about a castle about to be sold for transport to the US and the hope that some hidden treasure can be found.
I started reading this book unaware that the author was a Nobel prize winner, and that was probably for the best because I judged it on the writing alone.
I honestly thought - this must be written by an American teenager who knows nothing about British aristocrats. There’s a sub-plot about the butler’s orphaned granddaughter lording it around the house that was cringe worthy. The writing was silly, with a Mills and Boon type romance with too much put on tension.
Buck was an American and wrote The Good Earth (1931) which about her insights into the civil unrest in China. It was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and William Dean Howells Medal. So, I guess it’s true what they say – write about what you know.