Annie is trying to settle into her new life as owner of Gravesdown Estate in the quiet village of Castle Knoll. She inherited the property after the mysterious death of her aunt Frances. Annie solved her aunt’s murder and was named the heir. Now she has the task of sorting through the estate’s loose ends.
Peony Lane, the fortune-teller who warned her aunt of her future death, shows up unannounced with a prediction for Annie (though she promised she never shares a fortune unless the subject wishes to hear it). But Peony has another piece of information she wants Annie to know. She asks Annie to look through her Aunt Frances’s vast files, clippings, and diaries about Castle Knoll’s history for anything about Olivia Gravesdown. Olivia was married to Edmund Gravesdown, heir to the estate — that is until they were both killed in a car accident and it became Frances’s.
Peony has always considered Olivia’s death to be suspicious. Now, nearly 60 years later, Peony wants to know for sure and she thinks her friend might have noticed something back then, something that will implicate a fellow villager. Annie has heard stories about tragedy and agrees look into it.
Previously, I’d always been somewhat skeptical of fortune-tellers. But my belief system has been a bit upended as of late, and I’ve not really taken the time to think through where I stand now. Throughout my investigations last summer, I never once tried to decide if I believed Aunt Frances’s fortune. It was enough that she believed it, and I felt like my feelings on the subject either way might bias my investigation. ~Loc. 256
Then days later, while sitting with neighbor/grocery shopper Beth, they discover Peony’s body in the solarium. She’s been stabbed, recently, and it means that the murderer had to slip past them — and might still be in the house. Now Annie is racing against an unknown enemy to learn the truth of the car accident before something happens to her.
How To Seal Your Own Fate is a worthy follow-up to the first novel. It brings the reader back to the cozy village of Castle Knoll to visit with its eccentric characters. Though the alternating present day/1967 narrative, the reader is also privileged to see a bit more of Aunt Frances in action as a young woman.
The solution to the puzzle mystery is a little odd, but it’s perfectly enjoyable to read. And as ever, the lovely Gravesdown estate sounds just like the kind of place so many of us dream of inheriting one day. Minus, the murder, of course.
Read How To Solve Your Own Murder, the first in the series.
My thanks to Penguin Random House for the early review copy. Read via Edelweiss.
Publisher: Dutton (April 29, 2025)
Language: English
Hardcover: 320 pages
ISBN-10: 059347404X
