Review: Dark Road to Darjeeling by Deanna Raybourn

*Warning* This review may contain spoilers for the first three books in the Lady Julia Grey series.  If you haven't read them yet, and you don't want to be spoiled, don't read further.  Also, if you haven't read them yet, what are you doing here?  Go read them!  They're really good.

And now, on to the review.

I love Deanna Raybourn.  The relationship between Julia and Brisbane crackles with sexual tension in the first three Lady Julia Grey novels.  And her stand alone novel, The Dead Travel Fast, was creepy, romantic, and very entertaining.

Her latest, Dark Road to Darjeeling, is a continuation of Julia and Brisbane's story.  At the end of Silent on the Moor Julia and Brisbane resolve their romantic problems, and when we pick up in Darjeeling they are married and on their honeymoon tour.  All should be blissful in paradise, right?  Um, not so much.

Julia's sister and brother, Portia and Plum, have tracked them down in Egypt.  Portia has received a letter from her former lover, Jane, and all is not well at her new home in India.  Portia and Plum have come to collect Julia and Brisbane and find out what is going on.

But an untimely interruption is not the only fly in the ointment.  Julia and Brisbane's courtship, if you can call it that, was liberally seasoned with murder and intrigue.  After months of travel, things are getting a little, well, dull.  Brisbane has turned out to be a far more conventional a husband than Julia imagined he'd be.  He's even more resistant now to the idea of Julia joining him on his investigations than he was before they were married.  She's beginning to wonder if this was the right choice.  And worse, she's beginning to wonder if he thinks the marriage was a mistake, too.

Darjeeling is most definitely a transitional book.  The sparks between Julia and Brisbane were what kept me coming back for more in the first three books.  But the tension in a relationship changes after marriage, and that's where they are right now.  Trying to find their footing in their new relationship.  There are some classic moments between the two, but there is also more worry and sadness.  They also seemed to spend more time apart this time, with Brisbane working off screen for large parts of the book.  The ending gives me hope that they will find a better balance in their relationship, but in book four they are missing some of their sparkle.

The whole mood of this book is different from the first three.  Most of the story takes place at a tea plantation in India, which greatly affects the tone of the book.  And there are far more deaths in this book than the others.  Six in total, two occurring before Julia and her family arrive.  And the deaths in this one all seem so pointless (in a human condition kind of way, not that the author was killing off characters for no reason).  One of these deaths is particularly painful, capping off the gloomy atmosphere of the book.

There were some very interesting surprises, however.  We meet a few characters that I wasn't expecting to see again, and one new one who was really out of the blue.  I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of this character in the future, and I can't wait to see how Raybourn handles that.  (I'd love to discuss this particular character more, but my absolute loathing for spoilers forbids me from saying anything further.)  There was also a real "finally!" moment between Julia and Brisbane at the end of the book, and I can't wait to see how it impacts future books.

I give this one a B.  It may not be my favorite of the series, but it's still entertaining, and there's some can't-be-missed info for the future.  Dark Road to Darjeeling is available from Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble and many other stores.

It was hard, but I pre-ordered this one, paid for it with my own money, and then waited FOREVER for release day.