"The Inheritance of Lion Hall" by Corina Bomann is a captivating historical novel that sweeps readers into the world of turn-of-the-century Sweden, where tradition clashes with a young woman's desire for independence and self-discovery.

Agneta Lejongård, the strong-willed protagonist, is a breath of fresh air in the stifling aristocratic society of 1913 Sweden. Her journey to break free from her family's expectations and embrace a bohemian lifestyle, complete with art and suffragette activism, is both inspiring and empowering. When tragedy strikes, she returns to Lion Hall, her family's estate, and the clash of old and new ways of life creates a compelling backdrop for Agneta's struggles.

Corina Bomann's writing is evocative, transporting readers to a bygone era filled with vivid characters and lush descriptions. The story's exploration of duty, love, and the pursuit of one's true self is both moving and thought-provoking.

As Agneta navigates the challenges and unexpected twists in her life, readers are drawn into a tale of resilience and determination. "The Inheritance of Lion Hall" is a beautifully crafted novel that explores the complexities of family, tradition, and personal growth. It's a must-read for historical fiction enthusiasts who appreciate strong female characters and richly detailed settings.

I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book. I found this book incredibly interesting the author really kept me hooked until the end. very well written I highly recommend.

I’m judging the L.A. Times 2020 and 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got me to read on even though it was among 296 other books I’m charged to read.

A trilogy is an accomplishment for sure. I have to confess though, this genre is not my jam.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. Cover is very pretty. The story is more of a drama style type read.

I really wanted to like this one but it just fell flat for me... Agneta was pretty hard to like making her pretty hard to read about. For a historical fiction novel that seemingly has everything I'm looking for - romance, suffragettes, societal commentary, political upheaval - it just ended up not being my cup of tea plot/pacing wise. But I do imagine some folks would enjoy it as it wasn't a quality of writing issue!

When I first started reading, everything seemed a little stilted. The language was just a tad…off. I couldn’t figure out if it was the author, the writing style, or what. After some time into the book, I discovered it was translated from Swedish. One mystery solved!

This is the first book in a series about Lion Hall. The estate is located in southern Sweden in 1913, with the last vestiges of the aristocracy clawing to keep hold on their ways.

Agneta Lejongård has finally had it and cut ties with her family – mainly, her parents. She has returned to Stockholm as an art student. It was a feat she didn’t think possible, where in her classes she is the only female and is resented vehemently by her classmates as well as her professors. She is mid-twenties and bucks the patriarchy and aristocracy. She is a feminist, and fights for the right for women to vote alongside her friends. While she never wanted to be on the marriage mart, she is madly in love with Michael.

Her life has finally settled and is going along swell until a telegram arrives from her mother. She rushes off to Lion Hall, unsure what will meet her there with the scrap of information her mother put in the telegram.

Ultimately, she is now the heir. She has to make a decision to take control of the estate as the heir or return to her world of dreams in Stockholm. This isn’t the only decision that tears at her. Her brother died never knowing their father had died. She made a promise to him. She near hates her mother. Being constantly criticized. Feeling forced into a marriage. She does, indeed though, come to remember that she loves Lion Hall.

There are a series of events that happen at the estate involving various staff members in and out of the great house. Agneta treats them all unlike the rest of the aristocracy. They are people to her. She works to gain their trust and confidence, and takes an interest in some of their lives, at least those closer to her.

When their stable master can no longer fulfill the position to Agneta’s satisfaction (guys – SO much drama around that!), Max is then charged with the job as well as assisting her in managing the estate. He is a young man from Germany, a younger child like Agneta, but he will not inherit his family estate. Agneta plans to learn alongside him so that she can run the estate on her own.

There is instant connection – not insta love, but insta connection. They have what becomes a full-blown, no-bars hold affair in the small little cottage he has taken up residence in on the property. However, the silent snake in the grass is always there: she is aristocratic and he is not, lacking a title and estate. It is a plague to Agneta a few times, but is always a subject that Max will not discuss.

As their affair progressed, I was sure I could fairly well predict what would come next. Not quite! I think I was shocked when she learns of Max’s true identity.

With as strong-willed and modern as Agneta is, I was sure she would find some way forward that was acceptable and she could live with. Things played out in a typical aristocratic fashion, and I felt Agneta’s pain. I rooted for her at this stage in her life and I even hurt at how coldly she was treated. Despite the tone and vibes of the entire novel, it does have a HEA.

One of the things I couldn’t really get past was just how trusting and naive Agneta was. For a woman who has been living on her own in Stockholm for a while, entrenched in women’s rights, and a clear disdain for marriage, I feel like both of her first relationships in the book are merely lust that she’s fairytaled into love.

I did enjoy reading this twisty story. I was surprised but happy that Agneta’s relationship with her mother grows and the cold around their hearts melts. There were several who-dunn-it situations and other ordeals that Agenta chose to be a part of (all in the name of good!) that definitely add drama to the story.

I enjoyed reading this book. The characters, especially the female leads!

Sounds like there will be more books and I can't wait!

this was a really great historical novel, I enjoyed getting to know the main character and their world. The time period worked well and the book was really well done.

Agneta, is a modern woman of the 1910s, who wants to live independently of her parents and live a life of his chosen. However, circumstances arise that drive her back to her family home and the way of life that she was struggling so hard to get away from. A free-thinker and a suffragette, Agneta struggles to find her way, independently of the life her parents have chosen for her. This historical fiction had an interesting premise, but ultimately I couldn’t connect with any of the characters and the writing was a bit stilted and awkward at times. I definitely did not see some of the plot twists coming which is probably the reason why I continued reading it. I think this would be great for people who like the minute details of a person’s thought process and strained familial relationships.

Way too long, way too much drama, and is this a really bad translarion? I felt like it was.

Also, why was agneta such a b-word?

I wanted to like this book so much! But it felt so cumbersome and at many points I stopped to count how many pages I had. This was not for me,

2.75 stars
I wanted to give this 3 stars but couldn't because of my dislike for Agneta throughout most of the story. From her perspective, her mother is the cold one but I saw "like mother, like daughter" in a number of moments. Agneta is the younger child, raised knowing she wouldn't inherit the family estate and left to her own devices. No surprise she rebelled and left the family home. Nor is it a surprise that she has to return and help take care of things after the unfortunate event that claimed the lives of her father and brother. Of course she will make mistakes along the way due to her having not been groomed for the responsibility the role requires.

Several of her biggest mistakes are in mistaking lust for love and the outcome from each failed relationship came as no surprise. In fact this book carried few surprises and at times seemed a bit long with descriptions while Agneta worked things out. She is not a likeable person. I did appreciate her personal growth toward the end of the book but it felt more like a neat wrapping up of all the loose ends instead of true maturity. If things had happened a little earlier in the story so we could have seen more of her struggle and growth as a person, then it would have felt believable.

I usually like books by this author, but was disappointed this time. I found the story tedious and long. It bored me, but I kept reading since I was reviewing the book. At first i liked Agneta, but started to dislike her the further we got in the story. I am not going to continue the series.

This novel deals with interesting topics like female empowerment at a time when women's prospects were very limited. The main asset? the action is set in Sweden and that was another strong selling point to read it. So the whole English Downton Abbey vibe was counterbalanced by this original Swedish touch.
The writing style was fine, except that for some reason I never managed to get hooked enough to keep me interested throughout this really long book.

When I searched on Goodreads, I found out that this book is a translation book. I like historical fiction and I really want to also enjoy this but somehow, it felt flat for me. The cover is just gorgeous but nope, it's a 3 stars for me. It's so painfully slow and full of dramas and mysteries.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

The Inheritance of Lion Hall is the first instalment in The Inheritance series in which a splendid estate in southern Sweden becomes the scene of the events of the dizzying 20th century, starring several generations of the same aristocratic family. Stockholm, 1913. Since the last violent quarrel with her parents at Christmas, Agneta has ended all relations with her family of origin, giving up the noble title of Countess of Löwenhof and moving to a small apartment in the student district of the capital. At twenty-five, her dream is certainly not to marry a good match but to study to become a painter, fight for the right to vote with her feminist friends and, above all, live her passions freely, including that for Michael, an aspiring lawyer.

Until one morning a telegram from her brings her news destined to completely change the course of her life: her father and brother were involved in a fire, and her mother asks her to return immediately to Löwenhof. Unexpectedly, the green meadows, the imposing woods, the horse pens and the white manor house arouse a strange melancholy in her. She still does not know that the situation is much more serious than expected and that she will be faced with a choice: take the lead of the estate or continue to pursue her dreams of freedom. Agneta is torn by the doubt that the fire was arson and tormented by her mother who would like to see her married to an aristocrat.

She will find support only in Max, the young manager of the stables to whom she feels dangerously attracted. This is a compelling historical fiction novel about a member of the nobility who decides she would rather live her life her way than tow the family line and the subsequent challenges and rewards that brings. A desire for freedom (and true love) is a simple yet beautiful dream, and you can't help but admire Agneta’s strength of character and feel inspired by her outlook and actions. Even though it's not the sort of book I usually read I found it captivating and was pleasantly surprised by the twists and turns that hit unexpectedly through the narrative. I will certainly look out for the second in this epic historical saga.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This was a good piece of historical fiction. I liked the story, the characters, and the spirit the book evoked. However, I did not expect the book to be largely split into two parts, both of which had their own major plot line to resolve in addition to several others which connected both parts. The pacing of the story also could have been adjusted. After doing some more research, this book was translated into English after originally being released in German. I appreciate how the story captures a history that is not reliant on a war (though there is some mention of WWI). Overall, I think this would be a great book for someone who is looking for a slow-paced historical fiction based on a time and place of history that is often overlooked in American historical fiction;.

Thank you to the publisher and author for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of The Inheritance Of Lion Hall by Corina Bomann. Goodreads shows this one to be the first of a series, so I’ll be interested to see where the story could go from this book forward. I felt all the strings had been rather neatly tied up in the end, mostly. The characters were interesting if somewhat predicable. It was easy to draw parallels to Downton Abbey and other period pieces set around an old manor house and a titled landowner. It was saved being too similar to those others stories by having been uniquely set in Sweden around the First World War, rather than the typical locales of England or France. The writing was rich and enjoyable. An overall decent read.

The Inheritance of Lion Hall
I expected something more. Some old mystery, some dramas and beautiful story based in the Sweden aristocracy. But this... this was so disappointing.

At first, I really do not like Agneta. She’s so selfish, self centered and spoiled that I truly cannot understand any of her actions. From one hand, she’s a brave woman who decide to live on her own, on the second... Naive, avoiding responsibilities girl. There is expected more from the countess than being a silly girl.

Later on, the story is intriguing, but I found several Holes and mismatch in the plot what Drives me crazy. Seriously. This is a trilogy so I really assuming that every single detail matter in case of what happened next.

This book is not really my cup of tea. I have doubts if I ever buy the second part of this series. Probably not.

I wanted to love this book, but most of the time it felt really long and like large parts could have been removed. I really liked the characters though, so I kept reading. I'm not sure liking the characters is enough for me to suggest this book to friends.

It's a book that I kept putting down and reading other books and then picking up again after a quick read.