Mostly Murders

Book 1 in the Amelia Peabody series.

Amelia Peabody is an independent woman and a woman of independent means. She decides to use some of her wealth to broaden her horizon by travelling the world. In Rome she encounters the disgraced gentlewoman Evelyn Barton-Forbes, and the two of them decide to travel to Egypt together.

In Egypt the two companions encounter the sociable Walter Emerson and his brash older brother Radcliffe Emerson, who has a temperament that can rival Amelia’s own. Radcliffe Emerson is leading an excavation in Amarna and reluctantly allows Amelia and Evelyn to stay at the camp.

Amelia is smitten with Egyptology and thoroughly enjoys the chance to try her hand at a bit of excavation work, but before long the peace at the camp is broken by strange and unnerving nightly disturbances. Is it the curse of an ancient princely priest, now haunting the site as a mummy? Or does someone have it in for the Emerson brothers, or for Evelyn or Amelia herself?

Plucky, selfconfident and fiercely wielding her umbrella, Amelia Peabody is compassionate, self-assured, direct even by modern standards, and the perfect heroine for this fun and cozy first installment of the Amelia Peabody series.

Some readers may find Amelia too bossy and full of herself. She is, but it is a part of her charm, and a necessity for her escapades. A meek and self conscious English woman in Victorian times wouldn’t set out on adventure to Egypt, pick up a travel companion from the street or bully a male Egyptologist into letting her work on his excavation. Only someone like Amelia Peabody would do that, and that is what allows her to have the many adventures she has, in this book and in the whole series.

Mystery – Historical Fiction – Cozy Mystery – Adventure – Romance