Review: The Legacy of Halesham Hall

The Legacy of Halesham Hall by Jenni Keer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The blurb

1890. One summer evening changes everything for Sidney and Leonard Bellingham when their beloved mother disappears from the family home, Halesham Hall. Left with their bitter father, they are taught to trust no one but themselves, with brother pitted against brother to see who is worthy of inheriting the Bellingham Board Games company. But the series of twisted games they are forced to play will have far reaching consequences.

1920. Phoebe Bellingham arrives at Halesham Hall determined to solve the puzzles that will allow her to claim back the Bellingham inheritance. But this legacy involves more than one secret, and soon Phoebe realises that the stakes are higher than she ever could have imagined.

Told in dual timelines, Sidney's actions in the 1890s as a child and young man, and Phoebe's in the present day with a much older Sidney in residence at Halesham Hall, a bitter and sour man. Sidney's father Clement was a clever man who devised many of his company's best selling games and rather than allowing his eldest son to inherit the Hall and the company, he made the Hall into a giant cryptic game hiding the deeds to the Hall. Whoever of his sons solved the clues first would inherit the company, but the person who found the deeds would inherit the Hall, although the son who inherited the company could live in the Hall until the deeds were found. Sidney solved the puzzle but never found the deeds, his brother Leonard was disinherited.

Twenty -one years later, Phoebe, Leonard's daughter comes to the Hall determined to avenge her father and wrest the Hall away from Sidney, even if it means she must work as a servant in the Hall.

I liked the premise of this book, but I had read something similar in a Lord Peter Wimsey short story, The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager's Will in Lord Peter Views the Body. Also, the dual timelines just meant that I had to read the same clues being solved twice. All-in-all I found the book a bit of a slog TBH and it was only the plethora of four and five star reviews that kept me reading to the end. I found the plot a bit predictable and heavily signalled so that I was entirely unsurprised by the ending.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

View all my reviews