this is like clue meets jane austen!
it was a cute mystery but I felt like this was a launching point for the series and not focused on a stand alone story line. a bit of a slow start but after it got going the pacing was fine.
I really wish the characters had been gay. feels like that was an obvious plot point that was removed.

The title of the book was what peaked my interest and I usually enjoy a regency era murder mystery. However, I’d only rate the book as ok. There was enough interest that I wanted to finish the book and find out who the murderer was but often throughout the book I found my attention drifting away.
I liked the two main characters Judith and Louise-Margaretta but I found many of the other characters quite surface level and not fully fleshed out. I found at times that several of the Ramsbury men blurred a bit as to who was who, and I really didn’t have any inclination as to which one was going to be the murderer due to the lack of potential motives presented.
It looks like a long series is planned with at least another 4 books and I can see the potential for these characters to be developed much further and have some interesting storylines, but based on this book they won’t necessarily be top of my reading pile.

2.5*
I was very intrigued by the book's description and expected it to be a cozy murder mystery with a Bridgerton-like feel. Instead, I found myself somewhat confused and a little bored throughout. I had no idea who the murderer was, and the revelation was quite shocking. This might be because the investigation didn’t truly gain momentum until near the end, leaving me without enough clues or buildup to piece the puzzle together myself. One element I did appreciate was the way the two spinsters, once they solved the case, referred to the culprit only as "he" without revealing his name. This subtle choice added a tantalizing layer of intrigue that lingered for several chapters. I sense that this book could be the launching pad for a series featuring our two spinsters, Judith and Louisa-Margaretta.

Thank you to Netgalley, Eve Tarrington, and the publishers for the advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was a fun murder mystery. This is a great fall read. A little cozy and slow to start, and plot could use a little more, but I really enjoyed it.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ACR!

Honestly a 3.5 for me.

I think I read it at the wrong time since I haven't felt all too well, which is why the 3.5. But I did like the setting. It took me to a different time and place entirely.

The issue I had was probably the plot. It wasn't strong enough to pull me into the story completely.

I truly did enjoy Judith's character. I connected with her the most. Grief is numbing until you finally find something to help you move forward. Judith was just a great reminder of that.

Will I read the second book? Probably not. Would I recommend this book to a friend? Maybe, if they like The Regency era and a decent cozy read to fill their time.

This book was very slow getting started, and I did not find the characters or the storyline to be interesting. I also didn't find that the writing was particularly good. The story is told mostly through the point of view of one of the spinsters in the title and the way the story progressed this wasn't a good fit for me. With all this I did not finish this book after reading 32%.

If you're looking for a cozy mystery with Regency-era flair, Two Spinsters and a Corpse by Eve Tarrington might catch your eye. Two very different young women, forced to team up in order to solve a murder, promises a lot of intrigue and period charm. Unfortunately, while the premise is interesting, the execution left me wanting more.

The book introduces us to Miss Judith St Clair, a sensible and somewhat pious woman, and Miss Louisa-Margaretta Haddington, a fiery and flirtatious socialite who has her own family drama. These two spinsters, though they can’t stand each other, have to work together after they witness a murder in the middle of a ball at Wycliff Castle. It’s a classic "odd couple" pairing, which can be fun, but the chemistry between the two main characters didn't quite sparkle as much as I’d hoped.

One of the things I enjoyed was the period setting. Tarrington clearly did her homework on Regency customs, and the atmosphere of the stiff, wintry English countryside during Christmas added some nice flavor. The interplay between societal expectations, family tensions, and the spinsters' sleuthing offered a light escape.

That said, the plot itself felt like it dragged. For a mystery, there wasn’t as much suspense or tension as I expected. The pacing was slow, and while the two women’s different approaches to solving the crime had potential, the banter between them wasn’t as sharp or funny as it could have been. The murder mystery should’ve been the driving force of the book, but instead, it felt like it got lost in the shuffle of the characters' personal dramas.

Character development was another area where the story fell flat. Judith and Louisa-Margaretta both felt a little one-dimensional. Judith was painted as the overly serious, frugal spinster, while Louisa-Margaretta’s flirtatious ways never evolved into anything deeper. I was hoping for some growth in their relationship or individual arcs, but it never really came. Instead, they remained somewhat stereotypical throughout, and I never felt fully invested in their partnership or the stakes of their investigation.

While the mystery did tie up by the end, it wasn’t particularly memorable, and the culprit’s reveal didn’t deliver the kind of twist I had hoped for. If you're someone who enjoys a simple, easy-to-follow cozy mystery, this might scratch that itch. But if you’re hoping for a gripping whodunit with a lot of character depth, you might find yourself feeling underwhelmed.

Eve Tarrington's novel was a gorgeously cosy read. A family tree would have been helpful to keep track of how everyone was related (something I struggled with through to the end), but this was a minor problem. Overall, I really enjoyed the story and am looking forward to the next instalment.

Thank you #NetGalley for this eARC.

I rather enjoyed this book. I love murder mysteries and who done its. But I didn’t figure out the killer this time! I loved the setting of the Regency Era. I haven’t read many historical fiction books but I loved the era and all the talk of spinsterhood from Judith and Louisa Margeretta as they race to figure out who the murderer is before Christmas Day. A nice simple read. I look forward to another book in the series.

I almost gave up about 20% of the way through but after a two week break came back to finish it. I'm sorry I did. I agree with so many other reviewers here that the mystery was extremely weak, the characters aren't that interesting or relatable, and the ending comes out of nowhere. I definitely won't read any other books in the series.

Jane Austen made me fall in love with reading, so it was an easy pick for me. I'm also a big fan of cozy mystery, so this was a marriage made in heaven. It took me a couple of weeks to finish it, a little bit longer than average. I believe it was a mix between the slower pace than you usually can expect and the timing of the release. August is going back to school time, and I needed a faster pace to compete with everything happening. Overall, it was a good pick.

I thank NetGalley for an advance reader copy of “Two Spinsters and a Corpse.” All opinions and comments are my own.

Judith St. Clair and Louisa-Margaretta Haddington are the two spinsters. And they have a dead woman’s murder to solve. And they are rather unappealing characters, and don’t really get any more appealing at the end of the book. The story does illustrate the strict lives that women led in (presumed Regency, although there are very few clues) times, tied by convention and the morals of society. And it certainly doesn’t help that Louisa-Margaretta (what an awkward name) has fallen in love with a Jewish man, which is why she’s been banished to the country.

The book is as much about the two young woman and the awakening of their personalities as much as anything else. The murder “investigation” is pretty secondary, almost lost in the narrative. Oh, and there’s another murder, which barely rates two sentences.

The end comes, with a confrontation, a murderer revealed. And possibly some resolution to this spinster scenario. I wasn’t sure, and I‘m not invested enough to care. “Two Spinsters and a Corpse” didn’t grab my attention, being very slow in the middle, and rather confusing as to the process.

I had high expectations as the blurb seemed interesting and I'm a huge fan of Georgette Heyer.. I was expect some mature unmarried women and at least one of them could be classified as spinster.
The mystery is solid but I would have preferred more collaboration and less inner monologue.
The heroines are clever but quite self centered but somehow survived.
There's a romantic side and there's future instalments. I think there's potential and I would be curious about it.
This one, as it usually happens with the first in a series, was full of information that made the pace uneven (not to talk about the inner monologues)
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This book is my introduction to the author's work, as well as the first in a series about the two titular characters, one Judith St Clair, eldest daughter of a widowed vicar, and one Louise-Margaretta Haddington, daughter of a wealthy, if not distinguished businessman and his far more socially-elevated wife.

The story is narrated from the points of view of the two main characters, although the first third of the book is weighted heavily towards Judith's narration. The first couple of chapters, one from each of them, flow well enough, and I was ready to enjoy the book, but this changed quickly.

We are told that Judith is twenty five years old, with a nineteen year old sister, and three much younger brothers; in fact, the youngest is all of three. That's a twenty two years difference for only five live children, presented with zero explanation; and while, given the setting (somewhere in the early 1800s), one can assume miscarriages and infant deaths, it's jarring that none of these are mentioned. Instead, we are given to understand that the late Mrs St Clair died of something contagious.

There's a whole thing about how Judith doesn't want to go to the Haddington ball, because she would have to wear a new dress, and that would signal the end of her mourning--never mind that it's well after their mourning period has ended. She has to be manipulated into going, under the excuse that she must act as her sister's chaperone; yet, when they are at the ball, she leaves her much younger sister alone and unattended, to dance herself--just after thinking about how she needs to keep undesirable men away from Miriam. On a later occasion, Judith leaves her sister alone in a room with a widowed, eligible man and his two daughters, to go riding with the miss of the house--even as she acknowledges to herself that it's not proper for her sister to be put in that situation.

And the entire time, Judith judges everyone around her, from her father and sister, to her hosts, to their guests, and finds them invariably wanting. They are boring, or shallow, or useless, or entitled, or improper, or.

Most of Judith's inner dialogue is about how she's the responsible eldest sibling, and how it's now her duty to care for the family; instead, she spends a lot of time indulging herself by paying no attention to anything that doesn't interest her, from her father's occupation to her brothers, and resenting people who have money.

At one point, Judith asks a servant for directions to the library, which are, and I quote, "it's just up those stairs, second on the left". Yet, by the time she gets to the top of the stairs, she tells us that she had already forgotten the second half of the instructions. And while one may think that perhaps Judith is neurodivergent (ADHD is famous for how it affects short term recall), this too is never acknowledged as an issue for her, rather, the way it's written conveys, "I don't care enough to pay any attention to anything but my own brilliant inner dialogue" to me.

The difference between how Judith sees and thinks of herself, and what she actually does and says is vast. She's not the abnegated oldest sibling, she's a whiny brat, and no, she doesn't sound like the twenty five year old spinster daughter of a vicar, but more like a jealous and covetous fourteen year old.

As for Louise-Margaretta (L-M from now on), at first I sincerely thought she was something like sixteen; she refers to the family's move to Derbyshire as her parents "kidnapping and imprisoning" her, and wants to wear mourning to "honor her vow never to marry". But no, apparently she's been out in society for a whole decade, so she's at least twenty six, perhaps as old as twenty nine years old.

L-M seems proud of how well she has avoided thinking about Napoleon for years, and resents it when people around her bring him up. She also dislikes every member of her family she can be bothered to think about--meaning her mother and extended family invited to this house party; she doesn't think about her father.

Both protagonists are pretty insufferable, and sadly no one else is much better.

Mrs. Haddington has a strange obsession with religion; ostensibly, some form of Christianity, yet she chooses to burn juniper to "bless" the scene of an unexpected death, and wants her daughter to marry one of the sons of her own brothers--yes, that's L-M's first cousins--the sooner, the better.

Reverend St Clair pays very little attention to his children, or to whatever is going on around him, spending all of his energy on lecturing anyone within earshot about how the birth of Christ would have played out in Britain, because...reasons?

As for Miriam, here's what she has to say about the guest who had been found dead in the library--during a ball. Where people go to dance:

"I thought she was going to dance every dance. I must say, it was rather indecent." "They were respectable dances." "Yes, but a quadrille, at her age? She cannot have been courting. She was more a spinster than anyone else at the ball, and yet her feet were flying." (Miriam and Judith, chapter 9)

By the time I reached the end of chapter 14, there was no character I cared about, certainly not either of the leads; however, that has not stopped me before. There's always the hope they'll grow in the course of the story, after all.

My real problem is that, since both characters are so exaggeratedly self-absorbed, at a full 35% of the ARC, I was still not clear about who the victim was in relation with her erstwhile hosts or L-M, or why I should care at all whether everyone thought the death a suicide or a murder.

And so I gave up.

Two Spinsters and a Corpse, despite the extremely intriguing title, gets a DNF.

Judith and Miriam are sisters along with their vicar father live in a small village in Regency England. Appearances and respectability are paramount. Judith likes to keep to the rules and Miriam is flighty and very young and resents Judith’s strictures.

The Haddingtons are their benefactors and Judith resents the lavishness of their lifestyle and the manner in which they coddle their daughter. They have bought this estate purely to prevent their daughter entering into an unsuitable alliance. When Louisa Haddington and Judith unwittingly overhear a murder, they put themselves in danger when they try to track the murderer themselves, because it has to be someone within the family who have gathered for the Christmas festivities.

Detection is hard under the rules applicable to ladies in this era, and some ingenuity is called for. Not an easy task in the circumstances, especially since the families brush their observations away as being fanciful.

The story was a mild cozy.

This sounded like it was going to be a interesting murder mystery when I requested it as historical mysteries are a favourite for me. However it never really lived up to the promise for me. I found the pace slow and boring and overall very one dimensional. I couldn't really take to the two main females or many of the other characters either for that matter as they just appeared to be unpleasant and awkward as did most of the other character's. So much so I didn't really care who lived or died or about the mystery really either as it just bored me and it was a struggle to force myself to carry on and finish the book which I just managed to do 2.5 stars, I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Well this was rather hard to follow.

A wealthy family, the Haddingtons, have moved to Wycliffe Castle in Derbyshire county to avert the scandal of the daughter of the house, Louisa-Margaretta, falling in love with someone entirely unsuitable.
The eldest daughter of the local vicar, Judith St. Clair, becomes friends Louisa-Margaret’s with after several false starts.
They witness a murder and now have to alert their families to the facts except that the families pay them no attention.
I wanted to like this. I kept reading to find out what happened. In the end I found I didn’t care enough. The reading hurt my head

A Victory Edington ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.

I have read the first five chapters of this book and determined it is not for me. While I typically enjoy Regency settings, there is something about this author's writing style that feels stiff and ponderous. The main character seems to be very prickly, and I'm not sure why she has such a chip on her shoulder.

The title and cover of this book drew me in, but unfortunately the prose itself is not connecting with me.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6766484509


Thank you so much for letting me review two spinsters and a corpse! I enjoyed the novel it was giving clue meets Jane Austen/ bridgerton vibes. The story was entertaining however I would’ve liked the two spinsters to fall in love and have that as a loose plot line.

I really enjoyed this! But I felt it lacked just a little something extra. It was a little slow to get going despite not being too long of a book, but I did enjoy the mystery aspect! I LOVED that it was at a Christmas ball. Something about a murder at Christmas just really grabs me. Not sure what that says about me as a person though...

I would have loved for a bit more character development, but my biggest let down is that I thought this was going to be sapphic! Both taking refuge in the library to avoid men, and the title - I had hoped it to become a love story between the two friends. It was still a lovely story regardless and a nice friendship, but it would have added a little extra fun, especially around that Regency era time. Sneaking around to hide their affairs while also sneaking around to solve a murder? That's a tag line right there!