I liked how the author used two Classic authors as for this story. The combination of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins as sleuths for this murder mystery worked well for me. There was a good atmospheric air to the story that gave a good vibe as I read.

Using these figures as sleuths gave me a feeling of a Holmes and Watson style mystery read. Dickens came across as aloof and reminded very much of Holmes, while Collins was more approachable and tries to work things on his own at times and is similar to Watson.

The murder of a maid has links to a Girls School that Dickens is heavily involved in as she was one of his pupils. Collins is a friend of Dickens and together they try to piece together the various clues that they find. They also have the assistance of another maid and together the three of them work their way through the mystery as to why the girl was killed and by whom.

This is a good story that I found quite addictive, it has some good twists and yes I did work some of them out but it didn't take away from the enjoyment of reading. It is a book I think readers of the whodunit style of mysteries would like and it is one I would recommend. This is the first book in The Gaslight Series and I am looking forward to reading the next one.

Charles Dickens as an amateur detective helping the police and getting background for his stories is the start of a new series. A body found in the river will bring back memories for Dickens as he knew the girl who had briefly stayed at one of his charity houses Urania Cottage. Too headstrong to stay she had left with another girl called Sesina. They had both become housemaids together in a boarding house. Dickens was determined to find what had happened to Isabella since she left his house but he would have a fight on his hands with Sesina who would have her own ideas on finding the money that Isabella had been chasing. This is a good start to a new series with a great character in Charles Dickens and the backdrop of Victorian London.
I was given an ARC of this book by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Inspector Field shows Charles Dickens the body of a girl strangled in Victorian London. Dickens recognizes Isabella, one of the fosterlings of a safe house who had left to go into service as a maid with her friend Sessina.
Dickens and Wilkie Collins take up the case. Was it a lover? Was it someone whom she tried to blackmail? Or was it somewhere in her family history from Scotland. Sessina also tries her hand at solving the crime. Whodunit? A Dickensian villain? Someone from the boarding house where the two girls worked? A surprising solution emerges.

I like Cora Harrison's mysteries and I really liked this engrossing and entertaining novel. This has good atmospherics and characters but the story itself felt forced. That said, it's still an enjoyable read that i recommend to all mystery lovers

Season of Darkness is an historical mystery featuring Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins as interested bystanders after a young woman’s body is fished out of the Thames. Dickens’ friend in the police, Inspector Field, notices him and calls him over to where the body is lying. In a major coincidence, Dickens recognizes the young lady as a former resident of his Urania House, the home for the betterment of girls who have been in trouble. This girl, Isabella, disliked the world of rules and left the house, along with her friend Sesina.

Now Dickens feels an obligation to the girl, to find out why she died and who killed her. This novel does not have a single narrator; it’s primary narrator seems to be Wilkie Collins with Sesina becoming a more consistent narrator as the novel proceeds. The narrative voice was one of my issues with the book as I found it initially a bit unclear at times whose point of view was being expressed. This did clear up as Collins’ voice became stronger.

The story was interesting but only just, with a bit too much fawning over Dickens (though this may well have happened in real life, it detracted from my enjoyment). Collins was too self-deprecating for my taste. Once again, this may be historically based but doesn’t make for an interesting character for me.

This is the first book in a new series by an author known for other historical fiction series. I don’t believe I will continue with this new series.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Cora Harrison’s “Season of Darkness”, a Gaslight Mystery, stars authors Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, along with a sassy and smart housemaid named Anna Maria Sessina. In parallel, upstairs/downstairs investigations, they work to solve the murder of Sessina’s friend Isabella, who they suspect was killed by a man she is blackmailing.

The action is fast-paced, and the setting, gaslit London, is filled with smoke, fog and moonlight.

I enjoyed this book immensely!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Season of Darkness by Cora Harrison is a murder mystery, with Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins as the investigators.

These two authors get sucked into the crime as Dickens recognises the woman who is murdered as one of the young women who went to Urania Cottage, which was a home where women could improve themselves, and then emigrate to Australia, America, or South Africa, to make better lives for themselves.

I found the characters to be quite good, but I found them to be a little obsessive over the one idea of who committed the crime, which annoyed me, but being flawed is human.

Cora Harrison has written quite a few historical crime and historical romance novels, so if you like Season of Darkness you should probably have a look at her other books.

Season of Darkness was published on 1st July 2019, and is available to buy on Amazon and on Waterstones. I've found a link to where you can search for local bookshops, including independent!

I was given this book for free in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Severn House Publishers (the publishers) for this book.

Check out my GoodReads profile to see more reviews!

Famous people do interesting things, and Charles Dicken was no exception. "Season of Darkness” by Cora Harrison is definitely an example of that, as the famous writer did have an interest in police work and detecting. We even have Wilkie Collins along, a good friend of Dickens, to serve as a Watson. It just would have been better if the book had moved along a little faster.

Blackmail is never a good idea. It gets you killed. Isabella Gordon is dead, strangled. She was a maid in a house owned by a rich American, a friend of Dickens. Her friend and fellow servant Sesina works in the same house. At one time they were both “inmates” of Urania Cottage where “bad girls” are given training in service to make something of themselves. This is something that Charles Dickens helped to set up, to keep these girls off the streets. Isabella has decided it wasn’t for her, and Sesina soon followed. But now Isabella is dead. Will anyone really care? Sesina isn’t sure, and that becomes the crux of the story.

The story is told from different viewpoints, and that can mean slow going – nothing much happens until the last third. And since the detectives are authors first, they see the murder in those terms first; how to craft a story out of it all. Do you see the modern-day implications here? The “spin?” Whether the real author’s intentions or not, certainly this tale can be said to have an all too modern feel to it in this regard – how to get a headline out of it, how to formulate publicity.

The chapters start with passages from Wilkie Collins’ poem, “Basil,” and also from Mr. Dickens. Very appropriate to a book detailing a murder investigation.

Sesina of course lives in a dream world if she thinks that anything good is going to come out of this for her. The author plays this up in poignant passages that are almost depressing to read. She thinks she know who the murderer is. Is she wrong? Is she right? She also thinks she is smarter than Charles Dickens. She is right and wrong. Unfortunately, I didn’t care what Sesina thought about after a while. It was somewhat interesting; it just takes too long to get there.

Eventually, it becomes clear that nothing is as it seems. Isabella had found things out about her family – things that would have meant the world to her. ‘Tis a saddening end.

Finally, we do have a clever twist on it all, especially on who is doing all the “writing,” the little clues. Because the death of a poor housemaid couldn’t mean anything to anybody, could it? Probably not, unless you’re Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens.

Thanks to the publisher and to Net Galley for a copy of this book, in exchange for this review.

I like Cora Harrison's mysteries and I liked this engrossing and entertaining novel.
The book is well researched and well written, the characters are fleshed out and interesting, the mystery keeps you guessing and it's full of twists and turns.
I look forward to reading other books in this series.
Recommended!
Many thanks to Severn House and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

"Season of Darkness" is a mystery set in 1853 in London. Wilkie Collins helped his friend Charles Dickens to solve the murder of a maid that Dickens once tried to help educate through Urania Cottage. Wilkie and Sesina, a maid who was best friends with the dead girl, were the main view point characters. They went about solving the murder in their own ways, though Sesina was tempted to blackmail the murderer (since she feels she's very clever) while Wilkie and Dickens wanted to turn whodunit in to Inspector Field. The characters were interesting and well developed. Even the secondary characters had realistic motives for why they acted as they did (hiding information, searching for answers, etc.).

Historical details about what London was like at the time were woven into the story and played a role in the mystery. Suspense was created by the danger to Sesina as she tried to uncover several people's secrets in her attempts to discover whodunit. While I correctly guessed whodunit early on, it was very reasonable that the characters didn't see it and whodunit isn't obvious. There was no sex. There were a few uses of bad language. Overall, I'd highly recommend this enjoyable historical mystery.

Fans of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins might quarrel with this historical mystery that puts them into more or less Holmes and Watson roles as they try to find the murderer of Isabella. She was a young woman who has had a difficult life. Dickens felt a sense of responsibility to her because she had moved through a house he helped to fund. This has good atmospherics but the story itself felt forced. That said, it's still an entertaining read. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Season of Darkness by Cora Harrison, Severn House, publishing date 1 July, 2019, http://severnhouse.com/book/Season+of+Darkness/8967

Season of Darkness features Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins as the sleuthing team, aided—or not—by housemaid Sesina, who was friends with the murder victim at the heart of the story. Dickens and Collins are an effective pair, the one much more self-assured than the other, which gives them an interesting mix of dissimilar strengths. The author sets enough false trails to keep readers guessing until the fast-paced ending. The depiction of the class divides in English society at the time, particularly the rather condescending “generosity” of some in the upper classes gives readers something to mull over after the mystery is solved.

I read a lot of Cora Harrison's books as a child and looked forward to reading her writing as an adult. I found the story enjoyable but didn't fall in love with the book. It has many good parts but nothing that makes it better than an average book. I don't think I would be reaching for another book in the series again.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC

"When Inspector Field shows his friend Charles Dickens the body of a young woman dragged from the River Thames, he cannot have foreseen that the famous author would immediately recognize the victim as Isabella Gordon, a housemaid he had tried to help through his charity. Nor that Dickens and his fellow writer Wilkie Collins would determine to find out who killed her. Who was Isabella blackmailing, and why? Led on by fragments of a journal discovered by Isabella’s friend Sesina, the two men track the murdered girl’s journeys from Greenwich to Snow Hill, from Smithfield Market to St Bartholomews, and put their wits to work on uncovering her past. But what does Sesina know that she’s choosing not to tell them? And is she doomed to follow in the footsteps of the unfortunate Isabella...?"

Dickens and dead bodies? Through in Wilkie Collins and this is a must read mystery for me.

Authors Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins are shown a body by Dickens friend Inspector Field. The body had been retrieved from the Thames, unknown, and so her death will probably go unsolved. But Dickens knows her as someone once resident in Urania Cottage, a home for fallen women. Both authors decide to investigate, helped, by Anna Marie Sesina, friend to the dead female, Isabelle Gordon.
The story is related from two points of view, Sesina and Collins.
I enjoyed this historical mystery, it was well-written, though at times a bit slow-paced, and the characters are portrayed well. Overall a good solid start to what I hope is a new series.

Inspector Fields showed Dickens and Collins the body of a young woman pulled from the river. He never expected Dickens to recognize her and get involved in the case.

Severn House and Net Galley let me read this book for review (thank you). It will be published July 1st.

Dickens helps pay for a house where female orphans are taken in. He met her there but she didn't stay too long. She was a little too mouthy and mindful to fit in well and she found another home where she could serve as a servant and she and her friend went there together. How did she end up strangled in the river?

As Dickens works on the case, the other girl sends him off on another path by pretending there are notes hidden in the dead girl's room. She figures the dead girl was blackmailing someone and she wants that money.

Dickens persists in his investigation and finds out what Isabella knew. Now he just has to figure out a few more things and he will have the killer's name. He soon figures out the notes are not from Isabella. While he's working this all out, the other girl is putting herself in danger. Will he be in time to save her?

Charles Dickens supports a home to help young women better themselves. When one of those women turns up dead, he and his friend Wilkie Collins set out to find the murderer.

It would seem every notable person in history was capable of solving mysteries. It didn’t seem like much of a stretch to imagine Charles Dickens being clever enough to do that. Still, this was a hard book to get through.

This is told from two points of view: Sesina, the friend of the murdered girl, and Wilkie Collins, a friend of Dickens and eager to write his own book. Sesina is told in the third person, and she manipulates everything she can to get ahead. Wilkie is told from the first person point of view, and he easily believes what Sesina tells him. Dickens is there to observe, intimidate, and put the clues together.

Not a terrible read, but I found myself bored several times. The writing is rather dry, reminiscent of the time period and Dickens style of writing.

For readers of historical mysteries starring person from history, this wouldn't be a bad choice.

I received a free copy from NetGalley for reviewing purposes. All opinions expressed are my own.

First in the Gaslight Mystery Series

Cora Harrison is one of my favorite authors. Her Reverand Mother series is wonderful reading!

In this new Historical Fiction Series, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins have teamed up to try and solve the murder of a young servant girl named Isabella Gordon. Isabella is one of the young ladies that Dicken's charities had tried to help. Unfortunately, Isabella wasn't a rule follower and she along with her friend, Sisena, moved on to work in a lodging house owned by a friend of Dickens. An American who supposedly made his fortune in gold.

Feeling a strong sense of responsibility to find her killer, Dickens, Collins, and Sisena are looking for clues. Was she blackmailing someone? Is the killer in the house? Will Sisena get greedy and go for the money herself?

I enjoyed the true parts tucked in with the mystery. Since this is the first in a series, I will say that I did not enjoy this one as much as her other series. But we'll see where she goes with it!

NetGalley/ Severn House July 01, 2019

I enjoy reading the novels in Cora Harrison's Burren series so much I was eager to try the first book in this new series set in the Victorian era. This book was just okay for me, certainly different from the pleasure I get from reading about a female judge dispensing Irish justice in the sixteenth century. Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins take on the Holmes/Watson type characters as they investigate the murder of a housemaid in a boarding house. These two authors deserve to be treated as intellectual equals and that becomes a handicap for me as Dickens is given the leading role in the investigation partnership. I tried very hard to give these two major characters a fair chance to hook me into their story, but neither became a favorite for me. It seems as if the housemaid might become a staple character in any other stories that appear and that's another problem for me since I didn't particularly like her as a character either. I'm sorry to say I found myself often wondering when this novel would end, so not a good sign there. It didn't help either that I began to be suspicious of who the villain probably was early on and it turned out I was correct.

If you are interested in the writing of Dickens or Collins, would enjoy imagining what they might be like to deal with in person and you like historical mysteries set in England during Victorian time, this new series might be a good fit for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and Severn House Publishing for an e-Galley of this novel.

Season of Darkness is a historical mystery that is very well written ,but the story is very slow in spots that I lost interest a few times. The characters and descriptions are well written.