Marion Lane and the Deadly Rose Review

Marion Lane and the Deadly Rose is an upcoming book that I thought was a fantastic read. With an engaging mystery that keeps you on the edge of your seat and compelling characters, I thought this was a great sequel!

Marion Lane and The Deadly Rose Review

T.A Willberg is back and in a big way! This is our first book of 2022, and man am I excited for this release. Coming February 2nd, 2022, Marion Lane and the Deadly Rose is one of my favourite books in recent memory. If you haven’t read Marion Lane and The Midnight Murder, this is your PSA to go read it right now, and forget about even the non-spoiler side of things.

One of the downfalls of book 1s is that you have to spend some time building the world and the characters, and in written literature that is a difficult and time consuming thing to do. It is also one of the main reasons this book is even better than Marion Lane and The Midnight Murder.

We jump straight into the story and that ball of momentum doesn’t ever really stop. As you know from the first book, Willberg loves to start novels with a prologue that hints at a lot but typically has no context and leaves you itching for answers. It’s wonderfully done in The Deadly Rose and it actually had me starting the novel with more questions than answers.

With 14 months between the releases of these books, if you haven’t read The Midnight Murder lately and are anything like me, you might be concerned about not remembering characters or subtle little plot details. Have no fear, The Deadly Rose includes a built-in character refresher in the first few chapters.

Names, places, events, everything and anything that is going to be important to remember is at least touched on in passing to begin with, and I loved that little touch. It took away the first few chapter of confusing, or spending 20 minutes online tracking down a good review or plot summary in order to remember who everyone was. With that out of the way, it was time to get down to business.

The main plot of Marion Lane and The Deadly Rose is that perfect mix between a murder-mystery and a sci-fi. The world building behind Miss Brickett’s continues to be one of the coolest concepts in fiction I have ever seen. A secret underground detective agency with technology that is really just magic comes to life.

The vision needed to be able to not create the world, but to dream up all the cool gadgets is something worth coming back to. I love the darker angle we take in this book, diving more into the nitty gritty behind the scenes. No large organization is ever perfect or free of trouble and Miss. Brickett’s is no different. We get a look into that in The Midnight Murder, but it is much more apparent in The Deadly Rose. Not going to touch that anymore without giving anyway the entire plot, so come back when the book releases for more.

With this being the second of three books, we start to get a good feel for who Marion Lane actually is and where her journey is headed. She is a lot more complicated than anyone could have ever imagined, and her character building is absolutely amazing. Even after finishing this book, I feel like there is still more that ties her to Miss. Brickett’s that will be revealed in the finale of the trilogy, but we will have to wait and see.