In her latest novel On the Cliffs of Foxglove Manor Jaime Jo Wright brings together her trademark mix of mystery, attraction, and timelines for a complex, keep you guessing until the last page tale.
As someone familiar with Wright's work, I was excited to see that she has stayed true to her familiar style of weaving one mystery throughout two time periods. This time, readers being invited to follow Adria Fontaine in 1885 looking to escape her troubled life by way of missing gold as well as Kailey Gibson in modern times looking to understand a tragedy from her childhood.
This style is truly the strength of the story. Wright has an undeniable skill when it comes to guiding her plot through her chosen eras building mystery and anchoring her plot. As a result of her style, Wright is one of the few writers who consistently keeps me guessing (and turning pages throughout the early hours) in an attempt to figure out the next clue.
Wright also stands out as an author who doesn't shy away from harder topics. In this particular novel, she touches on disabilities, trauma/PTSD, mental health, abuse, and addiction to name a few. My favourite character of the entire story was a resident named Maddie, a delightful older woman living with dementia thanks to Wright's skill teasing out the balance between Maddie's wonderfully realistic spunk in life with the grieving of her reality and disease.
That said, there were elements of this book that sat differently with me, one being Mr. Crayne. Mr. Crayne bothered me as a male lead. While I appreciated the potential in his character, the timeline felt too rushed for me to be comfortable with the end results. If you've read my reviews before you'll know I'm a sucker for a good redemption arc and Mr. Crayne, initially, seemed to fit that type with his tragic past, his harmful coping mechanisms, and his traumatized mind coupled with his growing desire to change.
However, and here lies some spoilers, given his traumatic past and Adria's own troubled mindset wrestling with her abusive family and suicidal tendencies, the relationship felt dangerous in the short time frame rather than romantic. It was hard to see the romance over the warning flags.
I also struggled with the feeling that some characters were there less as a part of the worldbuilding and more because the plot needed some form of move ahead. It just left me feeling a little less immersed and a little more disjointed than I'm used to feeling with a Wright novel.
While the structure and the mystery Wright lays out in Foxglove Manor are as solid as ever, there were just a few points that fell short for me this time.
3.5 out of 5 stars.
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