“The Oxford Inheritance” (2016) has a plot that would be fascinating if you’ve never read a book before, but ultimately its generic nature makes it float away from your brain the second you’re done with it. While it lacks posterity value, it’s a decent read in the moment, especially at the start when Ann A. McDonald leans into the coziness porn that is meant to hook book lovers.
American-student-at-Oxford Cassie Blackwell gets assigned to a cute exposed-beam attic dorm with bubbly roommate Evie, campus buildings are hundreds of years old yet sturdy, and small classes feature students sitting on couches. Writing philosophical essays is the top priority of everyone scurrying about (although edgier students like Olivia and Hugo like to party, too).
The novel features two libraries. Below the campus library, a door requiring a pass card leads to a tunnel and football-field sized archives of Raleigh College ephemera. At an off-campus library in walking distance, Cassie lands a librarian job like an afterthought, allowing her to do even more research into why her late mother bolted from the college back to the USA in the 1990s.
“The Oxford Inheritance” (2016)
Author: Ann A. McDonald
Genres: Mystery, fantasy
Setting: 2016, Raleigh College, Oxford, England
Note to readers: The Book Club Book Report series features books I’m reading for my book club, Brilliant Bookworms.
This is one of those cozy mystery-fantasy mass market paperbacks with evocative blurbs and cover art; “Buffy” Lite or “Harry Potter” Lite. I thought for sure “The Oxford Inheritance” was the first of a long, popular Cassie Blackwell series, but this is the only entry. I was thinking of the Cassie Blake book series, “The Secret Circle” – where her mysterious father is named Blackwell.
McDonald’s prose is smooth and clean – except she weirdly uses “startled” as an action verb several times – and characters have sharp corners, but you’re not likely to get more than one twist per character. The initially “creepy” jogger Charlie might turn out to be a nice guy, for instance.
One and done
Other characters don’t even get one bonus layer. The coziness of Cassie skulking around campus haunts while thinking about her mother’s possible connection to The School of Night – a continuation of Sir Walter Raleigh’s school-within-the-school from its 13th century founding – gets blown up when she’s assaulted by a guy who might as well be named A. Rapist.
One oddity of “The Oxford Inheritance” is that it seems to have the supernatural in it from page one – again, partly because of the connections to “The Secret Circle” – but McDonald goes a long time without explicitly stating this. Even when mysteriously sexy Hugo (like Angel to Buffy, in Season 1) grabs Cassie’s wounded hand and heals it, she doesn’t dwell on that (even though we’re privy to her thoughts the whole novel).
For all its cliches, “The Oxford Inheritance” is good enough that I thought for sure McDonald – who, like Cassie, attended an Oxford college — was a full-time author, but this is her only book. Her bio says she works in Hollywood; however, IMDb lists no credits. She could be a strong editor for adding atmospheric vibe to novels or screenplays.
For this one, the plot is too generic to live up to the supposed weight of a centuries-long mystery. Granted, everything snaps into place within the logic where a smidgen of the supernatural impinges on the real world. But the plot achieves this with circular logic, and that makes the mystery ephemeral rather than substantial.
I began to sense the smoke and mirrors as “The Oxford Inheritance” moved forward. It’s readable and well-paced, and some young readers will embrace it. But when the ground is so well-tilled, it’s hard to get something new to grow.