Of all the places Olivia Keene imagined her life would take her, a dirty prison cell is the last she expected. After being arrested for trespassing Olivia is handed over to Lord Bradley, who demands to know what she overheard while “spying” on him.
At first it is a crushed windpipe that prevents her from speaking; but as her new employer comes closer to uncovering her true crime, it is fear that keeps her silent. Olivia is not the only one with something to hide — for Lord Bradley himself keeps concealed a secret that could ruin his name forever.
A little clunky
Sometimes you just need a simple story to cleanse your palate. A little mystery, a little love, and just enough danger to make your heart go pitter-patter.
I enjoyed The Silent Governess in the same way I enjoyed high school: it was fun in the moment, but looking back all I can think is, “Wow, that wasn’t as good as I thought it was.”
The novel starts out with high stakes—a potential murder, an alarming and potentially dangerous family secret—but I couldn’t really get too worked up about it because I knew there’d be a happy ending. I like a little cliché with my reading sometimes, but I think this just caught me in the wrong mood.
I also disliked the inclusion of the “trust in God” theme — not because of the theme itself, but because it felt like the author shoved it in rather hastily. It would have gone more smoothly had the main characters expressed the requisite doubt earlier in the story. I was going along fine, thinking this a great mystery novel, when suddenly wham, now we’re talking about trusting God when, up to that point, no one had even mentioned it. The whole thing felt hamfisted.
A nice light mystery
In the end, I consider The Silent Governess to be a good, if not great, read. It’s pretty easy to guess the general ending early in the story, so in some ways it was nice to sit back and see how the author took us from start to finish (and try to guess whodunit, of course!). Not something I’d read again, though, and I probably won’t seek out any other works by Klassen.
If you like lighter mystery novels with a whiff of Christian romance, check out Klassen’s writings. If not, best to choose something else from your TBR.
I love Klassen, but I know what you mean. Her stories are sweet touching weekend reads. I can see what you mean about her tossing a bit of God in there. I kind of liked that part though. It was just a bit more subtle than we are used to in christian themed books but I like that she doesn’t throw deep theological questions on every page. I do cry and laugh in her books and use them to kind of clean my reading palette. But she is a rare one that I buy as soon as it is published. I know I am promised a good read and don’t have to wait for the sequel to come out to continue the book.
I think I’m just not in the right mindset right now to read anything that has much of a “Christian” theme. Add to that the fact that I think it a weak implementation—not just a subtle one—and I couldn’t like it.
You make a great point about cleansing the reading palette. Some authors are perfect for that. 🙂 I’m glad you’ve found an author that you can continually rely on to write something you’ll love; goodness knows that’s not always guaranteed!