Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC this debut novel. A perfect read for spooky season!! *I absolutely loved the vibe and atmosphere of this book. Will definitely recommend this patrons looking for a good spooky read.

The Curse of Penryth Hall is an enthralling read. Ruby, the protagonist, is a captivating character, embodying a unique blend of world-weariness and recklessness. Armstrong skillfully weaves a brooding and captivating mystery around Ruby, ensuring that readers will be compelled to turn the pages. This novel is a must-read for fans of suspense with a Gothic flavor, as it promises to be devoured with great enthusiasm.

I enjoyed a lot of this book, but reading it is a bumpy and uneven experience. Revelations about characters often come in out of absolutely nowhere, as though they're something the reader already should know but definitely hasn't encountered before. This makes it hard to string the mystery together, and it feels pretty unsatisfying.

An unconventional young woman confronts a ruined friendship, a brutal killing, and the superstitions of a small Cornish town.

It’s 1922, the Great War is over but not forgotten, and Ruby Vaughn is living life on her terms. She has lots of family money (though no longer a family), endured a scandal in her youth that resulted in being packed off to England, and now helps Mr. Owen, an elderly Scotsman, run a bookshop in Exeter. She lets a room from him, where when she isn’t running about the country delivering books to his customers she host salons and parties which seem inevitably to get more out of hand as the night progresses. After just such a desolate evening, which caused the latest housekeeper to quit in horror at the revelries, Mr. Owen asks Ruby to run a trunk of books to a small village in Cornwall, The only problem is that is the one place in the world to which Ruby has sworn she would never return…the place where Tamsyn, the one person left in the world whom she truly loved ,married another. Now Lady Chenowyth, Tamsyn married a baronet whom she didn’t love and lives at Penryth Hall, a gloomy old pile, and Ruby hasn’t seen, written to or spoken to Tamsyn since the wedding several years ago. Ruby isn’t given a choice, and she sets off reluctantly for Lothlel Green. There, she will meet the man Mr. Owen called a “bit of a folk healer”, Ruan Kivell, who turns out to be a much-revered witch/sage/sorcerer known locally as a Pellar; an odious rector; and reconnect with Tamsyn and her disagreeable husband. Ruby planned to head out the following morning, especially when dinner at Penryth Hall was dreadful, but a body turns up dead, the town is convinced it is due to a curse, and are pretty sure that Ruby herself is involved in it. Ruby must team up with Ruan, to whom she both feels a connection and wants to avoid, to look into what happened. Is Tamsyn involved, or in danger? Can Ruan keep the village from turning on the stranger in their midst? And will Ruby be able to make peace with her shared past with Tamsyn and move on with her life?
In this debut novel from Jess Armstrong, we have an unusual protagonist in Ruby. She is clever and fearless, but also is living her life in a way that she finds ultimately dissatisfying and boring. She drinks (among other things) to excess, trying to fill the void in her life. Early in the book, the reader knows little of what went wrong with Ruby’s relationship with Tamsyn, and why she cut off ties with her, and also what happened with her family, but little by little more of both stories is made known. Ruby has a very unusual relationship with Mr. Owen (and his cat), who tolerates her excessive habits more than most men of that day would have done. She’s impulsive, which gets her into more than one sticky situation, but she is also fiercely independent and takes pride in defying conventions of the day. Ruan Kivell, the Pellar, is also not completely content with his lot in life. He does his best to live up to his townspeople’s’ expectations even as that dooms him to a solitary life. The pleasures and problems of small town life and the legends of Cornwall are very much part of the story, and I found myself rooting for Ruby to find out the truth not only about the murder but also about her relationships with Tamsyn and Ruan. This is less Jacqueline Winspeare and more Julia Kelly or Celeste Connally. A fun and quick read, with a likeably flawed heroine and a fascinating setting, I enjoyed reading The Curse of Penryth Hall and look forward to the further adventures of Ruby Vaughn and her coterie. Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books for allowing me access to an advanced reader’s copy in return for my honest review.

The first few pages of this novel were immensely engaging. I loved how we are introduced to the 20's aesthetic in the English Countryside, it drew me into where I was and who I was reading about. I also enjoyed reading through the protagonist's perspective. Ruby was a beautifully built character that stayed true throughout the novel. She is feisty and considerate and unsure of herself at times which makes her feel more real. In the first developments of the story, I was very intrigued and felt the need to keep reading, trying to piece together weird clues! In the middle section, I felt at times that the story dragged on, including details and such that didn't feel necessary. Like when the 2 boys are in the woods and encounter the woman. While I loved the ending and thought it had great shock factor, it made me realize that there were aspects that didn't seem necessary to get to this point. That was really my only hesitancy with the book, the points where things seemed to dull down and not add to the story as a whole. But overall I really enjoyed it and would most likely recommend to others.

Jess Armstrong’s delicious debut novel is equal parts romance — or not — and paranormal mystery — or maybe not that, either. Armstrong keeps you guessing with plenty of twists in this page-turner set in Cornwall in the 1920s, when centuries of superstition lived cheek by jowl with the advances of the bright, new 20th century of science and progress.

Disgraced American heiress Ruby Vaugh has made a new life in Exeter, England, as a bookseller. A delivery of sorcery books to the village of Lothlel Green in Cornwall causes Ruby to cross paths with a beloved friend from the past, someone from whom she parted badly. The very next day, the friend’s husband is murdered by disembowelment. Yikes! The villagers in Lothlet Green are convinced it’s the long-ago curse placed on the lord of Penryth Hall. But Ruby’s got her doubts. She’s also got her doubts about her friend Lady Tamsyn Chenowyth and a mysterious local Pellar (read: witch). Readers will love journeying with iconoclastic Ruby as she unravels what happened. And I hope, I hope, I hope I’m right, and this is the start of a series!

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Minotaur Books in exchange for an honest review.

England in the 1920s was a place full of people recovering from loss and trying to rebuild their lives. Ruby Vaughn is such a person. Her family are gone and her beloved friend has "deserted" her to marry a minor lord in Cornwall.
Ruby has found a new start working for and living with an old rare book dealer in Exeter. Her new life suits her but she still struggles, drinking too much and partying. Then she is sent to Cornwall to deliver a box of books. She can't resist and stops to visit her beloved friend, Tamsyn. When Tamsyn's husband is killed the villagers say its an old curse come back and Tamsyn will be next. Ruby must stay and find the killer with the help of the local pellar (folk healer/witch).
There are gothic and mystical elements to the story. It kept me guessing until the end. I am hopeful that there will be another Ruby Vaughn book in the future.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing an eGalley of this title.

Rebecca meets the Veronica Speedwell series in this moody gothic mystery. I enjoyed every minute and would like to meet these characters again if this becomes a series.

An intriguing mystery filled with interesting characters whom I hope we'll get to see more of in future books.
I read the book in two sittings because I was so drawn into the story. Armstrong does a fabulous job of conveying her main character's confusion and bewilderment at the events unfolding around and the beliefs and superstitions surrounding them. If a tale can be cozily spooky, then this one is.

Thank you Minotaur Books and Netgalley for the complimentary ebook

This took me three weeks to read. I kept thinking about giving up but there was just enough happening each time to make me think that the pace would pick up and it would get exciting. It didn’t. I felt like the same thing happened repeatedly until the finale, Ruby investigates something, gets in trouble, Ruan saves her. Then the grand finale felt like it came out of the blue. Not for me unfortunately.

3.5/5 stars

This book was written so well. The vocabulary and descriptions were next level. It’s a perfect mix of gothic and mystery with murder, witches, curses, and a tiny bit of romance.

I rounded up to four stars, but my rating is 3.5 stars. There were several parts that dragged on and were slow to get through. I didn’t connect with any of the characters (this was probably intentional by the author). As far as content, this was a clean book other than some violence.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review!

I wanted to first thank Netgalley and the publisher for sending me an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Our main character Ruby is sent on errand, which during the course of this errand she drops in on an old friend. During the visit, a tradgedy strikes as that friend's husband is found dead. The people of the town believe that a curse is at fault. During Ruby's stay, she decides to investigate alongside a folk healer.

I found this book very difficult to get into. I had started it a hand full of times, gotten a few pages in, then a few chapters in, then half way, then finally on the fourth try I read the whole thing- restarting every time because for me, the main character was difficult to connect to. I found that the main character fell flat in many places. I think this could have been remedied if we had more of her back story from the start. I understand giving us bits and pieces to not infodump, however, I felt lost on why we should root for or connect with Ruby.

Outside of this, I loved the atmosphere of the book. The gothic undertones grasped my attention, and the folklore vibe was also interesting enough to keep me reading once I was committed to the book. The book was a good mix of mystery and fantasy, which are two genres that don't typically go hand in hand, but for this book it worked out well and I would love to see how that genre mesh develops in the future.

Overall, I'd give this book a 3.5 star rating (rounding down here on Netgalley, but I will be rounding up on Goodreads).

I loved this book. I've always been a fan of gothic mysteries, particularly those with supernatural aspects. This book is set soon after the first World War.

Ruby Vaughn is an unusual heroine, who has not led a sheltered life. She had volunteered during the war, and has as much spiritual and emotional damage as the men who fought with guns and bayonets. She is not a virginal heroine; she has had lovers, both male and female. The war taught her that life was too short for waiting. She runs the bookstore owned by her 80-something year old employer and roommate.

Her best friend and lover had married a few years earlier, which had devastated Ruby. Tamsyn had written to Ruby a few months earlier, asking her to come see her. Ruby did not reply, but now her employer and roommate was asking her to take a box of books to the very town where Tamsyn lived with her husband and son at Penryth Hall.

The books were to be delivered to a man who was called the Pellar, part mystic and part physician to the people of the village. She agrees to stay at Penryth Hall overnight, and something unforeseen happens: Tamryn's unpleasant husband is found dead, and it is not a natural death. This nixes Ruby's plan to leave the next day - the authorities have requested all in the household to stay until they can be interviewed.

The Pellar to me was the most interesting character in the book, and I am very curious to read the next books in this series. I received an e-ARC of this book from the publisher St. Martin's books/Minotaur via NetGalley, and voluntarily read and reviewed it.

Disgraced American heiress Ruby Vaughn lives in Devon, and works for an antiquarian bookseller, Mr. Owen. He's charming, and likes the youthful energy she brings to his business and his home (she lives in his large house, which doubles as his library/warehouse. Ruby also drinks to excess each night, in an effort to forget her bad dreams and grief.

Mr. Owen sends her back to the town where a former friend lives to make a large delivery of books to Ruan Kivell, a Pellar (healer+witch) that he knows. Ruby arrives, delivers the books, and despiteher misgivings, calls on an old friend, Tamsyn, whom Ruby had been ignoring for the last couple of years after Tamsyn married.

Ruby is reacquainted with Tamsyn's nasty husband, and the next morning awakens to news that Sir Edward is dead. Ruan, in his role as Pellar, is called in, along with the police. Ruby discovers that there is a curse known to follow Sir Edward's family, and the locals need the Pellar to inform them if the death was the result of this. Ruby scoffs, but this is serious to the locals, and Ruan takes his supernatural and healing abilities seriously.

Very quickly, Ruby decides that if people are going to rely on the supernatural, then she will investigate for hard evidence, so that the police don't look at Tamsyn as the prime suspect in her husband's murder.

Ruby is soon questioning townspeople, which turns violent for Ruby, as, being a stranger, it's easy to direct their anger and fear at her. Undeterred, and developing an odd and unsettling ability when in proximity to Ruan, Ruby presses on, uncovering old secrets and abuses, and eventually, the identity of the killer.


Ruby is generous to a fault, grieving, and unwilling to confront her feelings about her family, and why she is so angry that Tamsyn would choose to marry even though Ruby thoughtthey would spend the rest of their lives together. It's obvious to the reader what's going on, but Ruby prefers drowning herself in alcohol to acknowledging her feelings.

I liked how the author kept us intrigued by the connection between Ruan and Ruby. It's never explained, and even Ruan is unwilling to try to define it. This supernatural aspect of the story is subtle and minor enough that nothing is automatically solved by its existence, which I appreciated.

I liked the overall feel of the novel, from its overt, gothic setting, Ruby's messy and unrequited feelings, family curses, and the area's history of witchcraft. It makes for an enjoyable read with a likeable protagonist. And the way the author left a few things open at the end makes me wonder if we might see Ruby again, on another adventure. I'd read it.

Thank you to Netgalley and to St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Love a good Gothic. This harkens back to the favorites of Mary Stewart and Barbara Michaels. Very much enjoyed.

A Gothic mystery set in the 20s, The Curse of Penryth Hall is an atmospheric story set in the Cornish countryside. When Ruby visits her friend Tamsyn at her secluded estate, Tamsyn's husband is found dead and the town believes it is a family curse that killed him. Ruby and the town Pellar, Ruan, form a good partnership as they work together to figure out what really happened. The story has several twists and I did not see the ending coming. There is a lot about Ruby and her past that we still do not know. The author may have held back some of the information about her intentionally, but I was left wanting to know more about Ruby.

Thank you Minotaur and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy. This is my honest review.

I was sold on the gothic nature of this book and wasn't disappointed in that manner. It was a quick moving narrative that kept my interest. I wasn't sold on all the characters - some were a bit on the unbelievable side, but on a minor scale - like dialogue quirks or motivations, and in other small ways. That said, I was glad I had the opportunity to read it and would read more from this author.

A little slow in places and a little hard to follow, hopefully final edits will provide plot point clarity and syntax; it got a little clunky.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Really loved this book, and I am hoping this becomes a series. I would gladly delve back into this world. It isn't often that I find such an atmospheric book that I can truly escape into and feel as if I was there.
I loved Ruby so much, she is very willful and it is wonderful to see bi representation. Mr. Owen seems to be a bit of a trickster, and I love that she has found family even if it came about from really awful circumstances.
I cannot help but swoon over Ruan. I would love to know more about him, but maybe part of the charm is the mystery.
I am happy to report that I didn't have it all figured out before the unveiling of the mystery. It was a bit complicated, but it all made sense in the end and I was pretty surprised by the outcome.

I started Jess Armstrong's The Curse of Penryth Hall with a bit of trepidation. "Uh oh," I thought, "this is looking perilously close to Mexican Gothic, but in England." As in Moreno-Garcia's novel, an heiress goes to a secluded estate to see a friend who married an old-money a-hole and wrote a cryptic letter about making a mistake. Fortunately, Armstrong takes this gothic opening and makes it her own. Ruby Vaughn, the novel's protagonist, is very similar to Moreno-Garcia's Noemi - wealthy, stubborn, confrontational - but when the stories diverge, so do they.

Very shortly after arriving at Penryth Hall, Ruby notices something is wrong with her friend Tamsyn. Before she can really ask what's going on, Tamsyn's husband is found dead. The town and the Pellar, the handsome and enigmatic Ruan, worry the curse is back. As more and more mysterious and deadly events occur, Ruby works with Ruan to keep the town safe.

The novel is fun and fast-paced (if my 1-day read time is anything to judge by) toying with gothic conventions. The Curse of Penryth Hall is set int he 1920s, so Armstrong has also positioned herself to work inside that Golden Age of Detective Fiction in sequels that I feel confident must be coming.

Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the ARC.