Historical fiction
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“A sinister hooded figure who smells like spring flowers? Oh, Simon, this case is shaping up to be delightfully absurd.” Lady Margot is overseeing the preparations for the annual Midsummer Garden Party at Blackwell Manor when the body of the head gardener, Edwin Thistlewood is found among the rosebushes. Despite the warnings from Inspector Simon…
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“A soldier’s heart, that’s what they call it, my dear. When the battles won’t stop.” Before Leona Gladney was Leona Gladney, she was a Union soldier who fought in the war disguised as man. Now, she is trying to build a new life for herself and fit into good society in Boston with her husband…
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A True Crime Podcast-style Book Review The year is 1899 and Countess Frances Harleigh is at an afternoon soiree in Park Lane, London. It is her first time spending the summer in London since she moved to England nine years ago, as her late husband, the Earl of Harleigh, had a habit of sending his…
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“Egypt. The mysterious jewel of the Orient, land of pharaohs, fabled Mamlukes, and countless marvels.” Fatma el-Sha’arawi is one of the only female agents of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities. She is tough, experienced, and she works alone. But when an entire secret brotherhood, led by the very prominent English basha, Lord…
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February was a month of great ARCs, from Belle Époque Paris glamour and bohemian vibes in Secrets of the Maison Fournier to contemporary best friend sleuths in Dying to Live Here and Golden Age murder mystery in A Pretender’s Murder. For the A-Z Cozy Mystery Challenge on Instagram I revisited the lovely sleuth duo Edwina…
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A True Crime Podcast-style Book Review Early morning, Warmsley Parva village in England. Edwina Davenport sits in front of her typewriter, fingers poised right above the keys. The house is quiet around her, a rare bliss in a household consisting of an American adventuress, a nosy gardener, a stern housekeeper, Crumpet the dog, and Edwina…
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Memory is a wicked thing that warps and twists. But paper and ink receive the truth without emotion, and they read it back without partiality. That, I believe, is why so few women are taught to read and write. God only knows what they would do with the power of pen and ink at their…
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A True Crime Podcast-style Book Review Karston, Ohio, 1900. Jenny Jenkins is surprised by the sound of an automobile. She hurries out on the porch, and sees her husband, Constable Richard Jenkins in the passenger seat with his right arm in a sling. Welcome to Mostlymurders, the bookstagram account where we look at fictional murders…
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The magnanimous patriarch, the gracious widow, the glittering professional, the glamorous vamp, the girlish ingénue… Colonel Hadrian Russell is an institution in the Britannia, keeping court in the London club where he is presiding as acting club president. Almost as famous as the Colonel are his four sons’ widows, Lady Alice, forever in widow’s black,…
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It was the first cost of ownership: being seen. In this county, visibility wasn’t a compliment, it was a target marked in daylight. A Reconstruction-era historical novel set in Alabama, and a testament to quiet but persistent resistance and resilience. Angie Sterling inherits an old abandoned house and quickly learns just how many of her…
Mostly Murders 