Kelley Armstrong

Schemes & Scandals by Kelley Armstrong
A Rip Through Time series #3.5. Historical time travel holiday mystery. Best read in series order.
Mallory Atkinson is ready to celebrate Christmas however in Victorian Scotland, it’s currently not outlawed but also not a thing celebrated. Instead Hogmanay, the last day of the year, is celebrated with gifts, a meal with family and friends and fireworks. Dr. Duncan Gray gives Mallory an early gift to an event of a Charles Dickens reading performance. Mallory is excited to meet one of her favorite authors. Even though she is from the future, she still loves the stories of Dickens.
While at the performance, she and Gray run into a former lover of Gray’s, Lady Inglis who asks them to investigate the theft and blackmail of love letters she’s written to a long time friend. They have until Hogmanay to uncover the blackmailer and ease the tension Gray has from seeing his former crush.

Mallory is from current time and must work within historical equipment and science to be the detective she is at home. Only a few people know her secret. Everyone else knows her as a young and curvy beautiful blonde that may not fit the image of the undertaker’s assistant.
Mallory is smart and asks questions of the house staff, former valet and more to figure out who stole the letters.
A wonderful mystery with a bit of humor and smart investigative work by an out-of-time detective. The story is vivid and engaging. Mallory has a firm grasp of history where I’d be totally lost. Especially outside my own country.
Fantastic series.

I received a copy of this from NetGalley.… (more)

Schemes & Scandals by Kelley Armstrong is a novella in the Rip Through Time series. I already love the original series and now there is a little interlude featuring the holidays, Charles Dickens and a blackmail crime? Count me in!
This is a very charming story featuring Mallory who is a 21st century detective trapped in the younger body of an 1860s assistant, her progressive boss, Gray, and his good-hearted sister, Isla. Armstrong makes a point to research and make the time period as realistic as possible for a fictional tale. It’s not surprising that class divides, women’s control of their own actions, and keeping up appearances all make a showing here, even in this fun story.
The mystery was intriguing, the setting and pacing were perfect. I loved the inclusion of another one of my favorite authors, Charles Dickens. Not only did it help set the holiday season stage at a time when Christmas wasn’t celebrated much in Scotland, it offered some good insight into what might be both the good and bad of being transported to a different time period.
Although it could stand alone as a short introduction to the series, it would likely be more meaningful to start at the beginning of the series.
I really enjoyed this and am looking forward to the next one! As always, thank you to NetGalley and Subterranean Press for the eARC.… (more)