Left on a Doorstep by Beatrice H. Crew – Book Review
Left on a Doorstep by Beatrice H. Crew – Book Review
Left on a Doorstep
The DuPree Dynasty Book One
Author – Beatrice H. Crew
Publisher – Cryptic Quill Publishing
Pages – 280
Released – 10th September 2021
ISBN-13 – 978-1954430082
Format – ebook, paperback, hardcover
Rating – 3 Stars
I received a free copy of this book.
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Synopsis
England, 1896. On the cusp of her twenty-first birthday ball, Victoria Montgomery, daughter of a well-to-do family, learns that she has more in common with the young unwed mothers she helps in her London charity than she wanted to believe when she discovers she had been left as a baby on her parents’ doorstep. Now a ruthless baby seller is stalking her to take revenge. But when a handsome stranger named Allistair attends Victoria’s ball to compel her to his family’s island estate to be reunited with her ill birth father, Victoria soon discovers she has a history of people trying to kill her. Even her grandmother once attempted to throw her into the sea.
Victoria develops feelings for Allistair, a man she must trust to have her best interests, as he helps unravel the plot against her as well as the lace on her evening dress.
The next planned party is a masquerade ball – if Victoria can survive the event and remove the mask of her past.
Review by George
It’s 1895 and Victoria Montgomery gets a big surprise on her twenty-first birthday. That’s when Lord and Lady Montgomery, the couple she assumed were her parents, tell her they adopted her after someone left her in a basket on their doorstep and that her biological father is Lord John DuPree, who is in ill health and wants to see her.
Victoria is intrigued, but also conflicted. To visit Lord John means leaving her parents behind and travelling to his DuPree Island manor. But, Lord John’s agent, Allistair DuPree is a handsome young man that makes Victoria’s heart go pitty-pat. This, apparently, helps her decide to make the journey to the island.
While the island and the estate are idyllic, all is not well. Trouble seems to be dogging Victoria’s footsteps. Is she imagining things? Is someone trying to scare her away? Or is it something even more sinister?
Left on a Doorstep is described as a romance and mystery but it’s more the former than the latter. I had trouble reconciling the rose-colored world Victoria inhabits with the realities of upper-class life in the late Victorian period. All the couples are deeply in love. If someone has lost a spouse, the missing partner is profoundly mourned. I kept waiting for just one character to say, “I’m glad the old sod’s gone!” but that never happens.
Workers on the DuPree estate (and those on nearby Black Swan Island) are atypically happy. As the American Western song goes, never is heard a discouraging word. Moreover, Victoria takes more than the usual interest in the workers’ welfare. She arranges to bring them parcels of extra food. She wants to arrange to have houses repaired for those who are unable to do so themselves. And she plans for the education of their children. One thinks it would be easier to simply pay them more, a solution that never seems to occur to the ever-concerned Victoria.
The dialog in Left on a Doorstep is formal to the point of being stiff. It’s hard to imagine people, even the very proper upper classes speaking the way they do in the book. And there’s a serious disconnect when Allistair announces he’s going to attend a lecture by three prominent European soil chemists, who he names. The problem? Two of the named persons were, in fact, prominent chemists but both had died by 1895.
There is an element of mystery to the story but for the most part, it takes a back seat to the romantic aspects. Most fans of the mystery genre will probably take a pass on this book, while readers who like historical romances should enjoy it.
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By the time Beatrice was eighteen, she practically lived at her local library. Her favorite genres were Romantic Suspense, Mystery, and Thrillers — particularly those set in England. After graduating from high school, she wrote pages and pages of a story that she was sure would soon be published and make her rich.
Then life took her in a different direction, and her writing shifted from fiction to business books, where she won three national awards through the American Advertising Federation. Beatrice came across her manuscript last year, and the story called to her, saying NOW is the time. Trying to read her teenage pencil scratches on old notebook pages wasn’t easy, but the story, Left on a Doorstep, was still in her.
Beatrice also writes poetry, usually as a subject comes to her. As a positive person, most of the poems are uplifting and come from a place of compassion and deep emotion.
Beatrice lives with her husband of 31 years, Milan Sergent, who is a multi-award-winning author.
