Acquired Book By: I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours whereupon I am thankful to have been able to host such a diverse breadth of stories, authors and wonderful guest features since I became a hostess! HFVBTs is one of the very first touring companies I started working with as a 1st Year Book Blogger – uniting my love and passion with Historical Fiction and the lovely sub-genres inside which I love devouring. Whether I am reading selections from Indie Authors & publishers to Major Trade and either from mainstream or INSPY markets – I am finding myself happily residing in the Historical past each year I am a blogger.
What I have been thankful for all these years since 2013 is the beautiful blessing of discovering new areas of Historical History to explore through realistically compelling Historical narratives which put me on the front-lines of where History and human interest stories interconnect. It has also allowed me to dive deeper into the historic past and root out new decades, centuries and millenniums to explore. For this and the stories themselves which are part of the memories I cherish most as a book blogger I am grateful to be a part of the #HFVBTBlogTours blogger team.
I received a complimentary ARC copy of “The Vanishing at Loxby Manor” direct from the publisher Thomas Nelson (an imprint of HarperCollins Christian Publishing) in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
On what tempted me into this story & how I cheekily misspelt it!
I do not oft talk about my dsylexic slips, mistakes & misunderstandings within the English language, as frankly, this is partially why I’ve adapted and adopted an ancestral link in my heritage to help offset those key issues in my writerly style & voice (ie. I write in an AmeriBritish styling). However, in this particular instance I nearly did not catch a faux pas if you will in how I was spelling the title of this lovely novel: “The Vanishing of Loxby Manor” – now if you read this too quickly you’ll miss the variant of the title but for those diehard observers you’ll immediately see what my dsylexic brain twisted the title into and why that left me with a cheeky bit of quirkified dsylexic humour!
As it goes from “a vanishing @ the manor” to the “vanishing OF the manor!” wouldn’t that had been a uniquely ravishing novel to have read, eh? Most likely it would have been a heap of joy mashing into the Gothic side of the Historical Suspense category of loveliness but just the thoughts of how a whole manor can simply ‘slip out of sight & mind” is a delightful prospect for another time and matter altogether as I love tucking into those alternative reality plots of how time travelling, time shifting and time bending parellels can run concurrently to our own time intervals of our shifting living realities. Again – topic for another time and space but just the prospect had me riveted!
Now then, back to the story at hand – I have a penchant of joy for finding heart-stirring Romantic Suspense novels – as you might have spied from my personal notes & tidbits stemming out of co-passion for Love Inspired Suspense (of which I share with my Mum!) both on #JLASblog and on my socially bookish feeds on Twitter!! However, aside from Love Inspired lovelies – I love seeking out traditional #RomSusp stories, too! I literally itch after them because one of the mainstays of my readerly (and television life) are watching MYSTERIES!! Seriously. It has been a fabulous addiction since I was a young girl watching “Murder She Wrote” which quite literally spoke to me on multiple levels of interest – a) it was a graduation from Nancy Drew & an extension of love of Agatha Christie, b) I was an aspiring writer and c) who wouldn’t want to be Jessica Fletcher? I mean, not a hard sell!
Ergo, when I saw this was going on a blog tour, I thought – ooh! Now that sounds brilliantly atmospheric, slightly chilling in a Cosy Crime kind of wickedness & I have had my eye on this author for a bit now – so why not dive in, eh? So, I did!
Wait to you see what I FOUND INSIDE the story,.. except to say, I’ve only just begun to soak into the fuller scope of Loxby Manor! My reading hours have been muted lately by current events & the state of the country – each week this January, I’ve taken strides to resume from whence I’ve left off with the stories in progress and I’m starting to make a bit of headway.
However, a few of the stories I’ve attempted to read were only partially able to be consumed – such as the two by Thomas Nelson – last week’s “Beauty Among Ruins” and this week’s “The Vanishing of Loxby Manor”. Both of which I will continue to read in a time frame which suits me better as a reader – as lately, I’ve struggled to keep myself grounded in Historicals and have opted for some lighter reads instead such as a cheekily humourous Cosy Mystery!
The Vanishing at Loxby Manor
by Abigail Wilson
Source: Publisher via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours
A story of second chances and secrets, this mysterious Regency romance will transport you to 19th-century England as one young lady reunites with her childhood love to find his missing sister.
Her friend is missing.After five years abroad, Charity Halliwell finally returns to Loxby Manor, the home of dear friends—and her lost love. No longer a young girl, she is now haunted by a painful secret and the demise of her dreams. Instead of the healing and happiness she hopes to find, she encounters a darkness lurking in the shadows of the once-familiar house. When her friend, Seline, disappears the very night of her arrival, Charity is determined to uncover the truth.
Her only hope is the man who broke her heart.
Branded a coward, Piers Cavanaugh has lived the last five years as an outcast far from his family home. When his sister presumably elopes with a stable hand, Piers joins forces with an unlikely partner—the one woman he thought he’d never see again. Together they launch an investigation that leads to strange nightly meetings in the ruins of an old abbey and disturbing whispers of a secret organization. The more they learn, the more desperate the situation becomes.
The house seems determined to keep its secrets.
As they struggle to piece together the clues, Charity and Piers also endeavor to rebuild their friendship. One cryptic letter changed everything between them. To find happiness they will have to overcome the grief and shame keeping them apart. But first they must discover why Seline vanished and confront the growing fear that she may never return.
Settle in, because once you start
The Vanishing at Loxby Manor, you won’t be able to put it down.
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 9780785232957
Also by this author: Masquerade at Middlecrest Abbey
Published by Thomas Nelson
on 26th January, 2021
Format: Paperback ARC
Pages: 324
Published by: Thomas Nelson (@ThomasNelson)
an imprint of HarperCollins Christian Publishing (@HCChristianPub)
Converse via: #HistFic or #HistNov as well as #INSPY #HistoricalFiction
+ #TheVanishingAtLoxbyManor as well as #TNZFiction and #HFVBTBlogTours
Available Formats: Trade paperback, Audiobook and Ebook
About Abigail Wilson
Abigail Wilson combines her passion for Regency England with intrigue and adventure to pen historical mysteries with a heart. A registered nurse, chai tea addict, and mother of two crazy kids, Abigail fills her spare time hiking the national parks, attending her daughter’s gymnastic meets, and curling up with a great book. In 2017, Abigail won WisRWA’s Fab Five contest and in 2016, ACFW’s First Impressions contest as well as placing as a 2017 finalist in the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense.
She is a cum laude graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and currently lives in Dripping Springs, Texas, with her husband and children.
| The Vanishing at Loxby Manor | by Abigail Wilson
When we first meet Charity and Piers, something has gone amiss between them. In fact, it was quite alarming in one regard because Charity seemed to be having one experience and Piers another – as his distracting mannerisms and his inability to communicate properly with Charity at one point seemed quite difficult to pin down in regards to what was jolting his attention away from Charity and of course, what could have been so dearly dire as he couldn’t explain himself? We only spend a short time with them in the beginning of the story – before we flash forward by five years and the whole situations between them has altered itself.
Charity for her part was sent off continent and into a whole new world of where an island held its own secrets for her to tuck close to her heart upon her return. She doesn’t fully disclose what has kept her away for five years, nor does Wilson explain what has left a pallor of vexation over Loxby Manor – not until Charity’s old girlhood chum Seline returns into her life quite unexpectedly! It was such a stark comparison between the two young women – Seline a mere year younger than Charity and yet, of the two, it felt Seline was the one who was more tempestuous towards getting herself into trouble: personally and in society circles! She didn’t listen to convention and she had a wickedly deceptive mind of her own in regards to a girl’s place in the world and the proper way about going about finding a quality suitor.
Yet, none of that was as distracting to me as finding Charity has reurnt to a family she felt she understood and knew whole-heartedly only to find that their impressions about Piers has severely become compromised by an event and situation previously unknown to her directly and to the chilling forethought of being an interloper during their difficult times of need now. Charity I felt was feeling like an outsider in a world gone a bit mad – her definition of Piers as a man and as someone who lived his life with honour was struck down by the truth pouring out of Seline and of how Seline didn’t seem to falter in remorse for having said as much as she had. Full disclosure – outside of the reason why she was so bent on leaving into the dark of night straight out of Charity’s room, she wasn’t one to mince words nor harbour secrets of her own either!
Charity I felt was given the shaft before she was even given a chance to explain herself, her absence and of course, what brought her back to England. The pacing of the opening bridge of the novel is slow and purposeful – trying to endear itself to your sense of the overwhelming intensity of feeling unwanted by a group of people who have more secrets than a magician has tricks to share with his audience! She truly returnt during a scandal ready to explode into full viewing of local society and yet, part of her felt she hadn’t known where else to go to lay her hat as she was truly betwixt and between her past and her future.
I felt Charity was hoping to recapture a bit of what she had originally felt at Loxby Manor – the comfortability of the family and the calmness of the setting – mixing together to enable her a chance to rebuild her life a bit and to restructure herself into a fully confident young woman who can embrace her future knowing she can handle it. Something had happened to her whilst she was gone for five years and thereby, an unsettling mystery lingers just off page from the sight of the reader.
Uniquely where my initial readings leave me in the story, a quiet chill captures the mood brilliantly as Charity has only just realised the gravity of her inaction and response to Seline’s haste to leave her has truly caused this family. The mood Wilson leaves you in on the twenty-fifth page is one of anxiously unresolved worriment over a foolish young girl’s flight into the night. She captured how it would feel to be a houseguest with foreknowledge no one else in the house has and with that the responsibility to tell someone else what is now learnt from the person you’ve just reunited with after such a long absence! I cannot even fathom what Charity told Seline’s Mum but just at the door, on seeing her mother for the first time, I felt that perhaps more was clearly afoot than one lost daughter during a rainstorm!
On the historical storycrafting styling of Abigail Wilson:
There is a shadowy glimmer of tension echoing just beyond reach of the narrative insights Wilson is sharing with her readers as we first dive into The Vanishing at Loxby Manor. It harbours itself a layer of deceitful intrigue and of course, given the nature of the era and the setting therein, this story has a lot of ominous undertones set inside it as well. In some regards, it felt like you were watching a Hitchcock movie, fully on pins and awaiting to see the unexpected jolt arrive in a scene you were not prepared to handle and yet, would only best understand the plot if you held yourself still within the terror of the unveilling of what ills are brought into the lives of these characters.
There is something just lingering past the peripheral sphere of this story and it is within that tucked away space where I felt a darker truth might yet emerge on behalf of the trajectory of these characters’ lives. It did not feel like all innocent folly and intrigue in other words – but rather something more sinister felt afoot and something was definitely influencing the moods of the secondary characters as well – as everyone seemed afraid of something and yet couldn’t put thought to words to express what had caught them off-guard!?
There are definite undertones of the Gothic genre bubbling to the surface in the background of the narrative – it is in how Wilson sets the scenes and sequences for us as much as the overall somberness of the setting, too. This is a story which has secreted itself from sight and only wishes to reveal itself if and when information become a necessity to disclose. In other words, the kind of stories that you don’t want to read at night and are best to appreciate during the daylight hours!
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Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2021.
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2021 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge
Thank you so much for your thorough and thoughtful review! We appreciate the great blog tour support, Jorie!
Amy
HF Virtual Book Tours