Random Things Tours – Book Review – The Night In Question by Susan Fletcher

Genre: Mystery

Number of Pages: 420

Date of Publication: 18 April 2024

Publisher: Bantam/Transworld

My Review Summary: A richly textured story full of love and emotion.

📖PLOT SUMMARY FROM GOODREADS📖

A lyrical and emotionally engaging novel infused with mystery and wisdom about love, friendship, and the power of forgiveness.

Florrie Butterfield—eighty-seven, one-legged, and of cheerful disposition—believes there can’t be any more adventures or surprises in life to experience. Yet one midsummer’s evening, there’s an accident at Babbington Hall—the adult residence where she lives—so shocking and strange that Florrie is suspicious; is this really an accident? Or is she being lied to? Is she, in fact, living alongside a potential murderer?

In her efforts to learn the truth, Florrie is forced to look back on her own life, with all its passions and regrets; she must confront her own bloody secret—and, at last, forgive herself. Above all, Florrie learns, through the help of her new friend, Stanhope, that you’re never too old to have the life you’ve always dreamed of. When it comes to love, it’s never too late.

💭THOUGHTS💭

I thought that the blurb sounded interesting and something a bit different to the mysteries that I usually read. I have read a fair number of mysteries, but very few have an older main character. They tend to be young and I wanted to read something a bit different, something where someone had lived a bit. I was therefore pleased when I was accepted onto this Blog Tour. I can honestly say that it exceeded my expectations. It was beautifully written, full of rich descriptions, emotional and optimistic.

The writing was engaging and detailed. I was completely swept up in the story and looked forward to picking it up at each reading session.

I loved how well rounded it was. There were a mix of tenses throughout and usually within the space of a few sentences. We were being told what the character was doing by a narrator, then we are taken into the conversation by the character. All within a couple of sentences of one another. It was an interesting style and cleverly resulted in a well rounded picture.

There were quite a few chapters, each with an intriguing title and a picture of a feather underneath. Each chapter was long and held a lot of information. I never felt bogged down and enjoyed everything that I was being told. It was this level of intricate detail that brought the story together well.

I did have to concentrate on what was going on as the timeline was interesting. We kept going back and forwards, which together gradually built up to give us the full picture of the main character’s life as well as solving the mystery.

The characters were excellent. I loved the main character. We really got to understand who she was by the end of the story. The side characters who featured in the main character’s life made her who she was. It was emotional to read, but true to life.

I loved how the main character always had a positive attitude despite everything that had happened to her. Love was the main focus throughout the character’s story and it is what I mainly took away from the book.

Lastly the settings. There were rich descriptions of the characters’ surroundings throughout the story. They added a lovely extra layer to an already multilayered story, so whilst we were trying to work out what happened to the main character and who the murderer was, we could do it in well described surroundings.

Overall a richly textured story full of love and emotion. I highly recommend reading it.

✏️ AUTHOR ✏️

Susan Fletcher was born in Birmingham and studied English Literature at the University of York.

Whilst taking the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, she began her first novel, Eve Green, which won the Whitbread First Novel Award (2004) and Betty Trask Prize (2005). Since then, Susan has written seven novels – whilst also supplementing her writing through various roles, including as a barperson, a cheesemonger and a warden for an archaeological excavation site near Hadrian’s Wall. Most recently, she has been a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Worcester.

She lives in Warwickshire.

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