Review: A Murder for Miss Hortense by Mel Pennant

February Book of the Month: A Murder for Miss Hortense by Mel Pennant

Book Club Review (Feb 2026)

A Murder for Miss Hortense was our February book of the month, and it is fair to say it went down an absolute treat. Members scored it an outstanding 5 out of 5, with the vast majority awarding it a full five stars. It is one of those books that the group took to immediately and wholeheartedly.

Miss Hortense herself was a character that members absolutely loved. Formidable is the word that kept coming up, and it is hard to disagree. Pearl was also a character that really captured the group's imagination, and when author Mel Pennant joined us for our meeting, that conversation about which characters we wanted to know more about was one of the highlights of the evening.

The mystery is brilliantly put together. There is genuinely no hint of who the murderer is, and the revelation that more than one person is involved gave us a great deal to talk about. Several members mentioned that the dialect took a chapter or two to get used to, but once they were in, they were completely hooked. One member told us they kept finding themselves flicking back to remind themselves who was who, which felt very relatable.

The wonderful news is that the sequel, Miss Hortense and the Last Rites, is available in hardcover on 2nd July 2026. We cannot wait.

If you have not yet picked this one up, we would wholeheartedly recommend it.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 / 5