After betrayal by her boyfriend of 12 years musical superstar (think Taylor Swift or Adele) Vivian runs away to London and anonThree and a half stars.
After betrayal by her boyfriend of 12 years musical superstar (think Taylor Swift or Adele) Vivian runs away to London and anonymity before the launch of her worldwide tour to launch her new album.
Beau thought he and his friend with benefits Coral were a great match, he even suggested they move in together, but she laughed in his face and said he wasn't the sort of guy that girls got serious about. After a childhood accident which left him with extensive burns on his body Beau has always tried to live life to the full, whether that's climbing in the Himalayas, base jumping, or husky mushing, and he locums as a GP in between adrenalin rushes.
When they literally run into each other at a coffee shop Beau doesn't recognise Vivian and they strike up a tentative friendship. While Vivian doesn't totally trust Beau, after what she's been through who could blame her, she is intrigued by the fact that he seems to be interested in her as a person, not the pop legend. So when her manager suggests a fake romance to divert the media's attention from her ex-boyfriend's bitter rants about her in the press, Beau is happy to step up - they both know this isn't real, its just one friend helping out another, isn't it?
I really enjoyed this, Beau and Vivian were a nice couple.
Amy is used to working long hard days in forex, until she collapses with a suspected heart attack. At the same time, she discovers she has been left aAmy is used to working long hard days in forex, until she collapses with a suspected heart attack. At the same time, she discovers she has been left a property in Italy by a complete stranger. Forced by her employer to take several weeks leave to recuperate she travels to the Tuscan hills to discover a magnificent inheritance. The time alone will also allow Amy to decide how she feels about her boyfriend and whether they have a future together.
This was pleasant enough, although I didn't feel the romance - I kept wondering why she fell in love with him. Also, TA Williams' novels are all beginning to feel very similar with the inevitable Labrador and lengthy food descriptions.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
Diantha Halstow is fabulously wealthy, but her non-nonsense attitude and her grandfather's trade connections have left potential suitors cold. The newDiantha Halstow is fabulously wealthy, but her non-nonsense attitude and her grandfather's trade connections have left potential suitors cold. The new Earl of Chartridge, Rexford Lytham, has inherited more debt than he can possibly clear, and he is forced to consider the unwelcome prospect of marrying for money, being nothing less than a common fortune hunter. When his cousin tells him about Diantha, and her unique view that love and romance are utter nonsense. While their relatives scheme to matchmake them, they decide to enter into a marriage of convenience.
Rex and Diantha come to work together well as a couple, matchmaking his brother and her cousin, and rescuing another cousin who has been trapped by a married couple. But as Napoleon escapes from imprisonment, war looms large on the horizon.
This was a strange novel, the bedroom scenes were glossed over, and there was a lot of historical detail, particularly around the Napoleonic Wars. It reminded me of the sort of detailed historical romances Georgette Heyer wrote so well (without ever reaching those giddy heights of perfection), so basically not an inaccurate bodice-ripper. However, all this good build-up was spoilt for me by the abrupt end, maybe I'm too used to the epilogue rounding off the novel nicely.
A Kindle freebie and available on Kindle Unlimited....more
Vincent Cove is a billionaire property developer/investor, a self-made man who never stays in one place for long.
Kate spent her early years in chaos, Vincent Cove is a billionaire property developer/investor, a self-made man who never stays in one place for long.
Kate spent her early years in chaos, since the age of seven she has lived on the Crompton Estate with her beloved granny, latterly working in the estate's tea shop by day and the pub/inn at night. After her childhood, Kate never wants to leave the love and warmth of the small group of people who live and work in the estate.
Vincent is visiting the estate incognito with a view to potentially buying it from the Earl and turning it into a 5 star hotel. Whilst there he meets Kate at the tea shop and she serves him that evening in the pub. One thing leads to another and they spend an unforgettable night together, but all that turns to dust when Kate discovers Vincent will be turfing them out of their cottages (and moving them into purpose-built housing nearby) and putting them out of jobs (although offering to retrain everyone).
This was just okay for me. I found it difficult to reconcile the sexually confident, deeply insightful, woman with the woman who was too scared to leave the estate to look at a house literally five minutes away. Otherwise, catnip!
DCI Jim Oldroyd and his team are faced with life imitating art when famous author Damian Penrose is found strangled in the empty Harrogate Royal BathsDCI Jim Oldroyd and his team are faced with life imitating art when famous author Damian Penrose is found strangled in the empty Harrogate Royal Baths during the annual Crime Writing Festival. Penrose seemed to be universally disliked with a history of infidelity, two ex-wives, a disgruntled former business partner, allegations of plagarism (particularly from young women), and a general contempt for other people.
Suspicion falls on two other writers and a local publisher who had raised allegations in an author Q&A the previous evening and then argued with Penrose at the hotel bar afterwards, but none of them could be proved to be near the Baths at the time in question. Similarly, the employees at the Baths seemed to have no motive, although one receptionist did suggest that the murder bore a striking resemblance to the plot of another crime novel.
This was very odd, not sure what the word is maybe Meta or intertextual? A novel about a crime committed at a Crime Writing festival which mimics crimes in a fictional book written by one of the other characters?
There is also a side plot featuring the noxious DCI Fenton, Stephanie, and sexual harassment.
My gripe, I guessed the murderer very early on and had my suspicions about a key point even earlier. Also, I couldn't understand why the Baths would leave wet towels in the changing rooms overnight and remove them in the morning rather than empty the bins at the end of the day's session and send them for laundry - I thought it was a clue.
I have been trying to read these quickly because I have an ARC of the tenth book to review and I wanted to understand how the series had evolved but I fear the more I read the less I like Oldroyd who seems like a bit of a dinosaur which, considering he is probably meant to be my age (or younger!) seems a bit silly. I suspect there is an attempt to make him like Morse or Poirot but I would prefer more police procedural and less waiting for the bodies to pile up while he snatches at clues.
Taylor is a single mother of a child, Max, who is just that little bit 'different' from the other children. He is mathematicallThree and a half stars.
Taylor is a single mother of a child, Max, who is just that little bit 'different' from the other children. He is mathematically gifted, socially awkward, doesn't like sport, and very particular about things being predictable eg always fish fingers on a specific day of the week, vegetables not touching the meat etc. Since Max's father decided he wasn't cut out for fatherhood, Taylor has given up on her dreams of being a fashion designer and settled for making repairs and alterations from her cramped rented flat. She is desperate to move, and would like to move Max to a closer school where he wouldn't be bullied as much, but Max is adamant he doesn't want anything to change.
Harry is an accountant. He is also quite literally a train-spotter, a loner, someone with a set routine, even dressing for the office when working from home. His favourite hobby, aside from watching Michael Portillo's train journeys on TV, is playing train-related board games at the Board Game Café. After his last girlfriend used him to fix things around the house then dumped him for being boring he's been a bit reticent around women.
Initially, when they meet, Taylor thinks Harry is a typical grey boring accountant, and she much prefers the flashy estate agent Tarquin with his sharp suits and colourful outfits, but she quickly comes to realise that Tarquin is actually a well-dressed creep who promises much and delivers little, while Harry is kind and thoughtful. But Taylor is convinced Harry would never be interested in a woman with a child, especially one like Max. Whereas, for his part, Harry thinks no-one as beautiful and talented as Taylor could possibly be interested in a train-spotter.
After Taylor upcycles a pair of jeans which Harry accidentally asked her to cut six inches off, instead of six centimetres, by adding a tartan flare and pockets, she is persuaded to start an upcycling sewing class above the café and put on a fashion show at the local school to showcase her talents, which might win her more interesting work that replacing zips and taking up hems.
This was a heart-warming cosy romance, Taylor has been brought up not to be beholden to anyone and so her kind friends, customers, and neighbours have to find creative ways to help her (like putting on a fashion show), and Taylor has to learn that help isn't always given out of pity.
So sorry I seem to have missed the second book featuring schoolteacher Jo.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
This is the second in a series although it can easily be read as a standalone.
Its 1969, Amanda Chapin, daughter of local landowThree and a half stars.
This is the second in a series although it can easily be read as a standalone.
Its 1969, Amanda Chapin, daughter of local landowner Lancelot Chapin, is getting married at the lcoal church with the reception at the family home Brackerley Manor. The women from Brackerley Open Prison have been invited to cater the wedding breakfast and the whole village is invited. Amanda's mother died when she was only six years old and her father remarried a much younger woman, Penny, who has been more of a sister than a mother to Amanda. Indeed, it is a local woman, Gloria Thwaite, who looked after Amanda when she was a child, and as a result she and her husband are given the honorary titles of auntie and uncle.
But at the wedding reception one of the inmates, Linda, goes out looking for another who has been on break for too long and finds Mr Chapin slumped on a bench, stabbed through the heart.
it seems as though there is no shortage of potential suspects, with rumours of infidelity, money problems, secret babies, unpopular property development plans, fortune hunters, and suicides which could all be motives for murder (and there's six of them). Added to which, three residents of the local old people's home, also part-owned by Mr Chapin, appear to doing their own version of The Thursday Murder Club and have dragged Nell Lewis, newly appointed governor of the prison, into their investigations.
it is down to DS Angela Ambrose to piece together the witness statements, wedding photos, and other evidence and uncover the murderer.
I haven't read the first book in the series (although I did recently take advantage of a 99p offer and will be reading it shortly) and so i was expecting Nell to be the 'detective' in this series but while her personal and professional life do feature strongly, she was definitely on the periphery of the investigation.
I did enjoy this, once the murder happened. Prior to that there seemed a lot of explaining, presumably to set up each of the potential murderers. It kept me guessing to the end.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley....more
40 years ago Lord Vivian Redmire, a man who loved taking up new hobbies, developed an interest in magical tricks and, at enormoThree and a half stars.
40 years ago Lord Vivian Redmire, a man who loved taking up new hobbies, developed an interest in magical tricks and, at enormous expense, had a locked room built at Redmire Hall where he mystified guests at a dinner party with his ability to disappear and reappear in an apparently locked room. However, after that night he never repeated the trick and the room, like so many of his other hobbies was abandoned.
Now, his son Lord Freddie Redmire, notorious for his gambling (badly) and womanising, has gathered his family together at Redmire Hall to recreate his father's trick, this time in front of television cameras and, to give an even greater air of probity, he has invited DCI Jim Oldroyd to attend. The DCI is a sucker for magic tricks and has lured DS Stephanie Johnson along with the promise of a smack-up meal.
The scene is set for disaster, his younger brother Dominic resents Freddie was wasting the family fortune, Dominic's wife Mary has been having an affair with Freddie. Freddie's daughter Poppy and her boyfriend Tristan are short of money, ironically because of Tristam's gambling debts, and are hoping Freddie will give them some money. Freddie's former long-term lover Alex is now married to Freddie's former business partner James who blames Freddie for their luxury car business failing. Freddie's ex-wife Antonia, who divorced him over his affair with Alex, has now remarried Douglas, a wealthy furniture salesman, albeit not in the same league as Lord Redmire. Freddie's mother the Dowager Lady Redmire actively despises her son who is wasting the family's inheritance and lacks his father's charisma. Finally, the remaining family members are Freddie's son Alistair and his wife Katherine, who live close to the Hall but are given no say in its running. In addition there are numerous staff who fear for their jobs if Freddie's reckless gambling isn't halted.
After the usual rigmarole of the guests checking the room for secret doors, the room is locked, when it is reopened a few moments later Freddie has vanished and again the guests can see no obvious means of escape. When the room is locked again and reopened Freddie has reappeared as expected, but with a dagger thrust in his back ... Duh, Duh, Duh!
There seem to be multiple people who could have a motive for killing Freddie, unfortunately they were all in the audience watching the trick and in full view of the TV cameras. Then, later that night a retired handyman is found brutally strangled in his own home, presumably because he knew the secret behind the locked room trick and the murderer(s) wanted to tie up loose ends.
The press are having a field day, and when Freddie's will is read the bequests give some of the family even greater reason to have wanted him dead. Can DCI Oldroyd identify the killer(s)?
This felt very old school Poirot (or even Colombo), especially when DCI Oldroyd indulges in his love of the dramatic by gathering the family together to explain each of their motives which was fun, but not very realistic TBH. I was a bit disappointed to find that this was another locked room mystery, albeit this was literally a locked room rather than a chapel converted into a concert hall.
Still DCI Oldroyd's personal life is moving at a glacial pace and he seems a bit pathetic, can't really cook, doesn't do anything or go anywhere (at least I can cook LOL).
DCI Jim Oldroyd is, as we know, a lover of classical music. However, he gets more than he bargains for when he witnesses the lead violinist of the SchDCI Jim Oldroyd is, as we know, a lover of classical music. However, he gets more than he bargains for when he witnesses the lead violinist of the Schubert String Quartet being assassinated during a performance of Franz Schubert's Death and the Maiden at the Halifax Red Chapel Arts Centre. Not only that, while the DCI is trying to keep everyone calm and preserve the scene, someone makes off with the victim's extremely rare and valuable Munsterhaven Stradivarius violin, one of nine stringed instruments made for Baron Munsterhaven by Stradivarius all of which bear the Baron's coat of arms. Not only that but when they search the arts centre the assassin has disappeared, there are no ways of exiting the building that were not in full sight of some of the staff the entire time. A classic locked room mystery.
Joining forces with the local police, Jim and DS Andy Carter struggle to find both the assassin and the missing violin, until another member of the quartet is assassinated in his home. Now it appears as though wealthy instrument collectors will stop at nothing to possess such a rare violin.
It also appears that the victim, Hans Muller may not have acquired the Stradivarius in the most above-board fashion, there are rumours that it is 'Nazi Gold', ie a precious article stolen from a Jewish family during WW2 by the Nazis. Could the murders be associated with radical groups trying to repatriate stolen treasures?
I enjoyed this, J.R. Ellis clearly likes to research his subjects thoroughly, hence each chapter describes a different rare Stradivarius violin and their history, I suppose with an instrument over 300 years old it is unsurprising that they have variously been lost, stolen, hidden, and mislaid over the years. I have two gripes, first (view spoiler)[I would have thought the man who went haring off after the gunman and was the only person to leave the building (looking for the sniper) before the police arrived would have been my primary suspect (hide spoiler)], and second there really aren't any developments in either Jim or Andy's personal lives (at least on the page), if you are going to give some personal backstory then it needs to develop somewhat.
Ellie has just been ceremonially dumped by her boyfriend Shane, since she'd dropped out of college to manage his speedway career she has no qualificatEllie has just been ceremonially dumped by her boyfriend Shane, since she'd dropped out of college to manage his speedway career she has no qualifications, and since they shared his money, she has no salary, and no job history. So when she gets a temporary assignment as PA/office manager to a private doctor in Harley Street she is ecstatic, if she saves every penny she can she might be able to go to the Cordon Bleu culinary school. Except Dr Zach Cove doesn't seem to want her to do anything, and he doesn't seem very enthusiastic about getting clients. Furthermore, everything she does to help him just seems to irritate him instead.
Zach Cove comes from a family of doctors, both his parents and all his brothers are doctors, so he felt obligated to go into the family business, but he hates it. What he wants to do is write and he has in fact written a cosy detective story, set in a hospital. A very famous book agent has agreed to represent him, but she is retiring imminently and she has a LOT of changes she wants him to make to the book, so Zach is using his two days a week at his private practice to edit his novel rather than see patients.
When it becomes clear that Zach needs to spend 24/7 editing his book he decides to spend a week on the remote Scottish island of Rum staying in his cousin Vincent's cottage/shack, then the courier who was supposed to deliver the final notes from his agent to Rum, delivers it to Harley Street instead. Realising that Zach needs this parcel very urgently, and no courier can guarantee net day delivery, Ellie resolves to deliver the parcel herself. But the ferry timetables and an incoming storm mean that she has to stay in the cottage with Zach for several days, where the sparks between them turn into flames.
Zach is pretty much all in (which makes a nice surprise), but Ellie is wary after her experiences with Shane and doesn't want to give up on her dreams and subsume herself in a man again, can Zach persuade her that he is different?
The first half of the book didn't do much for me, especially the forced proximity in a small cottage due to a storm, but I did very much like the thoughtful way in which Zach and Ellie created their relationship thereafter.
Sutton is a hairdresser who studied at night and has one a trainee doctor place at the Royal Free. To take her mind off hDoes what it says on the tin.
Sutton is a hairdresser who studied at night and has one a trainee doctor place at the Royal Free. To take her mind off her new job, her BFF sets her up on a blind date with Beau Cove, he's perfect because he's just about to leave the UK to work in Africa for Doctors without Borders or something similar. What Sutton doesn't know is that Beau had an accident and bashed his face up so he gets his older brother Jacob to substitute so as not to let her down. Jacob is also a doctor, at the Royal Free and duh, duh, duh happens to be one of the consultants on her training scheme.
After a wonderful night of unbridled passion Sutton ignores Beau/Jacob's requests for another date, but is totally blindsided when she sees him on the first day of her training. Even worse, she is assigned to his rotation first. Sutton has worked hard to overcome her less than stellar childhood and she can't bear that anyone will think she is trying to sleep her way to the top. For his part, Jacob wants to run the training scheme and having an affair with one of his trainees would not look good. So they agree to pretend it never happened and keep their eyes on their respective prizes, which goes just about as well as you would imagine :)
I've got to admit Louise Bay is my guilty pleasure, nothing too taxing, straightforward plots, and this is no different. Very easy reading.
Michael is a geography teacher. Eighteen months ago his wife Natasha left him and moved back in with her parents. Since then he has become a bit of a Michael is a geography teacher. Eighteen months ago his wife Natasha left him and moved back in with her parents. Since then he has become a bit of a hermit, only happy in his own company, and he spends evenings and weekends walking alone. One of his oldest friends, and now boss, is Cleo who constantly nags him to go out, to meet people, to try dating, but despite being lonely, Michael still isn't over his marriage. When Michael tells Cleo he intends to do the 190 mile coast-to-coast walk devised by Alfred Wainwright she persuades him that it would be fun to have some company, at least for the first couple of days, Cleo and her husband and teenage son, a couple of other people, etc.
Marnie is a divorced copy-editor. Self-employed, since her divorce she has noticed that friends have drifted away as they start families so that now she rarely sees anyone or goes anywhere. After a depressing collage of her photos for the year reveals no social activity whatsoever, Marnie admits to herself that she is lonely and resolves to agree to any opportunity to socialise when it next occurs. So when Cleo invites her to join her, her husband, and Marnie's godson on a three day walk she agrees.
Things go wrong right from the start. Cleo's husband and one of the other guests can't make it. The weather is foul, and Cleo's godson decides he would rather stay in his hotel room and play video games. One of the other guests decides he'll just take a taxi to the next hotel on their walk and take advantage of the bar. Eventually, all the other guests make their excuses and leave early, but Marnie, perhaps because she can't afford to change her ticket, decides she'll continue for the rest of the three days.
Despite having very little in common, Michael and Marnie do share a wry sense of humour, and as they walk they find it easy to confide in each other big feelings about love, having children, death, etc.
I was going to say I've never read a David Nicholls book (although I've seen a few films of his books) but GR reliably tells me I've read One Day and I'm pretty sure I've also read Starter for Ten, but this book is very different to both of them. For a start it features a couple firnly in middle age (thirty-eight and forty-two I believe). It also goes into a great deal of detail about the coast-to-coast walk which made me (a dedicated couch potato) dream of making the journey, even the bits where it rained like Armageddon and Marnie couldn't stop swearing at Michael as she crawled up hills.
My lasting impression is that this book has something of the Alan Bennett about it - couldn't say why, but I do.
Gentle, sad, witty, funny, grim, touching it's got everything. Loved it.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.
Eileen Merriweather is a college English professor who retreated into herself after her fiancé Liam decided he wanted to see otThree and a half stars.
Eileen Merriweather is a college English professor who retreated into herself after her fiancé Liam decided he wanted to see other people right before their wedding, leaving her to cancel all the arrangements and inform his family while he went off with a friend from work 'to clear his head'. Of course not long thereafter he and his friend from work get married. Since then, her only interactions are with her online romance book club, and, eventually, the annual in-person vacation week where they all meet up in an Airbnb to talk romance tropes and drink wine. This year no-one else can make it but Eileen desperately needs a break and decides to drive her clapped out old Pinto hundreds of miles to spend the week at their usual retreat.
Unfortunately, Eileen gets lost, nearly runs over a man standing in the middle of the road, and then finds not only won't her car start, but the town's only mechanic has gone fishing for the weekend. To add insult to injury, there's no cell service. Otherwise this small town she's landed in is perfect, like Stars Hollow or some other utopian small town in America, which isn't surprising because she has somehow arrived in Eloraton, the fictional setting of her favourite romance series which was cut short after the untimely death of its author.
Once she gets over the shock, Eileen is like a kid in a sweet shop, meeting all her favourite characters, eating the famous dishes at the local diner, etc. The one character she can't place is the grumpy owner of the impossibly cute bookshop, Anders, although he seems awfully familiar. However, as she talks to the residents/characters she realises that the author's death has left them all a bit in limbo, doomed not to move forward with their lives because there is no-one to direct them. Can/should Eileen help them to move forward?
This is sort of Brigadoon meets The Gilmore Girls meets ARGH I can't remember the book title (will see if it comes back to me - thought it was Emily Henry - maybe Book Lovers?). The trouble for me was I hadn't read this series of books (I'm not going to be able to explain this very well) so all of Eileen's interactions with the fictional characters felt somewhat removed, like she was explaining her meetings/interactions rather than the reader 'seeing' them. I didn't already know why certain couples were so cute or their meet-cutes were so romantic because I didn't see them, which I guess could be the point, they aren't real so they should be insubstantial but at the same time Eileen interacts with them and really likes them and wants to help, she even gets drunk on girls' night out with them etc whereas I would have expected her to start realising that they were only two dimensional, like the holograms in Jumanji that only have a set series of responses to expected questions.
I enjoyed this, I enjoyed the romance, and I could sort of understand the logic behind how/why Eloraton comes into being, but I didn't love it.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
This is a follow-up to Anybody Out There?, 18 years later. Anna Walsh was widowed at a very young age, but she managed to find Three and a half stars.
This is a follow-up to Anybody Out There?, 18 years later. Anna Walsh was widowed at a very young age, but she managed to find a new life in New York as a beauty PR maven. Now, in her late 40s, post-lockdown her relationship with her boyfriend Angelo has amicably come to an end, she no longer cares about her job and *gasp* she's fallen out of love with New York.
So Anna returns home to Dublin where she realises it may not be as easy as she imagined to get a new job, until her mammy gets her to help out family who are in the process of building a spa retreat on the west coast of Ireland which has turned into a PR disaster, culminating in locals defacing some of the partly constructed cabins. The only snag, the money man behind the venture is Joey, a friend of her sister Rachel's partner, a man she has been avoiding for many, many years.
This is pure Marian Keyes, complete with quirky villagers, and flashbacks to when Anna first moved to New York.
I really enjoyed this, and then partway through it seemed to get a bit bogged down in rehashing Anna's relationship with her former best friend and with Joey, it felt sort of obvious to me what had happened but it felt a bit laboured and could just as easily have been explained up front.
Otherwise, this was sexy, funny, cute, everything I want from the Walsh girls.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.
Virginia (Ginny) Woolf and her husband Leonard, together with her sister Vanessa (Nessa) Bell and her (former) lover Duncan livThree and a half stars.
Virginia (Ginny) Woolf and her husband Leonard, together with her sister Vanessa (Nessa) Bell and her (former) lover Duncan live in Rodwell, close to Lewes, West Sussex (in separate houses, in case that wasn't clear). As some of the advanced wave of Londoners moving to West Sussex, Ginny feels superior to most of the others such as Mrs Daphne Rivers, whose husband's origins were very working class until he made sufficient money as a stockbroker in the City to buy one of the grandest houses in the village, or Mrs Alice Dudeney, a successful author of romantic novels.
One day, Ginny and Nessa get dragged by Mrs Rivers into meeting her son Gideon, an extraordinarily handsome young man, and feted archaeologist, together with his fiancé Jasmine Zain Al-Din, the daughter of a wealthy French-Syrian family.
However, the next day the village is shocked to learn that Gideon was murdered, battered to death by his own tools at the dig site where he had recently uncovered a small tablet thought to have been brought back from the Crusades. Worse still, Ginny's gardener's son-in-law has been arrested by the local police for the murder. Ginny's gardener and his daughter implore Ginny to reason with the police detective and/or find the real killer.
As befits the Bloomsbury Set, everyone appears to have multiple lovers, both male and female, and there are multiple possible motives for murder including jealousy (from numerous people), illegitimate children, professional rivalry, and potentially money. Everyone is lying about knowing other people. Suspicion lands on one person after another. There is also a mysterious figure in black haunting the lanes/following people.
I'll say straight off that I've never warmed to Virginia Woolf or her writing so she was going to be a difficult character for me to like. However, my issue with this book was that it wasn't sure whether it wanted to be a fictional story about the Woolfs and the Bells, with lots of detail about the décor in Nessa's house and their friends, or a cosy mystery and it sort of fell between two stools for me.
I have some reservations about the method the murderer used and why they killed some people but not others. Also I question the physical appearance of the tool the murderer used. (view spoiler)[Would a hypodermic needle look like a sewing needle, and also why would the murderer discard the needle? I thought perhaps they were using a blow dart at first. (hide spoiler)]
I note that there are other cosy mysteries featuring famous people (the Mitfords spring to mind) and I have avoided them for the same reason I have issues with this book. Totally off topic, but if I were writing this sort of cosy fiction I would make our detective famous-person-adjacent eg a fictional friend or servant, that way the reader can peep into the lifestyle but focus on the mystery.
Loved the cover.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
Rory Garrett is not having the best life. Her younger brother got all the love from her father and step-mother and turned out to be a famous footballeRory Garrett is not having the best life. Her younger brother got all the love from her father and step-mother and turned out to be a famous footballer. She wants to be a chocolatier but the closest she's got is operating a candy truck with her friend, who has just vanished with the entire contents of the truck leaving her with a $2,000 fine from the city and no way to pay it. She also has a guilty secret about why Client's last girlfriend dumped him, which may or may not have something to do with some whopping lies she told about him. Attending her brother's birthday party under protest, she gets a bit drunk and has a one-night stand with some sharp suited guy only to be humiliated when she finds he's left $500 on the night stand thinking she's a professional!
Brett Rivers is committed to being the best sports agent he can, he's 100% dedicated to his clients and doing everything he can for them. After he foolishly warned his best client Clint (Rory's step-brother) that his girlfriend was a gold-digger the two of them have been on the outs, especially when she dumped him and is now dating a basketball player who earns far less. When he realises that he has slept with his client's sister and implied she's a hooker he knows he has to do some serious damage limitation.
When Brett and Rory arrive separately at Clint's mansion the next day to apologise/explain he's gone, but they do find the body of his ex-girlfriend lying murdered on the patio. Now Rory and Brett both need to find Clint, before the police arrest him for murder!
This is peak SEP, despite being a recent publication (2024) it could easily have been written 30 years ago (eek) when book one in this series was published, the characters as just as sassy, the guys are just as sleek and driven.
This is a funny, opposites attract romance....more
Its 1905 and Jeremy (Jem) Kite is a lowly clerk. However, ten years ago his future looked promising, he had won a maths scholarship to St Anselm's colIts 1905 and Jeremy (Jem) Kite is a lowly clerk. However, ten years ago his future looked promising, he had won a maths scholarship to St Anselm's college at Oxford and rather than being ostracised and looked down for his humble Midlands upbringing and his club foot, he became part of an eclectic group of seven friends led by Toby Feynsham. Collectively the friends were known as the Seven Wonders. There was Toby, heir apparent to the Marquess of Grevesham, beautiful and charismatic, his twin sister Ella, a brilliant chemist in her own right, Nicky Rook, jaded beyond his years studying English, Hugo Morley-Adams son of a wealthy shipbuilder studying history, Aaron Oyede a black man studying medicine with a wickedly dry sense of humour, and Prudence Lenster, Ella's roommate also studying maths. Collectively they were extremely clever, dominated at several sports, took the leads in a Shakespeare play and were generally the best and brightest of their year.
Everything started to go wrong the term they put on a production of Cymbeline, there seemed to be tensions between different factions, love triangles, spite, and jealousy. Then one terrible night, after the seven of them argued viciously, Toby was murdered with his letter opener in a locked room. The murderer was never found but the finger of suspicion cast its shadow on all of the remaining six, friendships shattered. Jem had a nervous breakdown, failed his exams and left Oxford, his future in ruins.
When someone sends an anonymous letter to Jem's employer accusing him of Toby's murder, Jem realises that he will never be free of the suspicion until the murderer is uncovered. He knows that he and his friends didn't tell the police everything about that night, and he suspects at least one person lied to give another an alibi. What the police don't know is that the door to Toby's rooms had a trick lock that you could lock from the outside, only the seven of them knew that and therefore Jem concludes that one of the remaining six must have been the murderer.
With some flashbacks to 1895, we follow Jem as he meets with his old friends, all of them have secrets, and none of them want him to pursue the truth. But Jem feels he has led a half-life for the last decade, afraid of being identified as one of the seven, afraid of being accused yet again of murder, having to leave one job after another, never making friends and he is determined to uncover the truth.
I really enjoyed this, about halfway through I started to feel that any of them could have been the murderer and perversely that I didn't want any of them to have done it. Given that, I thought the uncovering of the murderer was done very well.
Overall, I am fairly new to KJ Charles but have loved absolutely everything I have read so far.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.
So here we are, fifteen books and 16 years later from the first book featuring intrepid amateur sleuth Dandy Gilver and her platonic younger neighbourSo here we are, fifteen books and 16 years later from the first book featuring intrepid amateur sleuth Dandy Gilver and her platonic younger neighbour Alec Osbourne. While the first book started in the early 1920s at an Armistice Ball, the UK is now on the brink of WW2 in late Spring 1939 and Dandy is terrified for her sons who are both eager to enlist.
Dandy and her husband Hugh are hosting a dinner party for several of his friends and their wives, Dandy’s friend Daisy (who hosted the Armistice Ball in the first book with her husband Silas) is attending alone as the party clashes with her husband’s regimental dinner, or so she thinks until one of the other guests mentions the dinner was a few weeks ago. Silas is a notorious philanderer and Daisy is suitably enraged and proceeds to get paralytic drunk.
Early the next morning, the household is awoken to the news that Silas has been found dead in the small Scottish village of Dirleton, and Dandy is informed that Daisy is missing from her bed and Dandy’s car is missing from the garage. Fearing the worst, Dandy and Alec set off to find Daisy, only to discover her unconscious in a ditch. The police are convinced Daisy must have killed Silas in a fit of rage, so Dandy and Alec must travel on to Dirleton to clear Daisy’s name.
Dirleton is a strange ancient Scottish village, on arrival many of the inhabitants they run into mistake them for a pair of researchers who have booked in at the local pub; taking advantage of the confusion Alec and Dandy try to decipher why Silas would have been in the village in the first place, did he have a lover, and if so who?
Things are odd right from the start, there's very much a 'I saw something nasty in the woodshed' vibe with people acting oddly and speaking in, well not riddles precisely but incomplete sentences. I also got a whiff of Village of the Damned. None of the clues make any sense. First a witness saw a woman kill Silas, then others say it was a tall man. Initially the death was said to be at midnight, 'the witching hour' but then the villagers tell Dandy that means three o'clock in the morning. What is the significance of the church ledgers? Silas' body was found on an ancient stone, which apparently had a dark history, was his death some kind of ritual?
I think I was well ahead of Dandy and Alec on some points, but I didn't identify the murderer. As always, the historical detail feels very authentic, although I am sorry that we couldn't stay in the 1920s for longer.
Another brilliant mystery, I love this duo so much, and darling Hugh with his stiff upper lip.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.
Bumped for release and some strange grammar choices and now to correct geographical inaccuracies....more
Lucy Brown lives a very small life with her teenage daughter Rose. She has a run-down little cottage in Ireland, a job in a call centre, and a small cLucy Brown lives a very small life with her teenage daughter Rose. She has a run-down little cottage in Ireland, a job in a call centre, and a small circle of friends. By and large that's the way she likes it after escaping her abusive ex-husband Robert. Sitting in the airport bar one day, waiting for a delayed flight to London to collect Rose from a visit with Robert and his new family before they go on to Dorset for a friend's wedding, Lucy is dreaming up stories about the other passengers when a gorgeous man asks if the seat next to her is taken. Maybe because she has just been wondering what the other passengers would dream up about her, Lucy fibs to this stranger, telling him her name is Amelia and making up a glamourous sounding career.
Lucy's friend Ella is marrying Jake, the man she met at Starshine Cove, a charming village which doesn't appear to exist on any maps and has a Brigadoon-like quality. Ella and Jake were the protagonists in the first book in this series Escape to Starshine Cove. They are having a great time until Jake's brother Josh turns up, who turns out to be none other than the handsome man Lucy met at the airport!
Many apologies later, Lucy and Josh have made peace and found that there is still a chemistry between them, they almost kiss at Ella's wedding ceilidh when Rose interrupts them, Robert's second wife has called asking for Lucy's help.
I enjoyed this, it was classical Debbie Johnson. Lucy needs to learn to trust herself and let go of her fears from the past before she can trust herself to love again. Josh is just the perfect man, kind, generous, caring, supportive. If I had any complaint it would be that maybe there wasn't enough tension, if a book containing an abusive ex-husband can be called 'safe' then this is it.
But generally a lovely heart-warming feel-good romance. Definitely Hallmark movie material.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.
The third book in what I now know will be a four book series.
Nearly twenty years ago Anne Mowbray walked out on her farmer husband and two teenage dauThe third book in what I now know will be a four book series.
Nearly twenty years ago Anne Mowbray walked out on her farmer husband and two teenage daughters, she's kept in touch with the oldest Rachel through desultory periodic lunches but her youngest daughter Harriet refused to speak to her. But when Rachel calls to let Anne know that her husband is dying she feels compel to return to Yorkshire to support her daughters, even if they don't seem to want her help.
The last thing Anne expects to find when she returns to Yorkshire to care for her dying husband is to find love, but as two fifty-somethings life is never straightforward, and is it even appropriate to be dating someone new while your estranged husband is slowly dying?
I liked this book the best of the three so far, perhaps because Anne is my age and beyond the childish histrionics of Rachel and Harriet, also the two male love interests Ben and Quinn from the previous books (who in my opinion are drawn with a very broad brush and therefore slightly two dimensional) are less evident.
I received an ARC from the publisher Tule for an honest review....more
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