Review: Old Money by Kelsey Miller

Old Money

by Kelsey Miller

Release Date: September 30, 2025

2025 Hanover Square Press

Ebook ARC; 368 Pages

ISBN: 978-1335000378

ASIN: B0DR8JDPYQ

Audiobook: B0DSLXMJHS

Genre: Fiction / Mystery

Source: Review copy from publisher

 

2 / 5 Stars

 

Summary

Twenty years ago, sixteen-year-old Caitlin Dale died unexpectedly on the Fourth of July. Like other affluent families of Briar’s Green, Caitlin joined hers at the country’s club’s annual party. They say she slipped by the pool. A tragic accident.

But her cousin Alice knows the truth.

Caitlin was murdered. And Alice saw who did it.

Twenty years later, Alice returns to her childhood hometown of Briar’s Green, seeking answers. The club where Caitlin died has barely changed. But its secrets, Alice soon discovers, are carefully hidden—and there are powerful people in Briar’s Green who would like them to stay that way.

 

My Thoughts

Old Money is one of those books that I thought would be fun to read as I am always intrigued when it comes to hidden secrets by the wealthy and by something happening at one of those annual parties, and they mystery is still unsolved many years later.  However, this one just didn't seem to work for me, and I had to push myself to read through to the end.  

 

I have come to the conclusion that I am not a fan of unreliable narrators, especially in a book where the author does so much telling instead of letting the reader figure things out as the story progresses. I was not a big fan of Alice and thought her character development was one-dimensional at best.  And she was quite annoying. I know the book was supposed to be about ripping out those dark, buried secrets, but it was mostly about Alice insisting that everyone else was wrong about what they did and saw and that she, Alice, was the one who actually saw what was happening. Again, preserve me from an unreliable narrator who deems themselves to be the only one who saw something and is not being listened to. UGH!

 

The first half of the book was a bit slow, but I typically don't mind that as it can be good to slowly build up the tension for the big reveal.  However, I never really felt like there was any tension and never thought Alice was in any real danger, at least by the interactions she had with any of the characters. There should be this thought that the MC should not be doing this or that because it could put her in danger, but the author chose to go the telling route which totally destroyed any of the tension for me.  Plus, it gave away the culprit, at least in my eyes, quite easily.  However, because we swiveled so much, I didn't buy the ending and thought it was sloppy.  If you are going to try and include a major surprise, at least make it believable, and this so wasn't.

 

Verdict

Old Money is one of those books that had an interesting premise, but didn't live up to its potential.  And while the book was supposed to dive into the super rich, I don't think it even accomplished that.   I thought the plot was very disjointed and the character development was one-dimensional. Maybe someone else will find this more interesting than I did, but by 80% in, I just wanted this book to be done so I could move on to something else.