{"id":5912,"date":"2016-06-14T19:59:11","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T23:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=5912"},"modified":"2022-10-31T18:18:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-31T22:18:03","slug":"lady-of-the-ashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5912","title":{"rendered":"Lady of the Ashes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lady of the Ashes<\/a><\/em> (2013) Christine Trent<\/p>\n

\"Lady-of-the-Ashes\"<\/a>Set in London in 1861<\/p>\n

Violet Morgan is the wife of an undertaker who has joined her husband in his job, because she discovered she is very good at it. However, over time her husband’s obsession with the United States beings to cause problems for their marriage, as he becomes seemingly more and more unhinged.<\/p>\n

This is the first book in a mystery series, however, it doesn’t read like a mystery series. It is instead a sprawling historical that is all over the place.<\/p>\n

I didn’t give up on the story, because I really was curious as to how things would turn out, but there were many parts that I barely skimmed, looking to get through the odd historical bits plopped in seemingly at random, such as Abraham Lincoln dialog. (Seriously, Abraham makes random appearances, all of which I briefly skimmed when I realized they had no bearing on the mystery.)<\/p>\n

It’s not that I dislike extraneous detail, after all, I really enjoyed the bits about funerary practice.<\/p>\n

Clocks were traditionally stopped at the time of death to mark the deceased\u2019s departure from this current life and into the next. Tradition held that to permit time to continue was to invite the deceased\u2019s spirit to remain in the home instead of moving on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Six pallbearers had been selected from among Mr. Stanley\u2019s friends, and could only serve in this duty if they were near Mr. Stanley\u2019s age. Even at children\u2019s funerals the pallbearers had to be selected from other children close to the deceased\u2019s age.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(A) sitting monarch was not permitted to attend a funeral.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Victorians generally viewed embalming as unseemly, since it meant filling a body with sometimes toxic fluids, then committing the body to the ground, where it should be decomposing naturally.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the bits about the US Civil War seemed to come from out of nowhere, and didn’t seem to add to the story in any discernible way. I suppose if you were completely oblivious to the US Civil War those bits might be interesting or useful, but I just found them dull, and distracting from the story.<\/p>\n

With all these extraneous details, it was hard to tell what the mystery truly was. Was it the intrigue her husband was embroiled in? What about this diary excerpts that had absolutely no bearing on the story? <\/p>\n

There was a lot here, and if it had been more ruthlessly edited or decided precisely what kind of story it wanted to be, I would have enjoyed it more.
\nRating: 5.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Kensington <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lady of the Ashes (2013) Christine Trent Set in London in 1861 Violet Morgan is the wife of an undertaker who has joined her husband in his job, because she discovered she is very good at it. However, over time her husband’s obsession with the United States beings to cause problems for their marriage, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30,33,8],"tags":[557],"class_list":["post-5912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british","category-historical","category-mystery","tag-victorian"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-1xm","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6158,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/6158","url_meta":{"origin":5912,"position":0},"title":"The Confession of Brother Haluin","author":"Michelle","date":"November 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The Confession of Brother Haluin (1988) Ellis Peters Set in England in 1143. Brother Haluin came to the abbey as a novice, and as a brother did penance beyond what it was believed he owed. But there are some born to do penance by nature. Maybe they, lift the load\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"the-confession-of-brother-haluin","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/The-Confession-of-Brother-Haluin.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6089,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/6089","url_meta":{"origin":5912,"position":1},"title":"The September Society","author":"Michelle","date":"September 28, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The September Society (2008) Charles Finch Set in England in 1866 This is the second Charles Lennox mystery; I'd picked up much of the series on sale as ebooks, so since I'd read the first (and second) books years ago, I felt okay picking up the series here. I also\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"septembersociety","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/septembersociety.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5906,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5906","url_meta":{"origin":5912,"position":2},"title":"Dinner Most Deadly","author":"Michelle","date":"June 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Dinner Most Deadly (2015) Sheri Cobb South Set in London in ~1808 OK. I'm done. Which is too bad, because I really liked the mysteries. But I despise cliff-hanger endings, and two in a row are my limit. Lady Fieldhurst has returned from Scotland blue-deviled, so her friend Emily Dunnington\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"Dinner Most Deadly","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Dinner-Most-Deadly.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5873,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5873","url_meta":{"origin":5912,"position":3},"title":"A Pressing Engagement","author":"Michelle","date":"May 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A Pressing Engagement (2016) Anna Lee Huber Set in Edinburgh, Scotland in April 1831 This short story is Lady Darby's wedding to Sebastian Gage. Except it isn't really a short story, as much as it would truly be an excerpt from either the end of the previous book or the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"a_pressing_engagement","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/a_pressing_engagement.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3307,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3307","url_meta":{"origin":5912,"position":4},"title":"And Only to Deceive","author":"Michelle","date":"November 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"And Only to Deceive (2005) Tasha Alexander I read And Only to Deceive back in 2007 and found it a disappointment--I wanted a straight up mystery, but instead god a romance with elements of mystery. So how did I feel upon a re-read? I still very much liked the arc\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/and-only-to-deceive.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":19880,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/19880","url_meta":{"origin":5912,"position":5},"title":"Lady Odelia’s Secret","author":"Michelle","date":"March 17, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Lady Odelia's Secret (2022) Jane Steen (Lady Helena Investigates) Set in England in 1882. I read the first book, Lady Helena Investigates, soon after it came out, and was disgruntled when there wasn't a sequel. Until a couple weeks ago I stumbled across the second book in the series. HUZZAH!\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Lady Odelias Secret","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Lady-Odelias-Secret.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}