Death Below Stairs - Jennifer Ashley

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Death Below Stairs by Jennifer Ashley
Publication date: January 2, 2018

**I received a free e-book from Penguin First to Read in exchange for an honest review.**

A cozy Victorian mystery. The story line is character driven making it a slow paced read. We open the story to Kay Holloway starting as a cook in a new house, the next morning she stumbles across the dead body of her young assistant. Though it is the maid that is killed in the first chapters the real mystery doesn’t start until well over halfway through the story.

Reading this, I felt like I was missing something so went researching online more about the story. I felt this novel heavily relied on the character development that happened in entirely different story and I think I might be right? There is a novella that initially starred the characters in these stories. Though the author labels the novella a prequel to this series I feel like I needed to read it in order to enjoy this story more fully.

Kat is an interesting character and seems to have a lot of facets to her character that this story failed to explore as the first in a series. I just felt like I constantly was left behind and honestly was relieved when I found out about the novella/prequel.

I also really enjoyed Daniel and James characters but again felt shorted when they never seemed to be built but glossed over, again this might be due to the novella/prequel?

Overall the story was entertaining enough. I was never too invested due to previously mentioned reasons and was sorry I couldn’t get more involved in it. I think this series has potential but would probably recommend that everyone start with the novella even though I have not read it.

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