After The Storm – 4 Star Book Review

Welcome to one of the May 16th stops on the blog tour for After the Storm by Isabella Muir, organized by Rachel’s Random Resources. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for more reviews!

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About the Book

After the Storm
Giuseppe Bianchi Book Two
by Isabella Muir

Print/eBook
Published 24 December 2020
Outset Publishing Ltd
Page Count: 214

Audiobook
Published 4 March 2021
Narrator: Charles Johnston
Length: 6 hours and 57 minutes

Genre: Mystery, Crime
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

When a violent storm blasts England’s south coast, it’s up to retired Italian detective Giuseppe Bianchi to sift through the devastation and piece together the tragic events left behind in the storm’s wake.

Giuseppe Bianchi’s brief visit to Bexhill-on-Sea has become an extended stay. He is loath to return to his home in Rome because of the haunting images that made him leave in the first place. 

During his morning walks along the seafront with Beagle, Max, he meets Edward Swain, who becomes Giuseppe’s walking companion. They form a friendship of sorts and find they have a similar outlook on life.

But the devastating events of a single night lead Giuseppe to question the truth about Edward Swain. Teaming up with young journalist Christina Rossi – his cousin’s daughter – Giuseppe learns about the brutal reality lurking behind the day-to-day life of families in the local community. And as the story unravels Giuseppe is reminded how anger and revenge can lead to the most dreadful of crimes.

After the Storm is the second novel in the Giuseppe Bianchi mystery series – the much-awaited sequel to Crossing the Line.

Grab your copy today, and enjoy the intrigue of traditional English mystery, cleverly combined with a continental twist.

Amazon US | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Audible
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My Review

My Rating: 4 Stars
Consider liking my review on Goodreads.

I was invited to listen to After the Storm through Audible as part of my participation in a blog tour for this title with Rachel’s Random Resources. Thank you to all involved in affording me this opportunity! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

I’ve read and reviewed Isabella Muir’s work before, but I did not read the previous book in this particular series, and I’m happy to report that it works well as a stand-alone if you also find yourself accidentally reading book 2 before book 1. As always, Muir’s characters are relatable, well fleshed out, and invitingly open. When these characters interact, you’re part of the conversation. When these characters sit alone with their thoughts, you are the imaginary person they’re talking things through with. There’s absolutely no disconnect, and you’ll be completely enthralled with this cast all the way through.

With that said, even though my review followers will know I’m a sucker for a great character-driven book, this didn’t quite make a 5-star impression on me. The reason is pacing. This is a crime/mystery, and although somebody is dead in the first few minutes/pages, I took note at about 45 minutes into the audiobook that our main sleuth didn’t suspect foul play yet. If you like a long, slow tease in your mysteries, this is the book for you! If not, you’ll still enjoy it, but it won’t be your new favourite.

The culture shock of Italian vs English customs these characters are constantly encountering throughout the book feels very well done and not at all tropy. (Fictional Italians far from home tend to end up being charicatures of Italian stereotypes, but Muir’s Italian travellers and ex-pats aren’t.) I definitely applaud the handling of different cultures without leaning on stereotypes!

Charles Johnston’s performance as narrator is top-notch and a pleasure to listen to. I typically listen to audiobooks at 2x speed these days, and this book was very easy to understand at that speed. Johnston easily distinguishes characters and handles the different accents very well, without resorting to any annoyingly extreme pitch shifting or forced voices.

Overall I think After the Storm is a solid slower paced mystery with great characters, and I would recommend it to readers of the genre without hesitation.

About the Author

Isabella is never happier than when she is immersing herself in the sights, sounds and experiences of the 1960s. Researching all aspects of family life back then formed the perfect launch pad for her works of fiction. Isabella rediscovered her love of writing fiction during two happy years working on and completing her MA in Professional Writing and since then has gone to publish five novels, two novellas and a short story collection.

The Invisible Case is the third book in her Sussex Crime Mystery series, featuring young librarian and amateur sleuth, Janie Juke. Set in the late 1960s, in the fictional seaside town of Tamarisk Bay, we meet Janie, who looks after the mobile library. She is an avid lover of Agatha Christie stories – in particular Hercule Poirot – using all she has learned from the Queen of Crime to help solve crimes and mysteries. All three novels are now available as audiobooks.

As well as three novels, there are three novellas in the series, which explore some of the back story to the Tamarisk Bay characters.

Her latest novel, Crossing the Line, is the first of a new series of Sussex Crimes, featuring retired Italian detective, Giuseppe Bianchi who arrives in the quiet seaside town of Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, to find a dead body on the beach and so the story begins…

Isabella’s standalone novel, The Forgotten Children, deals with the emotive subject of the child migrants who were sent to Australia – again focusing on family life in the 1960s, when the child migrant policy was still in force.

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