How to Seal Your Own Fater by Kristen Perrin Series: Castle Knoll Files #2
Published by p Source: NetGalley
Genres: Mystery
Pages: 320
Format: eARC
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Kristen Perrin is back with the second novel in her Castle Knoll series. Annie Adams is caught in a new web of murder that spans decades, returning us to the idyllic English village that holds layers of secrets.
Present Annie Adams is just settling into life in Castle Knoll when local fortune teller Peony Lane crosses her path and shares a cryptic message. When Peony Lane is found dead only hours later inside the locked Gravesdown Estate, Annie quickly realizes that someone is out to make her look guilty while silencing Peony at the same time. Annie has no choice but to delve into the dark secrets of Castle Knoll in order to find out just what Peony Lane was trying to warn her about, before the new life she’s just begun to build comes crashing down around her.
1967: A year has passed since her friend Emily disappeared, and teenage Frances Adams finds herself caught between two men. Ford Gravesdown is one of the only remaining members of a family known for its wealth and dubious uses of power. Archie Foyle is a local who can’t hold down a job and lives above the village pub. But when Frances teams up with Archie to investigate the car crash that claimed the lives of Ford's family, it quickly becomes clear that this was no accident—hints of cover-ups, lies, and betrayals abound. The question is, just how far does the blackness creep through the heart of Castle Knoll? When Frances uncovers secrets kept by both Ford and Archie, she starts to wonder: What exactly has she gotten herself into?
Annie Adams has been living at Gravesdown Estate for several months. She inherited the mansion and land when she solved the murder of her great aunt Frances. That mystery is covered in the first book of the series and I think you almost need to have read How to Solve Your Own Murder in order to understand the history and relationships in this one. It’s a small town full of secrets and gossip, and just because you’ve known someone your whole life doesn’t mean you can trust them.
Annie is already feeling unsettled – the house is big and cold, the townspeople are not overly friendly, when she meets Peony Lane, the fortune-teller whose prediction guided most of Frances’ life. Peony has a fortune for Annie, but she won’t tell it unless asked. She also gives Annie some advice about looking into a decades old accident. Not much later, Peony is found dead, murdered in Annie’s solarium. Annie, of course, gets wrapped up in trying to solve the murder, not only because she’s one of the main suspects according to the new police chief.
The chapters alternate between Annie’s point of view, written in the present tense, and excerpts from a young Frances’ diary. The mystery is convoluted and so many of the characters were just teenagers doing their best at the time of the original crash that led, years and years later, to Peony’s death. The clues are there, but they’re so sprinkled through diary entries, Annie’s talks with people, and the town that it’s hard to put them all together. Annie gets there in the end, with some backup from Detective Crane.
The author does a good job drawing lines between the past and the present. The atmosphere, both the mansion and the village, are appropriately claustrophobic. I enjoyed this one, but maybe not as much as the first. The first just had a bit of originality that was lacking in this one. I am hoping for another, though. I’d like to see Annie settled down and at home on the estate and of course to see what her fortune, found in Peony Lane’s papers, reads.
About Kristen Perrin
Kristen Perrin is originally from Seattle, Washington, where she spent several years working as a bookseller before immigrating to the UK to do a Masters and PhD.
She loves working on projects that have a mystery at their heart, and splits her time writing cosy crime for adults and working on middle grade books that mix magic and adventure. Her children’s series, Attie and the Worldbreakers, is currently available in Dutch, German, and Polish.
She lives with her family in Surrey, where she can be found stomping in the mud with her two kids, collecting too many plants, and painting and sketching in her spare time.
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