A review by thoughtsfromapage
The Essence of Malice by Ashley Weaver

3.0

Due to school starting and the arrival of Hurricane Harvey, I am a bit behind on my reviews. Today, I sat down to knock out the six that I need to do and realized I have been on a huge mystery kick. Five of the six reviews are for mysteries, including The Essence of Malice. While I generally think that is beneficial for comparison purposes to have read a lot of the same genre close in time, I feel that doing so in this case was a disservice for The Essence of Malice. I read the first book in the series, Murder at the Brightwell, when it was published in 2014. I missed the next two and picked up the series with The Essence of Malice. Sadly, I feel like I missed a lot by not reading books 2 and 3, and I had trouble following certain threads of the story and especially felt I was missing a basic understanding of Amory and Miles’ relationship. Having read two other mysteries recently where I had also not read the entire series but had no trouble leaping into the books without feeling like I was missing fundamental facts, this was a disappointment to me. Moreover, Milo is a cad, and half the time I wanted to shake Amory and tell her to have more self-respect and be less dithering. Those concerns aside, I enjoyed the setting, Europe in the mid-1930’s, and the plot was entertaining. I love perfume, and the main focus of the plot was the death of a famous parfumier. The details related to creating perfumes and layering them (a favorite thing of mine to do) were fascinating. I had figured out the “bad guy” midway through the story, but I still enjoyed the resolution and felt the mystery was wrapped up nicely. Thanks to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.