: An All-Consuming Fire (Monastery Murders #5)

Title:  An All-Consuming Fire (Monastery Murders #5)

Author:  Donna Fletcher Crow

Pages:  294

Year:  2015

Publisher:  Verity Press

Antony Sherwood has been pressed into service as a narrator for a mini-series on the early mystics in the church.  The former narrator for the mini-series was killed in book four of this series.  It is two weeks before his wedding and one week before Christmas.  He is filming one scene when the cameraman has an accident, which could have had serious consequences.  Fortunately, the cameraman is only mildly injured.  Antony wonders if this was really an accident or if there is foul play at work.

Felicity has her mother to entertain for two weeks until her wedding.  She and her mother have always had a strained relationship, but Felicity really hopes this time together will help mend fences.  Felicity has agreed to help one of the local church-supported outreach for children in putting on an Epiphany Pageant.  She misses Antony when he has to go on location for filming, but puts her mind toward helping the children learn their parts in the play.

As Antony continues filming, more “accidents” or near misses continue, leading up to murder.  When Felicity goes under the stage in preparation for the play, she makes a grisly discovery.  Antony is worried someone is out to harm Felicity, but leaves the solving of these crimes in the hands of the police.  Felicity is counting the days until she is married and hopes no more murders occur.

I have read all the other books in this series and enjoyed them, but this one wasn’t my favorite.  There is a vague hint of a relationship between two women characters in the story that goes beyond friendship that could be interpreted as a homosexual relationship.  While I appreciate the author’s knowledge of the Anglican Church and British history, there are too many Anglican Church terms that are not defined and a lot of church historical information that made the story more difficult to understand and slowed the pace.  The first murder didn’t occur until I was over 100 pages into the book.  It didn’t appear to me that Antony or Felicity did much to solve the murders either.  I did like Felicity’s and Antony’s patience with Felicity’s mother as well as their wish to have a simple wedding ceremony, honoring God.  I appreciated Felicity’s sense of peace as she participated in the services.  I also liked the different scenery used in the story at the various filming sites.  The author is very knowledgeable about her topic and I know lots of research went into writing the story, but this one was just okay for me.

My rating is 3 stars.

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