Week 4 Review: Death at a Highland Wedding

From Goodreads:

Death at a Highland Wedding is the fourth installment in New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong's gripping Rip Through Time Novels.

After slipping 150 years into the past, modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson has embraced her new life in Victorian Scotland as housemaid Catriona Mitchel. Although it isnt what she expected, she's developed real, meaningful relationships with the people around her and has come to love her role as assistant to undertaker Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective Hugh McCreadie.

Mallory, Gray, and McCreadie are on their way to the Scottish Highlands for McCreadie's younger sister's wedding. The McCreadies and the groom’s family, the Cranstons, have a complicated history which has made the weekend quite uncomfortable. But the Cranston estate is beautiful so Gray and Mallory decide to escape the stifling company and set off to explore the castle and surrounding wilderness. They discover that the groom, Archie Cranston, a slightly pompous and prickly man, has set up deadly traps in the woods for the endangered Scottish wildcats, and they soon come across a cat who's been caught and severely injured. Oddly, Mallory notices the cat's injuries don't match up with the intricacies of the trap. These strange irregularities, combined with the secretive and erratic behavior of the groom, put Mallory and Duncan on edge. And then when one of the guests is murdered, they must work fast to uncover the murderer before another life is lost.

New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong's unique time travel mystery series continues to entertain as Mallory adjusts to life in the 1870s.

My Review:
Oh, this was an incredible read! I love this series so much, and I was excited for this latest mystery after the events of the previous book! Because now that she got to say goodbye to her family, and that she chose to be in the past, that means something. This was a fantastic addition to the series! 

That this is the marriage of McCreadie's sister, to the brother of the girl that he was supposed to marry, so the families are joining, just with different siblings making up the matrimonial pair, was so interesting! We finally got the whole story of what happened, why McCreadie got disinherited. So that brought up a lot of complicated feelings, and that was before the death occurred. 

Sometimes, I wonder just how much of humanity would have lived longer if certain things that modern society is used to, were introduced sooner. Because while they're slowly starting to implement our modern idea of a police force, of course it happens first in cities, then moves out to the rural areas, which is where this takes place. With a pretty incompetent investigator, which was both helpful and harmful to the investigation, because he had no idea what he was doing, and had the attitude that he wasn't going to take instruction from outsiders, even if they know better. Which sometimes really got my emotions going. 

Given that this is about a wedding, that brings up all sorts of relationships. Like between McCreadie and Isla, but also between Mallory and Gray. Some of it hurt, there were some misunderstandings that I hope can be cleared up, but some of it was positive, though it'll mean change, which I'm excited to see! 

Kelley Armstrong's mysteries are always so well done. The truth can always be figured out, but there's plenty that lead me astray, so that ending, what had happened, was pretty shocking. I didn't expect that it would go in that direction, and I really enjoyed how things shaped up. 

Loved reading this book so much, and I can't wait to read more by Kelley Armstrong! 

Author: Kelley Armstrong 
Series: A Rip Through Time #4
Read: January 18th, 2025 
Source: NetGalley  
Reason Why: Love her writing and this series, and it's a Historical Fiction 2025 Book, Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2025 Book and a WoW Book! 
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Expected Publication: May 20th 2025 

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars