This novel is a historical mystery featuring a fake psychic. I really loved Genevieve! I found her to be a really fun character! She was very independent, spunky, and clever! Therefore, I found her to be a very engaging heroine! I also loved the romance, and I thought it was well-developed! I loved how it was a slow-burn romance! The mystery itself was very compelling! It was filled with many twists and turns! I did not know who the killer was until the end! The only thing that I did not like about the book was that the beginning was very slow and was hard to engage myself in tel he novel. However, the middle picked up and led to a fantastic conclusion! Thus, A Dreadful Splendor is very haunting, atmospheric, and mysterious! I recommend this for fans of The Other Side of Midnight, Tiffany Blues, and The Widow of Pale Harbor!

It gives Peaky Blinders meeting Enola Holmes and every second was simply AMAZING. You can really tell that the main characters have sizzling chemistry and the adventure makes it even hotter. I would totally recommend this to all the historical romance lovings girlies!

A Dreadful Splendor by B. R. Myers Is a gothic Tale of secrets and blackmail that I wasn't able to really get into. The book started out very slow for me and while there were some compelling scenes. It didn't really keep my interest. Genevieve was a good character but I felt like she could have been fleshed out a bit more. She also kind of annoyed me. The love story was boring and All in all, I felt like this book was just a compilation of the less interesting parts of other Victorian mystery types.

This book reminded me a lot of Rebecca which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. This one was a lot of fun.

I loved this authors other story but this one was a rollercoaster of feelings. I felt like the pacing was off. It would speed up and slow down and was really just ok. I think that if you check this one out I would try it from the library first before spending your money. I really didn't care about the characters so that made the story hard to enjoy.

A Dreadful Splendor got me through a (dreadful) reading slump. This book was a delight-- very Miss Fisher by way of Enola Holmes with a smack of spookiness. I look forward to more books by this author!

A stunningly spooky whodunit! I loved every bit of this story and honestly never guessed who did it until the very end… such a shocker! Highly recommend this read!

🔮BOOK REVIEW🔮

A Dreadful Splendor by B.R. Meyers
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5


Genevieve Timmons got caught. The fake spiritualist swindled the wrong family and she finally got caught. But in a very lucky moment while being hauled in to jail, she meets a man who is in need of her services. He is the manager of the estate of one Lord Pemberton, who has been absolutely distressed since the passing of his fiancé, Audra. If Genevieve can pull of a seance that can put the Lord’s mind at ease, this man will fight for her freedom. Upon arrival to Somerset Park, and after meeting Lord Pemberton, she realizes that he is not the man he was made out to be. He is not a heartbroken man, but rather one out for the truth. He believes his fiancé was murdered and he intends to use Genevieve to find out the truth. In this spooky murder mystery, join this group in Somerset park and find out what truth lies in the walls of this cursed estate.

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I love love loved this book. I am here for all the spooky murder mysteries. This book was so unique to me. A period piece about a girl faking being able to communicate with ghosts, a curse on a wealthy family, and an investigation that will keep you on your toes until the very end. Once again, with my lost ability to predict what was going to happen, this ending got me. I was completely shocked. Didn’t see an inch of it coming and it was AWESOME! Go and check this one out and I’m sure you will NOT be disappointed.

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✨Thank you to @netgalley for the ARC!✨


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It doesn't get any more perfect than a Victorian Gothic novel this time of year! A Dreadful Splendor is mysterious and spooky with a dash of romance. After Genevieve a fake spiritualist is arrested for stealing from her clients she is taken to a country estate to perform a seance for a Lord grieving the tragic loss of his fiance.
I love gothic romances and this was well done. You get a little bit of everything out of this. Ghosts, murder, mystery and a slow burn romance.

I voluntarily read and reviewed a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Creepy and mysterious but still missing that little extra something that would make this novel a gothic suspense. Somerset Park is filled with secrets, lies, and legacies some people would die to protect.

A long build up to an ending that was dramatic and surprisingly sweet. A good fall read with lots of blankets & candles!

A Dreadful Splendor is a story about Jenny Timmons, a fake spiritualist living in 1800s London. She gets roped into preforming a fake séance at a spooky old mansion after the unexpected death of the heiress. I love a good gothic story and thought the spiritualism aspect would be fun!

I thought this book was fine. I got kind of bored about a quarter into the book and really struggled to keep reading. The setting was definitely fun and I liked how Jenny manipulated situations using spiritualistic techniques. I think it could have leaned a little more into the atmosphere of the setting because it was such a fun setup.

The characters weren't really memorable for me and I had a really hard time keeping the names straight. I kept confusing Mr. Pemberton and Mr. Lockhart and they were VERY different characters! I think this is just a me problem, though. I was kind of expecting the twist at the end but had a good time with it anyway.

Overall, I thought this book was fine and recommend it if you're really into the time period or want a book for spooky season. 2.75 stars rounded up to 3 from me. Thank you to William Morrow Paperbacks and NetGalley for the electronic advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Fans of historical fiction will definitely enjoy this! I really liked the hints of pride and prejudice too! I must say the cover of this book is so beautiful too. This book wasn't on my radar at first, but I am so glad I got a chance to read it.

"A Dreadful Splendor" is different take on the spiritualist novel. In this case, Myers tells us outright that the main character Genevieve Timmons is a fraud. In the Victorian world, there were relatively few ways for a single woman to survive, and Genevieve is doing what she does as a means to an end-making enough money to leave London and settle somewhere new, Coming into contact with the police is an unfortunate side effect of her occupation, and when she's arrested at a seance for attempting to steal some valuable jewelry from her client, Genevieve (or Jenny) believes she's doomed. A chance meeting with an elderly solicitor for a wealthy family gives her the opportunity for an escape by conducting a seance for the recently deceased Lady Audra in exchange for legal representation. Little does she know that nothing at Somerset Park is as it seems, with dark passages and even darker secrets to be revealed. A thoroughly enjoyable read, and one especially well suited for spooky season!

This was a really fun plot, good mystery, you could really sink your teeth into most of it. I mainly didn't understand why the main character, who comes off as a sly and experienced woman of the world, then suddenly became like a surly, immature teen. I thought it was a disservice to her character and that her age didn't really tally with all the things were meant to have happened to her—also the romantic lead being attracted to, you know, a child was a real turn off. I realize Jane Eyre was nineteen and Mr. Rochester 35 but like, it's 2022 now, we all know that's gross!

A little bit of gothic ambience, a little bit of romance, and a lot of twists and turns come together to create an altogether enjoyable read. Genevieve, a grifting spiritualist, is plucked from a jail cell and promised legal representation if she will conduct a séance to set the soul of a suicidal (murdered?) young bride to rest. Of course the crumbling country house features a tortured lord of the manor, a dissolute would-be heir, a disapproving housekeeper, and lots of things that go bump and scream in the night. A well-crafted "what happened" rather than a "whodunnit," that kept me guessing throughout. A very enjoyable read. I look forward to more from this author.

This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our list for order this year and will recommend it to students.

This was an absolutely delightful spooky, murder mystery. It’s set in one of my favorite settings, a gothic Victorian manor. There’s ghosts, seances, romance, and of course murder. If you are a fan of the game Clue you will love this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. OOOH I really enjoyed this book. Genevieve Timmons is a con-spiritualist who is trying to break free from the con life and start fresh somewhere. This works, until she's caught, arrested, and likely facing a hanging. A chance encounter leads to her a lucrative job opportunity that sounds simple...on the surface. Hold a séance that is persuasive enough to ease the broken heart of Mr. Pemberton, and he will win her freedom in court. This sounds easy, but expecting a heartsick, lost lover is not who she encounters. Instead, Mr. Pemberton is seemingly rough around the edges and certain that his fiancée was murdered. He insists that Genevieve will help him solve the murder...or else.
Myers crafts a *delightfully* Gothic murder mystery brimming with bumps in the night, chills, mysteries, twists and turns, and a well-done plot twist towards the end that had me devouring the pages to finish. I hope Myers writes many more like this!

~Thanks to Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of A Dreadful Splendor in exchange for an honest review. ~

Right out of the gate, love the atmosphere of this book, the author really reinforces the setting with the tone, word choice, characters’ clothing, locations, everything. Then, once we really are into the meat of the mystery, that entire atmosphere gets a creepy, unsettling feeling as the lines between real and paranormal start to blur. It’s infectious and well done. I can certainly see why this is blurbed as a gothic murder mystery.

I really enjoy Genevieve, from our initial introduction to her as a reluctant, fake spiritualist to the secrets we slowly uncover about her. She’s a gray main character you still route for. Once we finally learn of her background, oof, the emotion was definitely there and further reinforced by Genevieve’s predicament at the time.

As for the mystery, well, it started to pick up, but the pacing is still very slow overall. Once we finally start getting “answers,” I, unfortunately, was not surprised once. There was a single reveal that took me off guard, but it didn't play as big a role as I thought it would in the story. The seance, though, that whole scene and reveal did make my jaw drop, but I must admit, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. The twist was shocking, that’s for sure, but I can’t decide if it made sense, nor if it was handled well. There was a certain element I did still guess, however, which made the most shocking aspect even harder to swallow as plausible.

The romance is definitely slow-burn, but Gareth’s feelings about Genevieve seem to change really quickly. I like the banter between them, but I still would like more. I also just don’t think he has much depth, in comparison to Genevieve. Perhaps because we are seeing only from her perspective? In the end, they were cute, but really not the focus. I was gonna be mad salty if we didn’t see them kiss though.

Pacing, overall, is very slow. You push through a lot of character-building and background in the beginning of the book, but I did enjoy that. By the middle, you start getting into the juicer bits, but still, slow-moving until the final climax. The stakes were definitely there at the end and I’ll admit, I started turning pages faster.

I loved the vibe of this book. Gave Jane Austen meets Edgar Allen Poe. The characters were maddening in the most enjoyable way and the atmosphere was immersive.

I really enjoyed the journey and romance of Genevieve and Mr. Pemberton. I am a sucker for the grumpy/grumpy trope and they nailed this perfectly. The exploration of grief in this was also surprising but added a depth that made this gothic tale relatable.