This is the third in Anna Lee Huber’s series of romantic mysteries set in 19th century Scotland and it’s a highly satisfying read on both counts. Lady Keira Darby is the widow of a renowned physician and anatomist who married her solely for her talents as an artist. Too tight-fisted to pay for someone to…
If you’ve read many of my reviews and blogs, you’ve probably figured out that I love historical romance and historical fiction. Even though I have fewer go-to authors in historical mystery, that’s a genre I tend to love as well, and if Murder at Westminster Abbey is anything to go by, I just may have…
There is something about a well-done mystery that grabs the reader, regardless of whether or not you are a mystery lover. I am not a mystery lover. That being said, I love Sherlock Holmes (kind of the ultimate detective, yeah?), I love the Lady Julia series by Deanna Raybourn, and I love Laurie R. King’s…
There was a reason that Queen Mary received the sobriquet Bloody Mary and it is that she instigated the ruthless, violent treatment of her subjects. Elizabeth, her half-sister, seemed the only hope of a people plagued by religious persecution. But Elizabeth’s rise to the throne was fraught with peril, not least because her sister desperately…
Anyone who has ever been on a diet knows the truth. Saying no to yourself is far, far harder than saying yes. Most of us grant little indulgences to ourselves every day. But what happens when the small indulgences turn into big desires? What do we do when something that will change our life becomes…
An Inquiry into Love and Death is a mystery/ghost story set in 1924 England – perhaps capitalizing on Downton Abbey’s popularity. But if we have Downton to thank for the fact that we now find a new period of history interesting (and therefore marketable), then thank God for it. Jillian Leigh is the daughter of…
I’ve been a fan of Tasha Alexander’s Lady Emily series since Emily’s first appearance in And Only to Deceive. Emily has gone through a lot of changes and solved many mysteries since then. The latest entry finds Lady Emily and her husband Colin in Venice to investigate a recent murder. However, classical scholar Emily is…
Great worldbuilding is the kind of thing that makes a reader hopeful. After all, if the world a story inhabits feels real and intriguing, the story itself just might have some of that magic, too. However, without a polished story, a fascinating world isn’t enough on its own and that ended up being the main…
Narrated by Stephanie Daniel This is the 13th entry in the Phryne Fisher mystery series set in 1920s Australia. As always, Stephanie Daniel does a wonderful job with the narration, giving each character a unique, appropriate voice. The Castlemaine Murders features multiple mysteries including a mummified body found on an expedition to an amusement park,…
For once, the cover conveys it perfectly. Do the pastels make you think light and frothy? You’d be right, but skew it over to superficial, and it would be bang on. As much as I wanted to like Ms. South’s 1930s-set mystery, I found it clichéd, indecisive, and one-dimensional – which, I might add, was…