A Little Night Murder (Blackbird Sisters Mystery, #10)

A Little Night Murder
by Nancy Martin
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780451415271
Series: Blackbird Sisters #10
Publication Date: August 4, 2014
Pages: 372
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Obsidian

While a pregnant Nora relaxes in her best friend’s Bucks County pool, she doesn’t have far to look for her next big story. A Broadway show is in rehearsal next door at the home of the legendary late composer “Toodles” Tuttle. His diva widow, Boom Boom, reigns over his estate with an iron fist. She has also racked up a chorus line of enemies, so the old broad’s death is a hotly anticipated event. But imagine everyone’s dismay when it’s her beloved daughter, Jenny, who drops dead just as the lights are set to go on for the lucrative new Toodles musical.

This series is one of my top cozy favourites and I always look forward to the next one. A Little Night Murder, though – this one was just chock full o’ surprises.

Lexie’s back! Nora’s (the MC) best friend is out of prison early for reasons unexplained and Nora’s helping her hide from the press and all the former clients who lost their fortunes when Lexie’s partner’s embezzlement came to light. Nora is 7 months pregnant and her constant financial worries have reduced her to wearing her sister’s old maternity t-shirts sporting such gems as ‘Let Me Out, It’s Dark in Here!’ Nora and Mick are trying to prepare for the birth of not only their biological daughter, but for the adoption of Nora’s grand-niece whose biological mother is in prison and due the week after Nora. Speaking of biological mothers: Mick’s mom is in town and Nora’s meeting her for the first time.

Nora’s sisters aren’t left out of the angst either: Libby is imploding over becoming a grandmother and Emma has reached the pinnacle of unsuitability in her lovers.

Those are just the things mentioned on the front flap. I’m not mentioning anything else because if you enjoy this series, I don’t want to take anything away from the surprises awaiting you. Suffice it to say there are more than a fair few.

In the midst of all of this, Lexie’s neighbour, an old showgirl has-been is trying to revive her career, claiming she has found an unpublished musical left in her late husband’s papers. He was famous for his musicals and everybody is buzzing about this new find. Until the man’s daughter is found dead and oddities and absurdities surrounding the production become apparent. Nora’s editor has given her an ultimatum: a story about Lexie and her whereabouts, or a story about Jenny’s murder.

Generally speaking, this was a wonderful romp of a story and I didn’t want to stop reading it once I started. The mystery plotting is always well done, but my investment is 100% in the characters. The sisters and the people surrounding them are all fleshed out characters with realistic lives, if sometimes their names are a little out there. (I went to school with a Binky and Bubba (sister and brother) so I won’t say the names are unrealistic.)

My only harumph: Nora’s boss/editor is an Aussie and perhaps in an attempt to avoid the cliched Aussie slang terms such as Bonzer!, Fair Dinkum! etc. etc., the author has chosen to skate a bit close to the obscure. The one that sticks out the most is ‘dinger’ – which I had to look up. It’s recognised slang for ‘condom’ but my Aussie born-and-bred husband has never heard of it. Perhaps some of my BL Aussie friends are more familiar with it? There were a couple of others as well, but I forgot what they were and I’ll never find them again. Also, in a book with no swearing, I snickered over the author’s liberal use of ‘bugger’, but I’m assuming she’s well aware of the word’s meaning and is banking on most of her readers being unaware. I’m choosing to see it as a quiet little rebellion on her part. 🙂

The mystery is tied up at the end but the characters are left with a shock – not a cliffhanger, but definitely a story to be continued. Which makes me happy, because it means there’s another Blackbird Sister adventure on the horizon. Somebody pass me the champagne and a tacky t-shirt.

NB: I’ve been googling the surprise at the end of this book and personally I think it’s a tissue paper dragon based on the holes apparent after a quick search. But such a thing does exist, who knew?

And Only to Deceive (Lady Emily Mystery, #1)

And Only to Deceive
by Tasha Alexander
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780060756710
Series: Lady Emily Mystery #1
Publication Date: October 11, 2005
Pages: 310
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: William Morrow

‘A Novel of Suspense.’

No, not really. Whomever read this book and thought it suspenseful needs to get out more.

It was a very good read though – I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s the age-old tale of ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone’ with Greek antiquities, art forgery, romance and mystery thrown into the mix.

Emily makes a very good marriage to Viscount Ashton for the sole purpose of getting away from her harpy of a mother: a decision I whole-heartendly endorsed after only one scene involving that nasty shrew. Mere months after the marriage, her husband dies of a fever while on an African safari, leaving her a very wealthy widow. When her late husband’s best friend, Colin, pays her a visit, telling her he promised Lord Ashton that Emily would see their villa in Santorini, Greece – a property she owned but didn’t even know about – she decides she ought to learn more about this man she married but knew nothing about.

Thus begins Emily’s adventures. As she learns more about her husband Philip, she learns she had a very good man in her life for far too short a time – or maybe he wasn’t such a good man? This is what comes from a lack of communication in a marriage: Emily is left with contradicting information and evidence – he was either very noble or a massive scoundrel She must sort it all out since she has fallen obsessively in love with her husband post mortem. I found this just a touch nauseating – almost to eye-rolling stage. I understand the regret she’d feel, but not love after the fact.

Along the way, she discovers another passion; this one for knowledge, specifically, ancient Greece. She dives into her education, much to the consternation and disgust of her mother – which really, is a total perk for both Emily and the reader.

I loved the characterisations – each person is boldly sketched out on the page, clear enough to almost be seen. The Parisian settings are vivd, even though few words are used.

The plot was well done, although again – NOT suspenseful. This isn’t the sort of plot the reader figures out before Lady Emily does. The villain is revealed slowly over the course of the story. There’s no grand denouement, although there is a critical unveiling, which I thought was handled particularly well (no TSTL moments).

There are 8 more books in this series so far – YAY! I’m off to order the next few; I definitely enjoyed the story enough to want to know what happens next.

NB: I particularly enjoyed that the author thought to include a few brief sections at the end: The Story behind The Story, Fact vs. Fiction, Location, Location, Location and a Suggested Reading. As a complete novice with all things historical, I appreciated knowing what was authentic to the time, and what she took authorial license with. It’s a nice touch.

Agnes and the Hitman

Agnes and the Hitman
by Jennifer Crusie
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780312363048
Publication Date: August 21, 2007
Pages: 368
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

I used this yesterday as my ‘guilty pleasure’ read for the ukbookaday event and since I had finished and reviewed all my currently reading books yesterday as well, it felt like I had earned a guilty pleasure re-read. Plus, I figured this would be a great book to christen BL’s new re-read feature with, but it turns out I never recorded any read dates for this before, so that was a bust.

Remember those old-ish Goldie Hawn movies, like Bird on a Wire? If you’ve seen those movies, you’ll have some idea of what Agnes and the HItman is like. (Maybe a bit of Analyze This mixed in.) I think this book is MUCH better than Bird on a Wire was, but it’s as close as I can come to describing the tone.

Agnes is having a very bad week. She’s bought the house of her dreams from her best friends mother, Brenda, with the stipulation that Brenda’s granddaughter (and Agnes’ goddaughter) be married on the grounds with Agnes planning and hosting the whole thing. Easy!

Except suddenly someone is trying to dognap her dog, at gunpoint. Seems a bit excessive for an ugly old hound. Agnes defends herself with her frying pan and in the course of self-defence, the would be dognapper falls through a wall into an unknown basement and dies, letting loose all sorts of family secrets Brenda would have preferred stayed buried. Agnes’ old friend Joey, a retired and reformed mobster, thinks there’s something up with a dognapping at gunpoint and sends his nephew, Shane, to protect Agnes. Shane’s in the middle of a job, trying to take out an assassin, but Joey is the man who raised him – sort of – and he’s never asked for anything from Shane in 25 years.

What follows from here is just pure hilarity. This is not a deep story; don’t look for the characters to be meaningful or even realistic. There is zero navel-gazing and it’s pretty much non-stop action from first to last. If liberal use of course language is going to bother you – avoid this book. If talk about sex bothers you – avoid this book. The sex isn’t graphic, but discussion about it abounds.

If you’re looking for a light, funny, comedic romp – find this book! I upgraded mine to hardcover several years ago because I was wearing out my paperback.

The Book of Life (All Souls Trilogy, #3)

The Book of Life
by Deborah Harkness
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780670025596
Series: All Souls #3
Publication Date: July 15, 2014
Pages: 563
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction
Publisher: Viking Books

I have previously proclaimed my irrational love of the first two books in this series, so it will come as no surprise to anyone that this one gets 5 stars from me.

There are few books out there I find myself truly immersed in; the kind that when I’m interrupted, I’ll look up from my book, but I’m not really there. My eyes might be a bit glassy and I’ll stare blankly at my own DH as though he’s a stranger. This is such a book.

I’ll admit I was expecting a war; at the very least, a massive battle. I prepared myself to hate the author for killing off a character, or characters that I had become attached to. For a few dozen pages, I was certain it was going to be a specific character. Luckily, the story was not as predictable as all that.

While reading, I picked up on shades of Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus, as well as more common themes of tolerance, acceptance and fear of that which is not understood. The twist at the end is only a twist because it is so obvious. Of all the beliefs humans cling to throughout history that have proven to be illusory over and over again, the idea that we control anything must surely make the top 5 list.

But what it all boils down to for me is that I just love this whole story: its characters, its plot, its settings – it all just clicks for me. Some have likened Diana to whatshername in Twilight but I don’t see the Mary Jane – I just saw a character – a very intelligent, strong and independent one – trying to get a grip on a massive amount of change happening in a short amount of time. I never got the victim vibe from her. I don’t pretend to understand the all consuming love she and Matthew apparently share, but it’s thankfully not so soppy and mushy I feel the need for insulin.

All the major plot points of the three books are wrapped up at the end of this one, but, vexingly, a lot of characters’ stories are…unfinished. They aren’t cliff-hangers, and the story could easily end here and Ms. Harkness could disappear back into the history stacks never to be heard from again in fiction. But she has left a number of openings for a return should she choose to do so. A lot of secondary characters are left with their stories still ongoing. At least one of them – Gallowglass – I’d be the first in line to read more about. I’m more than a little half in love with him.

Whether Ms Harkness every writes another word about these people or not, I’ll at least be able to re-read and ‘see’ them all again.

A Grave Matter (Lady Darby Mystery #3)

A Grave Matter
by Anna Lee Huber
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780425253694
Series: A Lady Darby Mystery #3
Publication Date: July 1, 2014
Pages: 421
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime

Well rats.

It’s over. I wasn’t ready for it to be over.

A Grave Matter is a mystery first, but almost equally it’s a romance as things come to a head between Lady Darby and Sebastian Gage. Ms. Huber will always hold a special place in my heart for not dragging this out past the point of painful into inanity. There’s plenty of conflict between these two but it avoids most of the overused tropes and these two are actually gasp honest and communicative!

I thought the setting fabulously descriptive, although ironically, Edinburgh was the hardest of the locations for me to picture. The border villages and the Abbey were crystal clear and I could hear the frost crackling under their feet as they transversed the graveyards looking for evidence. I found myself reading aloud to MT about the first-footers and I was thrilled at the end of the story to read the author’s note about the authenticity of this tradition. I’m wondering if I can get away with introducing it at our NYE festivities this year.

The plot is delightfully macabre; not scary or graphic and completely fitting with Lady Darby’s background and baggage. I’ll admit I nabbed the bad guy early on, but I can’t say what gave it away. Nevertheless, I was never absolutely certain. I wouldn’t have been surprised had I been wrong.

There might have been some anachronistic narrative; I can’t say for certain, and I think it was almost all in the internal dialogue. While women for millennia have probably wished at one time or another to throw things at men, it feels too modern when Lady Darby ‘contemplated throwing a shoe at his head.’ I don’t care about this, but others might find it jarring.

But the scene at the end between Lady Darby and Gage made even this pragmatic non-romantic feel a bit mushy. Considering the chasteness of the period, Ms. Huber is very good at conveying romantic tension. (To be fair, there’s a LOT of kissing going on; I’m betting more than considered acceptable for the time period. Go Lady Darbry!)

There are a lot of things I could blather on about that I enjoyed; a GR friend is just now starting The Anatomist’s Wife and I’m more than a little jealous – I wish I had 2 and a bit of these books still ahead of me. As it is, I’ll be waiting a very long year to catch up with Lady Darby and Gage.

Death Comes to the Village (A Kurland St. Mary Mystery)

Death Comes to the Village
by Catherine Lloyd
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780758287335
Series: Kurland St. Mary Mystery #1
Publication Date: November 26, 2013
Pages: 282
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Kensington

A fast, entertaining read I picked up and finished in one day.

A wounded soldier and a rector’s daughter discover strange goings-on in the sleepy village of Kurland S. Mary in Regency England.

The author has a degree in history so I’m taking on faith that this is a historically accurate cozy mystery tale. Either way I found it to be well-written with both likeable and detestable characters. I’m pretty sure I liked all the characters I was meant to like; Lucy, the MC, and her sister Anna are modelled after Lizzie and Jane in Pride & Prejudice and I suppose arguments could be made for Major Robert Kurland favouring Darcy.

The setting was sketchy; I didn’t get a clear sense of the village at all, although the rectory and Kurland Manor are both well described.

The plot was good; very good. I know many readers feel like a murder mystery should have a dead body appear almost immediately. If you’re the type who is looking for the body to drop, this book isn’t for you; you’re going to be waiting a long time for a corpse to appear. Instead, this is a very well crafted mystery focussed on the disappearance of two young girls and a rash of thefts taking place in the ‘big’ houses of the village. The author takes you where she wants you to go, then slowly starts introducing the clues that make it clear things aren’t as obvious as they seem. I picked up on part of the mystery early, but the bulk of it I didn’t get until Ms. Lloyed wanted me to.

Two things about this book stood out for me, neither of which detracted from my overall enjoyment of the book (much). The first thing is niggling, really rather trivial: the opening two sentences of the book should be reversed. The second, and I’m certain this is historically accurate, is the author doesn’t sugar-coat the complete disregard men have for women in this time; how women are truly nothing more than chattel. It was a rather infuriating theme throughout the story.

I’m under the impression that this is the first in a new series. If so, I’ll gladly read the second; I’d like to see more of Lucy and Robert and I’d like to see more of what the author is capable of in terms of plotting.

Home of the Braised (White House Chef Mysteries, #7)

Home of the Braised
by Julie Hyzy
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780425262382
Series: White House Chef Mystery #7
Publication Date: January 7, 2014
Pages: 293
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime

Tensions are running high as the White House staff adjusts to a new chief usher and prepares for a high-stakes state dinner, where everything must be perfect. But as the date for the event approaches, things go disastrously wrong when the secretary of defense is found dead in his home, seemingly killed during a break-in.

At the same time Olivia’s fiancé, Gav, is looking into the mysterious murder of an old friend. Is there a connection? Despite an increase in security following the secretary’s death, Ollie learns the president is in imminent danger at the dinner and must do everything in her power to get to him—before it’s too late…

This series is the perfect example of a good-but-slow-to-start series. I read the first three and always thought they were good enough to pick up the next one, but I was never really invested in the characters.

Then the protagonist, Ollie, got a new love interest. I don’t know why this made such a HUGE difference, but I could not put down the last four books; in fact, I read 4, 5 and 6 back-to-back last year. You might be thinking ‘well, the sex scenes must have been better’, but there are zero sex scenes. In the last four books I think the author only mentions them kissing twice. In passing. But Ms. Hyzy does an outstanding job, IMO, of creating sexual tension without the sexual descriptions. Maybe it’s just me.

Home of the Braised is a great entry in this fabulous series – the action and mystery start right away and Ollie is fighting battles on enough fronts to keep things busy without being overwhelming to the reader (if I were Ollie I’d be drinking heavily). There’s a lot of detail about being a White House chef, but it flows nicely in the story and it’s obvious the author has done her homework. The writing is smooth, fluid and without any oddities that jarred me out of the moment. Very little (if any) page filler disguised as internal speculation.

I don’t really want to include much of a synopsis here because it all feels spoiler-y. Suffice it to say that there are threats to the presidency, the White House, national security and Ollie finds herself in the thick of it. If I had to complain about anything, I’d prefer the author didn’t turn Ollie into a pariah; I know any real person involved in at least 7 ‘adventures’ (and counting, I hope) would start to garner questions, if not a 48 hour psych eval, but it got to be repetitive enough to notice in the last couple of books. Luckily, not so repetitive that it annoyed me. Everything was excellently plotted though and I thoroughly enjoyed the book from start to finish. I saw the very end coming, but that’s ok – it wasn’t anything plot related and it was a great way to leave the reader smiling at the end.

I count the months until the next book is out.

Love Game (Matchmaker #3)

Love Game
by Elise Sax
Rating: ★★★★
Series: Matchmaker Mystery #3
Publication Date: January 1, 2014
Pages: 277
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Ballantine Books

“I never want to leave this town. Cannes is a village on happy juice. LSD. It’s the Wizard of Oz on shrooms.”

I want to live in Cannes, California. It’s definitely on my list of Fictional Places I’d Like to Live. I’d have a comfy chair and a big bowl of popcorn and I’d park myself on the sidewalk and just watch. It’s crazy town in the most entertaining way possible.

I can’t move to Cannes, but at least I have these books and I can visit this nutville and it’s residents anytime I’d like.

In Love Game there’s an ill wind blowing, and her name is Luanda. She’s brought a special brand of crazy to Cannes and it’s undoing all the good matches Gladys and her grandmother Zelda have made. Add to that a suitcase full of spider infested clothes, Gladys car keys going into a ravine, a group kidnapping and a murder and you have the makings of a very entertaining week in the best possible slapstick style.

I like Gladys, but I have to admit she’s not always my favorite character in the books. I don’t think I could be friends in Real Life with someone who has been known to be extremely flighty. But she’s still a character you can get behind and cheer on. While each book has presented the entire cast in all it’s zany glory, I would have to choose Ruth as my favorite from this book – she’s got all the best lines. I should hope to be her when I’m in my 80’s. She reminds me of the little old lady cartoons on the Hallmark cards – you know which one I mean? The skinny one that smokes, wears glasses, and has absolutely no filter between her brain and her mouth.

The romantic angle of the book is chaos of the best kind. I normally HATE HATE HATE love triangles, but what Gladie has going on here really doesn’t qualify as a love triangle – more like it’s raining men. (Hallelujah!) Holden is out of town and out of touch in this book, but we have a new player – Remington Cumberbatch. A detective working for Spencer Bolton, he’s around often enough to keep Spencer from a sure thing and Gladys’ hormones in overdrive. The chemistry is constant and intense between Gladys and both of these men, and her flirtations are fun without stretching the readers patience.

The kidnapping/murder was excellent – Ms. Sax can write a mystery. I didn’t even know who to suspect until the end, when Luanda’s denouement puts Gladys in the spotlight, leaving her to piece together the clues and come up with the answer. I’m not sure how realistic the deductions are, but they were fun nonetheless.

I’m hooked on this series and I hope Gladys has a long run full of fun, laugh-out-loud adventures. I’ll be looking forward with eagerness for the next one.

Mortal Arts (Lady Darby Mystery #2)

Mortal Arts
by Anna Lee Huber
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780425253786
Series: A Lady Darby Mystery #2
Publication Date: March 9, 2013
Pages: 384
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Berkley

No sophomore slump here. An excellent tale of murder and the evils that men do, that takes place in early 19th century Scotland.

After the events that transpired in The Anatomist’s Wife, Lady Kiera Darby is pulling herself together. She’s no longer trying to disappear amongst the furniture. She’s stronger, more willing to stand up for herself and others.

Sebastian Gage is unchanged, although in this book we see more of his true feelings come out – eventually. He’s starting to open up, but more like a box whose lid hinges have rusted shut and must be worked open, bit by bit, as opposed to a jammed lid that springs open and starts gushing the box’s contents.

That was a horrible metaphor. I hated creative writing in school, and now it’s clear why. It’s also clear to me that we’re in for the long haul if we want to see Kiera and Gage together; this is not going to be some combustible romance, but a love that is going to build up over time, tears, and insults, as well as mutual respect and trust that is earned. With a few kisses thrown in to keep the pulse rate up.

There’s a mystery and a story in this book – at 370 pages there’s room enough for both. Lady Darby and her family are en route to Edinburg when they are asked to make a stop on the way, to the home of an old friend from Keira and Alana’s childhood (who also happens to be a uni mate of Alana’s husband). Upon arriving they discover the Lord of the manor, William, missing and presumed dead for the last decade, has been found and rescued from an insane asylum his father secretly committed him to. William was, at one time, Keira’s art tutor as well as childhood chum; a war hero she had secretly worshipped. She is invested in doing whatever she can to see him mended.

The book’s mystery, in my opinion, takes a bit of a back seat to the larger story here. Mortal Arts is also a narrative about the horrors of war, the damage it does to the men fighting it, and the further damage that can happen when the people who are supposed to love them misunderstand the effects on those returning home. Battle fatigue, shell-shock, PTS, PTSD – whatever name it’s given by whatever generation suffers it, it’s all the same. We get a front seat view of the damage both the war and the asylum have done to William. Unless you read a lot of horror, or other graphic fiction, I dare say the scene when Kiera sees William again for the first time is one that will leave an impression, if not raise the hair on your arms. Ghastly and horrific. But not really graphic in it’s details – the author allows the reader’s imagination to add the colour and detail (or not) to many of the descriptions.

The mystery surrounds the disappearance of a girl in the village – could William, who’s still suffering ‘episodes’ stemming from the horrors of his incarceration, have been responsible? Kiera refuses to believe it’s possible for William to hurt any female, but evidence comes to light that he may have murdered a young woman while at the asylum – a fellow ‘resident’ of the facility. Kiera and Gage agree to investigate the missing woman and find out what really happened before deciding William’s fate. It’s a good mystery, but not a great one, since I think it’s a rather narrow field of suspects and little doubt as to where the true perpetrator lies. It’s more about establishing for a fact, William’s innocence and finding evidence that can stand up in legal proceedings. Because there’s so much else going on, the mystery itself also loses a bit of urgency, but I didn’t mind, as caught up as I was in the other dramas.

The ending was heart-wrenching; no tears, (thank god, I hate crying over books!) but definitely a bit of melancholy when I closed the book. I found Lady Darby’s reaction to the aftermath felt authentic; I think I would have reacted in much the same manner had I found myself having to suffer similarly.

The last page ends with portents of future investigations and strong use of foreshadowing, which I normally hate, but since I know the third book’s publication date is coming up, I’m not as irritated as I might be. It’s already on my list of books to buy for July and I’m relieved to see there will be at least two books beyond that; colour me hooked on this series.

The Anatomist’s Wife (A Lady Darby Mystery #1)

The Anatomist's Wife
by Anna Lee Huber
Rating: ★★★★
Series: A Lady Darby Mystery #1
Publication Date: February 1, 2016
Pages: 357
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Berkley

I read about this book recently here on BookLikes and the combination of the review and the title grabbed my attention enough that I went right out and ordered the book. I received it this week, and it became my Friday-after-Thanksgiving-and-I’m-not-moving read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book – at least, I enjoyed it as much as I could considering the murder (this murder isn’t for the feint of heart or those that like their murders cozy – this was gruesome). This is an example of the type of historical mysteries that hook me; I can get behind these characters and care deeply about what happens to them.

The main character is Kiera, Lady Darby. She’s the widow with a scandalous, somewhat tragic past. But not in the typical, clichéd way; I like what the author has done to create this character and to me, it’s very unique. There’s a bit of wounded bird to her personality, justifiably so, but there are moments where she gives as good as she gets and those moments are gold. Her sister Alana is fantastically likeable and it’s a breath of fresh air to read a book about sisters who like each other; I’ve rather been on a run of books with nasty-shrew sisters recently.

Gage, the inquiry agent is perfect for a series worth of fun sexual tension and witty banter. Blond/blue eyed, gorgeous, intelligent and a rogue. The scenes with Gage and Keira are sometimes fun, oftentimes sweet and always leaving me wanting to read more. I love that Keira is a widow, we get to skip all that innocent-lamb-must-be-chaperoned stuff that comes with women who’ve not yet been married.

The rest of the characters are all vividly written and easy to distinguish, although I’ll admit at first to being worried about keeping all the Lords, Marquis, and Earl’s straight. Luckily, in such a large house party, only a handful were serious suspects and it became much easier to keep them all straight.

As to the murder plot, I never had any idea who it was. It wasn’t just a matter of who wanted the victim dead, but who would go to such lengths? This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill murder. I didn’t start to put it all together until Keira did, and that’s always fun when it happens. I don’t mind guessing early if the characters are worth reading about, but not figuring it out until I’m supposed to? Well that’s just the best possible outcome for a murder mystery.

My only beef with the plot:

View Spoiler »

Overall, this was a great book and I’ve already ordered the second in the series. I couldn’t put it down even though I was exhausted from holiday revelry the day before, so I still stayed up too late last night because I had to know how it ended. I can’t wait for the next one to arrive.