Set in post-WW1 Britain, The Curse of Penrith Hall is about Ruby Vaughn…her past and present. Ruby is a disgraced American heiress who was exiled to Britain after she was caught in a dalliance with a married man. Her parents shipped her off and told her not to come home. Ruby enlisted as an ambulance drive during WW1 and became reckless after her parents and sister were killed in the sinking of the Lusitania. During this time, Ruby had a friend and lover, Tamsyn with whom she thought she would travel the world after the war. Despite their relationship, Tamsyn craved stability and she married Sir Edward Chenowyth, moved home to Cornwall and had a baby. Ruby winds up living with and working for Mr. Owen…an antiquarian bookstore owner in Exeter who loves her like a daughter and lost his wife and sons during the war. Mr. Owen send’s Ruby to Cornwall to deliver a mysterious trunk of books to Ruan Kivell, a “folk healer” inn the same village where Tamsyn and her husband now live. Meeting Ruan is a life altering experience as is seeing Tamsyn again. Ruan may or may not be a witch, or Pellar as the locals call him, and Tamsyn’s husband just died. Was Sir Edward murdered by a human or is he another victim of the Chenowyth curse? Ruby and Ruan race to find answers before the curse or killer strikes again.

Is this a series? It had better be a freaking series! I loved that the main character was kind of a hot mess (when we meet her she is very hungover) and I loved the very gothic mystery at the heart of it. I did not love that the relationship between Ruby and Pellar was kind of left hanging. I hope we get more in this series!

Review copy provided by the publisher.

This is a very Gothicy Gothic. There's a creepy house, there are villagers who know secrets, there is tragic history of various shapes between various characters that is Tainting! Their! Present! Lives! And of course there is a horrible, horrible murder, with supernatural elements that may or may not have anything to do with it.

Ruby is a flapper trying to recover her spirits after the horrors she saw nursing the wounded in WWI. She assists a bookstore owner (there is remarkably little of this, please do not read the book for this) who sends her on an errand...right into the neighborhood of the last person she wants to see. Who is of course someone she does see. And with whose fate hers is inextricably intertwined.

INEXTRICABLY INTERTWINED. Because it is that kind of book. DOOM DOOM DOOM that kind of book. BALEFUL SERVANT that kind of book. Coincidental dream or is it that kind of book. There are a few consistent usage errors I really hope get picked up in the copy edit, since this is an eARC, but in general this was a pulpy fun read and I was glad to spend an evening with it.

I admit that the first bit of The Curse of Penryth Hall was slow going, and I thought about putting it down. Then suddenly I was 65% through the book and completely invested in both the characters and the narrative. Armstrong does an excellent job of weaving a gothic tale of Cornish curses and witches with the modernist angst of post WWI Britain with touches of Golden Age mystery. Ruby Vaughn is a disaffected heiress haunted by memories and uninterested in the supernatural world, but when a delivery of rare books puts her in contact with a former lover, the spirit world comes to her unbidden. Is there a curse? A run of the mill murderer? Ruby and the local healer, a man who holds a strange fascination and connection for her, race to find out before more villagers are killed. This novel is an excellent set-up for a future series, and I think the some of the roughness of the writing will smooth with practice. Recommended for mystery readers who don't mind a bit of piskie dust.

10 out of 10 would reccommend this book! Really fed my soul. I definitely couldn’t get enough of Ruby’s wit. I hope there’s a sequel!!

Summary: Ruby Vaughn survived the rigours of WWI and the deaths of her parents to live in Exeter, England with her elderly employer. He asks her to deliver a box of valuable antique books to Ruan Kivell in Cornwall. When she does so, Ruby decides against her better judgement to pay a visit to her old friend (and apparently, lover) Tamsyn who lives in Cornwall with her aristocrat husband and small child. Ruby feels ill at ease in the creaking old mansion, and she awakes from a terrifying nightmare to find the master of the house gruesomely murdered in the orchard. Despite their love/hate relationship, Ruby and Kivell work together to uncover who actually murdered Sir Edward.

Thoughts: This was a relatively quick read for me, and I enjoyed the gothic undertones as I knew I would. The setting in the countryside and the atmosphere of superstition and occult folklore adds to the overall tension and sense of gothic thrill. However, Ruby’s backstory was revealed piecemeal over the course of the book, which was rather confusing. I enjoyed the friction between Ruan and Ruby, but it felt unnecessary to try to develop this into a love affair. I feel it is better as a prickly and reluctant partnership. However, I really enjoyed the dynamic between Ruby and her employer, which was amusing and sweet. Given that the novel is described as a Cornish mystery, I felt that the author could have done much more to “set the scene” and make the reader feel like they were visiting Cornwall. Really the mystery could have taken place anywhere. Overall it is a good debut effort which could develop into an interesting series. Thanks to Minotaur and NetGalley for the digital copy.

A charming and atmospheric folk mystery that effortlessly balances cozy and eerie, heartbreak and found family, this novel’s greatest strength lies in its protagonist — Ruby is a triumph. The supporting cast is dynamic, intriguing, and provides the delightful experience of watching characters both deeply bonded and entirely strange to each other in the throes of a curse — supernatural or human, they are undoubtedly blighted.
If characters are the strong suit, the mystery itself and its revelations are perhaps the weakest; it speaks to the engaging prose and delightful cast that this is not particularly to its detriment.
A novel ideally poised to launch a series, I highly recommend it for any winter tbr.

Wow! This book was wild.
Overall, I think this was a good story. It felt a bit slow, and there were times that I wanted to stop reading. But it kept drawing me back in, and I ended up finishing it. I think the ending was pretty strong, and I did not see where the story wound up. There were so many twists, turns, and red herrings that I was blown away by the reveal.
I think what bothered me the most about this book was the odd language choice. The protagonist is referred to as "lover" and "maid" from numerous sources that don't make much sense? I've read many books from this time period and never run into this before. It made me wonder if there was a language barrier between author and target reader.
Thanks to Net Galley for the book to review.

Giving this 3.5 stars but rounding up to 4! Thank you NetGalley for this copy!

Although it took awhile for me to finish and I wasn’t always super into it I kept coming back to it. I liked how it ended and hope ruby and ruan get to reconnect and live happily ever after with the cat lol. It was a little harder for me to follow at some points because of the way people spoke back then, it took me a few rereads to understand what was being said lol. I overall enjoyed this book and thought it was clever to lure readers in with “curse” in the title but then for it all to plain ol humans killing humans. No curse.

SUCH an atmospheric read. perfectly what i was looking for- a book i can easily escape into

the family dynamics whether that was childhood friendships or marriages, they were so compelling and fully fleshed out thatcha can’t help but wanna root for them

while some things could’ve been developed a little more, i enjoyed this for what it is and can’t wait to read another book by this author

This was a fun mystery novel to read. I loved the setting and time period of the book. It definitely helped with the mysteriousness of the story. I enjoyed Ruby as the protagonist, she was intelligent, confident and was not putting up with anyone else's BS. During the book, we met many other characters, all who had their different secrets and priorities. They were all very interesting, and all of them were giving off guilty vibes at some point. This story had me guessing until the end!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in an exchange for an honest review.

Overall, a fun introduction to a vibrant cast of characters. I had some issues with pacing, and it could have used some tighter copy-editing (lots of missing commas and sentence fragments--although maybe that was intentional, in which case, it did not work for me for the overall style).

This was an enjoyable historical mystery that has so much potential for future books!

Ruby has been tasked with delivering an order of mysterious books to a customer in Cornwall. While there, she decides to visit an old friend who she hasn't seen in several years. Murder, possible supernatural occurrences, and a strange connection to a total stranger soon follow, placing everyone in the small village of Lothlel Green at risk.

Ruby is an independent, modern thinking, feisty protagonist who I found to be likeable and interesting while still holding onto her fair share of secrets. There's a lot of backstory still to be revealed for not just Ruby but also the secondary characters. Their relationships, secrets, and histories were hinted at and intrigued me, but I did feel rather lost and confused when it came to making sense of Ruby's past and a timeline of events. I'm optimist more will be revealed in a sequel, since this did feel like the start of a new series, but for now my understanding of Ruby, her past, and her connections to other characters is still quite vague.

The Curse of Penryth Hall is a fun whodunit mystery full of superstition, magic, and small town secrets. The characters still have plenty of their personal stories to share, and I'll definitely tune in for any future additions to the story.

Thank you Netgalley and St Martins Press, Minotaur Books for providing me with a copy to read and review.

“The Curse of Penryth Hall” is a brooding whodunnit with twists and turns that kept me guessing until the very end. If you like mystery and suspense with a little magic thrown in, you will enjoy this book. I can’t wait to read more by this author. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

With the understanding that this was an uncorrected Galley, I still found this book a little hard to get through based on grammatical errors alone-- the sentence structure often felt very jerky, and there were some minor continutity issues. However, the plot was solid enough and I feel like with some more editing this would be an engaging gothic mystery! I especially loved the incorporation of Cornish folklore.

The premise and setting tick all my boxes. The characters didn't grab me at first, although I warmed up to them. A fine story, overall.

So mysterious and love how I kept guessing! No spoilers but I wish I could read it for the first time again!

All opinions expressed are my own, I was gifted this book through NetGallery.

This book gave me serious Hester Fox vibes and I'm always here for a gothic mystery with some supernatural vibes. American Heiress Ruby Vaughn has made a life for herself working with an oddball octogenarian employer who has her run off on interesting book deliveries. Her employer collects rare and ancient texts so these books are in high demand. Ruby is sent to the Cornish countryside and runs into the town healer, or as they call him The Pellar. Not one for folklore and fairy tales Ruby takes all the talk with a grain of salt. Also living in this Cornish town is an old friend of Ruby's named Tamsyn. The two have not spoken in some time and although Ruby knows she shouldn't get involved she can't help but stop by Tamsyn's home, Penryth Hall. Ruby is quickly wrapped up in a murder investigation, a curse, and maybe a bit of a romance with the Pellar. It's up to her and the Pellar to uncover who or what is killing the inhabitants of Penryth Hall.

Extremely well done book. I couldn't put it down. I adored Ruby and Ruan(the Pellar) and I hope they will have more adventures in the future. The ending made me believe that will be the case👏
I enjoyed the mystery, still unsolved, of the connection between Ruby and Ruan. I'm quite sure Ruby may have some super natural-ness to her just as Ruan does. The mystery, and reveal, was excellent-not what I expected at all! The setting was perfect and the author nailed the unsettling and spooky vibe. Ruby is witty and funny but there is emotional depth in her as well. Overall a fun and incredibly engaging read!

Thank you to @netgalley @stmartinspress @minotaur_books for the ARC.

A gothic mystery woven with Cornish folklore, atmosphere, interesting characters and a tall, dark and brooding Pellar/Healer. I’m looking forward to the next installment.
**Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley in exchange of an honest review. **

I'm a fan of Phyllis Whitney, Victoria Holt and while it had the gothic mystery "feel" of those authors, Jess Armstrong weaved an original and entertaining tale of mystery, romance and, paranormal that I couldn't put down. There were so many "twists and turns" and " red herrings"" that I had every character guilty of murder.

I had other books I had planned to read first, but after reading the first few pages,with Ruby, Mr. Owen, and Fiachina, the cat, I was hooked! Ruby is a complicated, hard nosed, soft hearted character. The backstory of Ruby and Tamsyn, along with their experiences during "The Great War" was sad but it showed how strong each woman was, in different ways. The paranormal aspects of the book with Ruan Kivell, also known as the town "Pellar" was perfect - moody, dangerous and romantic- fans of gothic mysteries will not be disappointed. The author's description of Penryth Hall was so vivid, that I felt as if I was there - searching for a murderer, along with Ruby.

I hope this becomes a series and will definitely put it on my series list!

I received an ARC from NetGalley and the opinions expressed in this review are my own.