REVIEW: Murder Made Her Wicked by Elizabeth Hobbs
Bicycle-riding, aspiring archaeologist Marigold Manners is back and ready for adventure in Elizabeth Hobbs’s next mesmerizing historical mystery.
“A humdinger…whose characters bring to mind those of both Emily Brontë and L. M. Montgomery” (Kirkus), this second installment is perfect for fans of Deanna Rayborn.
1894, Boston. Penniless Boston heiress and accomplished modern woman Marigold Manners has put her past to good use, selling the story of the Great Misery Island Murders to earn enough money to resume the life she was always meant to have and return to her studies at Wellesley College. But her carefully laid plans for academic excellence are thrown into disarray when she stumbles across the body of a young woman in the campus lake.
When the peace of the bucolic campus is shattered by the murder, the cloistered world of a women’s college that Marigold finds so comforting proves it is not immune to the malice and wickedness of the world. The closed community becomes a hothouse where disparagement blooms into insult and small slights that have festered for years blossom into academic rivalries that could spill over into something far more sinister. Marigold must use every ounce of her logic and enlist her eccentric, colorful cast of fellow students and found family to identify the girl and find the murderer—before they kill again.
Dear Ms. Hobbs,
I was impressed enough with Miss Marigold Manners, scion of an old Boston family, in “Misery Hates Company,” that I asked for and got this arc. Marigold is managing but also intelligent and determined. After writing up her first adventures and selling them, she’s got enough money to be able to finance her last semester at Wellesley to finish her degree and hopefully start on getting her Masters. Most at the college are thrilled to have her return but only days after she arrives after the fall term has begun, Marigold finds a body by the boathouse and just like that, she has another murder to solve.
Two books in, I both admire Marigold and also, at times, want to shake her. She is opinionated, stubborn, and determined to be a New Woman. For her, returning to Wellesley is like coming up for air after holding her breath for too long. She loves the campus, the studies, the professors, and her fellow students – most of them, that is. She’s one of those people who has her life planned out, wants to do thirty things a day, and excel at everything. She’s smart enough to do that but sometimes she’s not quite as smart as she thinks she is.
Most people at least admire Marigold but she has a coterie of friends and a handsome beau who adores her. Marigold loves Cab too but not as much as she loves her personhood and the opportunities she would lose if she married him. Those looking for a romantic HEA will not find it here. What is here is almost a Wellesley Worship Hour. I understand why this college fits Marigold and why it is used but was glad to see the frequent references to how smart, dedicated, and all around fabulous it and the students are, get toned down a little after the first third of the book. I feel a bit bad saying that as I benefited from the hard work that these and other women put in to gain more equality for women in higher education but too much repetition of anything gets on my nerves.
One thing that hasn’t changed, unfortunately, is what Marigold realizes at the end. That women try to be nice to escape situations which make them feel uncomfortable. That men will mostly never feel the fear that women do knowing that men can force them to do things. That one man’s anger can cut short a promising young woman’s life.
Marigold and a few others who know the truth are determined that the dead woman will be named and her killer found. They are up against untrained and dismissive lawmen who are sure that the woman either drowned herself or that she was in a “Boston Marriage.” Because all those women living together are either dried up and bitter old maids or those sort. Female rage bubbles up a time or three.
Trying to fit her academic work in between solving the mystery keeps Marigold busy. Luckily her clothes designer friend Isabelle and Cab plus Lucy Dove – also from book one – are available to drop whatever they’re doing and jump to help. Yeah, so Marigold isn’t a trained detective and she makes mistakes. However, I began putting the obvious clues together at the halfway point and had figured out the who if not the why.
I will give Marigold credit in that she tries to do as Cab suggests and keep herself safe but of course she’ll end up in a dangerous situation in the end. Alas that the killer didn’t remember that most women of that day had a built in weapon on hand. Marigold’s strident demand for justice rings true today.
Part of me is like Isabell and yearns for Marigold to marry the man she loves who loves her and part of me applauds her determination to live life on her own terms. If there is a book three, I will check it out. B-
~Jayne
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