TBR Challenge: Julie Klassen - The Secret of Pembrooke Park

Abigail Foster fears she will end up a spinster, especially as she has little dowry to improve her charms and the one man she thought might marry her--a longtime friend--has fallen for her younger, prettier sister.
When financial problems force her family to sell their London home, a strange solicitor arrives with an astounding offer: the use of a distant manor house abandoned for eighteen years. The Fosters journey to imposing Pembrooke Park and are startled to find it entombed as it was abruptly left: tea cups encrusted with dry tea, moth-eaten clothes in wardrobes, a doll's house left mid-play . . .
The handsome local curate welcomes them, but though he and his family seem to know something about the manor's past, the only information they offer Abigail is a warning: Beware trespassers who may be drawn by rumors that Pembrooke contains a secret room filled
with treasure.
Hoping to improve her family's financial situation, Abigail surreptitiously searches for the hidden room, but the arrival of anonymous letters addressed to her, with clues about the room and the past, bring discoveries even more startling. As secrets come to light, will Abigail find the treasure and love she seeks...or very real danger?

Comment: August is here and I, for one, can't wait for it to end. I'm not a fan of hot weather ( I was born in the wrong country for certain) and at work, this is the busy season, so.... anyway, the theme for this hot month at the TBR Challenge is "backlist banger" and I've picked an author whose work I have enjoyed and of whom I still have several books in the pile to read.

Abigail Foster and her family have had a terrible blow because some of her father's investments have proven to be disastrous and now they need to downsize and Abigail is in charge of dealing with the finances. They find a promising house away from London due to a specific connection but it seems the house and the family members who were there before hid some secrets in the propriety. However, Abigail enjoys this new challenge and even makes friendships with their neighbors, namely the young parson, and things seem to go well, until a new person shows up claiming to be a direct descendant from the house's owners. As things muddle up, Abigail's mother and more attractive younger sister arrive too, and Abigail sees herself in a confusing situation...

I have read several books by this author by now and I have liked many of them while others weren't as great for me, in the sense of comparing them all. The author writes Christian fiction but this isn't the element that makes me like a book less, although it did affect some reader's opinions. To me, the biggest flaw has been the focus on negative/sad aspects, probably to highlight the Christian content. Sometimes this doesn't bother me because the narrative is incredibly captivating. Other times, it only makes the story feel a little boring.

I think this book falls into that slot, as opposed to the ones I gave higher marks to, because it just drags. At some point the central plot point, related to the family who used to live at Pembrooke Park, simply drags and drags and I started thinking to myself "when will this be solved" which is not a good indication, because the same story could have had less 60 or 70 pages and we would loose nothing about it. Some more editing would have helped, I think.

The whole thing is related to a supposed treasure the previous owner hid or wanted to keep protected. Things get to a point I could see right away what treasure it was, but by then all the moves had been in play and the characters kept doing things that instead of looking consistent to what would be an obvious step, just delayed concluding something. I wanted to yell at them to hurry up, because I wanted to finish the book and start my next one.

Some situations related to the mystery of the treasure and to what happened to the previous owners seemed to become more confusing as things went along. At some point I confess I no longer cared for this, because I knew it would be easily solved, and the explanations in the end proved me right. I suppose that for books that mix different genres, some elements always seem to be presented better than others.

I liked the heroine and her sense of self, her awareness of why certain things didn't happen easily for her. I thought the obvious contrast to her more flirtatious sister would be used later on in a more effective manner, but nothing happened in the way I imagined. Still, I liked her for being quiet, considerate, thoughtful and for understanding her surroundings. I also liked the romance and the person she ends up with. The romance is certainly on the sweet and demure side but I think the author manage to portray their compatibility well.

The end of the story is not very surprising but I liked how some loose threads were put together and I liked knowing that the characters I wanted to find their happy end, did so. I place this book in the middle of the pack, in my personal list of what I've read by the author until now. I do appreciate the consistency and the ideas but sometimes I also wish the author would be more daring in what should happen, plot wise, and less keen on dragging gloomy stuff.

Grade: 6/10