Under a Veiled Moon by Karen Odden Book Review - Blog Tour

Publication Date: October 11, 2022
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books>br> Series: An Inspector Corravan Mystery (Book 2)
Length: (336) pages
Format: Hardcover, eBook, & audiobook
Genre: Historical Mystery, Detective Mystery, Victorian Mystery

Synopsis

September 1878. One night, as the pleasure boat the Princess Alice makes her daily trip up the Thames, she collides with the Bywell Castle, a huge iron-hulled collier. The Princess Alice shears apart, throwing all 600 passengers into the river; only 130 survive. It is the worst maritime disaster London has ever seen, and early clues point to sabotage by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, who

The Sisters of Sea View by Julie Klassen Book Review - Blog Tour

Publication Date: December 6, 2022
Publisher: Bethany House Publishers
Series: On Devonshire Shores (Book 1)
Length: (448) pages
Format: hardcover, trade paperback, & eBook 
Genre: Historical Romance, Regency Romance, Inspirational Fiction

Synopsis

Some guests have come for a holiday, others for hidden reasons of their own . . .

When their father's death leaves them impoverished, Sarah Summers and her genteel sisters fear they will be forced to sell the house and separate to earn livelihoods as governesses or companions. Determined to stay together, Sarah convinces them to open their seaside home to guests to make ends

Murder in an Irish Castle by Verity Bright Book Review - Blog Tour

Publication Date: 28 November, 2022
Publisher: Bookouture
Series: A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #12
Format: ebook, print and audio
Genre: Historical Fiction/Cosy Mystery

Synopsis

Irish whiskey, rolling green hills, a traditional Christmas feast and… a murder? Lady Swift will need the luck of the Irish to survive this holiday season!

Christmas, 1923. Lady Eleanor Swift has received a rather unexpected invitation to the village Christmas party in the tiny, rural hamlet of Derrydee in the west of Ireland. Eleanor is thrilled about exploring her ancestral roots at her late uncle’s estate and spending the festive season in a castle. Packing Gladstone the bulldog’s coziest Christmas jumper, they

My Name is Ona Judge by Suzette D. Harrison Book Review - Blog Tour

Publication Date: September 6, 2022
Publisher: Bookouture
Format: ebook, print and audio
Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

New Hampshire, 1796. “My name is Ona Judge, and I escaped from the household of the President of the United States. I was the favored maid of George and Martha Washington, but they deemed me a slave and thought me property, and I hear ten dollars is offered as reward for my capture. Now I must write the truth that I have lived, and tell my story…”

Chincoteague, Virginia, present day. Rain soaks Tessa Scott as she runs from her car to the old, vine-covered property she has been

Death Down the Aisle by Verity Bright Book Review - Blog Tour

Publication Date: August 31, 2022
Publisher: Bookouture
Series: A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #11
Format: ebook, print and audio
Genre: Historical Fiction/Cosy Mystery

Synopsis

The society wedding of the decade has everything: the blushing bride, beautiful flowers… and the groom arrested before he can walk down the aisle? Thank goodness Lady Swift is on the guest list!

Lady Eleanor Swift isn’t normally one for grand social occasions, but who can resist a wedding? Especially when it’s her old friend, Constance Grainger, marrying the most eligible bachelor in town, Lord Peregrine Davencourt. Eleanor is taking Gladstone the

Where the Sky Begins by Rhys Bowen Book Review

Synopsis

London, 1940. Bombs fall and Josie Banks’s world crumbles around her. Her overbearing husband, Stan, is unreachable, called to service. Her home, a ruin of rubble and ash. Josie’s beloved tearoom boss has been killed, and Josie herself is injured, with nothing left and nowhere to go.

Evacuated to the English countryside, Josie ends up at the estate of the aristocratic Miss Harcourt, a reluctant host to the survivors of the Blitz. Awed as she is by the magnificent landscape, Josie sees opportunity. Josie convinces Miss Harcourt to let her open a humble tea shop, seeing it as a chance for everyone to begin again. When Josie meets Mike Johnson, a handsome Canadian pilot stationed at a neighboring bomber base, a

Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare Book Review

Synopsis

The glittering RMS Queen Mary. A nightclub singer on the run. An aristocratic family with secrets worth killing for.

London, 1936. Lena Aldridge wonders if life has passed her by. The dazzling theatre career she hoped for hasn't worked out. Instead, she's stuck singing in a sticky-floored basement club in Soho, and her married lover has just left her. But Lena has always had a complicated life, one shrouded in mystery as a mixed-race girl passing for white in a city unforgiving of her true racial heritage.

She's feeling utterly hopeless until a stranger offers her the chance of a lifetime: a starring role on Broadway and a first-class ticket on the Queen Mary bound for New York. After a

The Secret Keeper by Siobhan Curham Book Review

Publication Date: July 27, 2022
Publisher: Bookouture
Format: Print, ebook and audio
Genre: Historical Fiction/Womens Fiction

Synopsis

Nazi-occupied Paris, 1942. “I want to create a world where we are free to be together, to be in love,” he whispered. I gulp down the sobs building in my throat. “I want that too. I’ll come back to you. I swear I’ll come back.”

Elena Garcia knows that the mission she has been tasked with is her most dangerous yet. With a tearful goodbye to the man she has grown to love, the dark-eyed and warm-hearted Santiago Lozano, she hurries to catch the train to the drop-off point, the coded maps she is delivering for the resistance concealed

The Crimson Thread by Kate Forsyth Book Review + Blog Tour Giveaway (US only)

Publication Date: July 5, 2022
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

In Crete during World War II, Alenka, a young woman who fights with the resistance against the brutal Nazi occupation, finds herself caught between her traitor of a brother and the man she loves, an undercover agent working for the Allies.

May 1941. German paratroopers launch a blitzkrieg from the air against Crete. They are met with fierce defiance, the Greeks fighting back with daggers, pitchforks, and kitchen knives. During the bloody eleven-day battle, Alenka, a young Greek woman, saves the lives of two Australian soldiers.

The Lost Sister of Fifth Avenue by Ella Carey Book Review

Publication Date: July 7, 2022
Publisher: Bookouture
Series: Daughters of New York #4
Format: ebook, print and audio
Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

New York, 1938: Martha pulled the door of her Fifth Avenue apartment closed, her heart thumping, re-reading the telegram she’d been dreading. Her beloved sister Charlotte needed her help. She was alone in Paris, and the threat of Nazi invasion was growing ever stronger. The time had come for Martha to make the bravest decision of her life. She needed to bring Charlotte home.

As Martha looks out of her bedroom window at the blossom-covered trees in Central Park,

Raleigh - Tudor Adventurer by Tony Riches Book Review

Publication Date: 1st May 2022
Publisher: Preseli Press
Page Length: 332 Pages
Series: The Elizabethan Series, Book 3
Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Tudor adventurer, courtier, explorer and poet, Sir Walter Raleigh has been called the last true Elizabethan.

He didn’t dance or joust, didn’t come from a noble family, or marry into one. So how did an impoverished law student become a favourite of the queen, and Captain of the Guard?

The story which began with the best-selling Tudor trilogy follows Walter Raleigh from his first days at the Elizabethan Court to the end

The Angel of Vienna by Kate Hewitt Book Review

Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: June 16, 2022
Format: ebook, print and audio
Genre: Historical Fiction, WWII

Synopsis

Nazi-occupied Vienna, 1940: A young nurse finds herself with the chance to save innocent children. An unmissable and heartbreaking story—based on devastating real events—about tragedy, hope and courage in the face of impossible odds.

“These children, who the Nazis don’t even see as human, these children are innocent. And, Hannah, if you have the chance to save even one of them, you know what you have to do. Even if it puts your own life at risk.”

A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle Book Review

Synopsis

November 1924. The Endeavour sets sail from Southampton carrying 2,000 passengers and crew on a week-long voyage to New York.

When an elderly gentleman is found dead at the foot of a staircase, ship's officer Timothy Birch is ready to declare it a tragic accident. But James Temple, a strong-minded Scotland Yard inspector, is certain there is more to this misfortune than meets the eye.

Birch agrees to investigate, and the trail quickly leads to the theft of a priceless painting. Its very existence is known only to its owner . . . and the dead man.

With just days remaining until they reach New York, and even Temple's purpose on board

Last Nocturne by M.J. Trow Book Review

Synopsis

Private detectives Grand & Batchelor's latest case draws them into the arcane world of high art and high society in this compelling Victorian mystery.

London. May, 1878. Private enquiry agents Matthew Grand and James Batchelor have been hired by the artist James Whistler to dig into the past of outspoken critic John Ruskin, with whom he has an ongoing feud. Not particularly optimistic of success, the two detectives are sidetracked from the investigation by the murder of a prostitute in nearby Cremorne Gardens. Her body posed on a park bench, a book on birth control sitting on her lap, Clara Jenkins is not the first young woman to have met a similarly grisly fate - and she won't be the last.

The French for Murder by Verity Bright Book Review

Publication Date: May 30, 2022
Publisher: Bookouture
Series: A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #10
Format: ebook, print and audio
Genre: Historical Fiction/Cosy Mystery

Synopsis

A grand villa, croissants for breakfast and a dead body in the wine cellar… Lady Swift can’t seem to take a vacation from murder!

Summer 1923. Lady Eleanor Swift is finally persuaded by her butler, Clifford, to take a villa in the south of France for the season. She plans to do what a glamorous lady abroad should: long lunches on the balcony followed by lazy afternoons lounging by the pool. Even Gladstone the bulldog is looking forward to a daily paddle in the ocean.

But when Clifford examines the wine cellar, he discovers there are no decent reds but there is a very dead body. The victim is famous American movie star Rex Armstrong. Poor Rex seems to have been stabbed with a sword

Northbridge Rectory by Angela Thirkell Book Review

I'm still way behind in Reading Thirkell's Barsetshire Series in Order Challenge, but hopefully I will catch up at some point.

Synopsis

Barsetshire during wartime finds Mr Downing, Miss Pemberton, and Mrs Turner engaged in a love triangle; a chorus of officers raucously quartered at the rectory; and village ladies with violent leanings.

In Mrs Major Spender, Thirkell offers a devastating sketch of the good-natured egoist, and readers will be pleased that the less-than-articulate Betty finds a soulmate in Captain Copham.

My Thoughts

Northbridge Rectory, its inhabitants and those

Cheerfulness Breaks In by Angela Thirkell Book Review

Synopsis

It is summer 1939 and the social event of the year is about to take place: Rose Birkett, a flighty beauty with a penchant for breaking engagements and hearts, is finally getting married, and the whole village - especially her parents - breathes a sigh of relief.

By autumn, however, summer weddings seem a distant memory as war reaches Barsetshire. While the younger generation throws itself into the war effort with cheerful aplomb, older residents remember the last war keenly, and are fearful.

When an entire London school of evacuees arrive, as well as a number of refugees, the village rallies round to accommodate them. Some inhabitants, though, fail to welcome the newcomers with open arms.

A Royal Murder by Verity Bright Book Review

Publication Date: February, 2022
Publisher: Bookouture
Series: A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #9
Format: ebook, print and audio
Genre: Historical Fiction/Cosy Mystery

Synopsis

At the royal boat race there are beautiful barges, plenty of bunting, a handsome prince and… is that a body in the water? Lady Swift is on the case!

Spring, 1923. One-time adventurer and now amateur sleuth Lady Eleanor Swift is attending the annual royal regatta with her new pal Tipsy Fitzroy. Tipsy has Eleanor trussed up like a debutante in a new dress, determined to turn her into a proper society lady. Even Eleanor’s favourite companion, Gladstone the bulldog,

The Red Horse by James R. Benn

Synopsis

Just days after the Liberation of Paris, US Army Detective Billy Boyle and Lieutenant Kazimierz are brought to Saint Albans Convalescent Hospital in the English countryside. Kaz has been diagnosed with a heart condition, and Billy is dealing with emotional exhaustion and his recent methamphetamine abuse. Meanwhile, Billy’s love, Diana Seaton, has been taken to Ravensbrück, the Nazi concentration camp for women, and Kaz’s sister, Angelika, who he recently learned was alive and working with the Polish Underground, has also been captured and transported to the same camp.

This news is brought by British Major Cosgrove, who asks Billy for help, unofficially, in solving what he thinks was the murder of a

The Paris Network by Siobhan Curham Book Review

Publication Date: February 15, 2022
Publisher: Bookouture
Format: ebook, print and audio
Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Paris, 1940: He pressed the tattered book into her hands. ‘You must go to the café and ask at the counter for Pierre Duras. Tell him that I sent you. Tell him you’re there to save the people of France.’

Sliding the coded message in between the crisp pages of the hardback novel, bookstore owner Laurence slips out into the cold night to meet her resistance contact, pulling her woollen beret down further over her face. The silence of the night is suddenly shattered by an Allied plane rushing overhead, its tail