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Review: Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes by Anthony Horowitz #2) by Anthony Horowitz
Shortly after Sherlock Holmes and his adversary, James Moriarty, go over Reichenbach Falls a body is pulled from the water. American detective, Frederick Chase, rushed to Switzerland where he hopes to identify the body as Moriarty’s and ultimately recover a letter sent from notorious American criminal, Clarence Devereux. Devereux and Moriarty had planned to form a partnership that would make them the most formidable crime syndicate in Britain and America. But with Moriarty dead, that leaves Devereux holding the reigns. Chase plans to stop Devereux by any means necessary. When he arrives are Reichenbach falls he meets British detective Athelney Jones who has learned many of Sherlock Holmes’s methods of deduction. The soon…
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Review: Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante (Maggie Hope Mystery #5) by Susan Elia MacNeal
Maggie Hope has just landed state side after being in England for quite some time. She has come with Prime Minister Churchill and the rest of his cabinet to meet with President Roosevelt weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The two world leaders plan on presenting a unified front to the world as allies in the wars against Germany and the Japanese but their relationship is tedious. Any little scandal could threaten to undo their diplomatic relationship. And the murder of a White House aide qualifies as a scandal! Mrs Roosevelt’s secretary, Blanche, failed to show up for work and Mrs Roosevelt herself insists on checking up on her.…
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Review: The Determined Heart: The Tale of Mary Shelley and Her Frankenstein by Antoinette May
Mary Shelley was the daughter of the iconic feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and her husband William Godwin. She has not had a normal childhood….she’s been exposed to all kinds of brilliant literary and philosophical figures. But she has also suffered tragedy, Mary never knew her mother. Her mother died shortly after giving birth to Mary, so the only family she has ever known was her half sister Fanny and her father. Well, Mary’s life is about to get more complicated and uncomfortable when her father remarries. William has only ever really loved one woman, Mary Wollstonecraft, so when he remarries his neighbor Mary Jane Clairmont she is pretty jealous of Wollstonecraft’s memory.…
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Review: War of the Roses: Margaret of Anjou by Conn Iggulden
War is coming….or is it winter? This is the book that inspired the wildly popular A Song of Ice and Fire series (AKA Game of Thrones). This latest book in the War of the Roses series was a constant action sequence. I haven’t read the first book in the series and that did put me at a bit of a disadvantage because I didn’t fully understand the relationships between some of the characters but I do know my British history so it didn’t take too long to get situated in the story. the year is 1454 and King Henry VI has remained all but exiled in Windsor Castle, struck down…
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Review: A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy #1) by Deborah Harkness
Diana Bishop has been trying to keep magic out of her life since she parents died when she was a girl. She has thrown herself into her work as an alchemy historian and is presently in Oxford researching her next keynote speech. While at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, Diana calls for an ancient alchemy manuscript, not knowing that it is actually bewitched! Diana quickly returns the book once she jots down a couple of notes about the book. However, her discovery has drawn the attention of the supernatural world…..vampires, daemons, and other witches. Suddenly Diana is being stalked by a number of creatures and she can’t help but wonder if it has something…
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Review: Alaina Claiborne (British Agent #1) by M.K. McClintock
As a young girl, Alaina Claiborne witnesses a the murder of her parents…..an event that she doesn’t fully understand. At ten years old, Alaina remains in her parents estate with her guardians, her aunt Charlotte and her uncle Sebastiaan. As she grows older, she only minutely remembers the murders and she only finds comfort when riding her horses. One afternoon she is out for a ride, she stops at her favorite spot on the lake by her property. There she runs into her new neighbor, Tristan Sheffield. She is frustrated that this man has intruded on her favorite spot but yet she is oddly intrigued by him. He is handsome to be sure,…
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Review: The Canterbury Sisters by Kim Wright
Che’s life is literally hitting rock bottom. Her mom just died and her long time boyfriend just dumped her via letter for another woman. Right now her life absolutely, positively, sucks. On the same day that she receives the break up letter, she also receives her mother’s ashes with a last request from her mom….take her ashes to Canterbury. Che had forgotten that she promised to take her mother to Canterbury, it was a trip they both planned to take together but never did. So now her mother’s last wish is that they take that trip together. Right now seems like as good of a time as any since se…
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Review: Dead Cert by Dick Francis
Horses and murder in the English countryside…..how can I resist a book like that? Jockey, Alan York, is riding in a steeplechase race when his long time friend, Bill Davidson, takes a terrible fall over the last fence. Alan finishes the race in first place and rushes back to check on his friend. Bill is quickly taken to the hospital but it is too late, he is dead. Alan examine the fence where Bill went down and discovers the remains of a wire, indicating that the fall was anything but an accident. The dark world of horse racing and bookmaking is one that Alan is familiar with. He knows the…
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Review: Aunt Dimity and the Summer King (Aunt Dimity Mystery #20) by Nancy Atherton
Lori Shepherd loves everything about her quaint town of Finch in the Cotswold country of England. It’s here that she is raising her twin boys and new baby daughter Bess along side her husband, Bill. Finch is you typical country town full of country events like the church bake sale and the dog trials. Everyone knows everyone and that also means that everyone knows your business. Since Lori had her baby, she has been out of the loop on all the town gossip but she has noticed that two Finch cottages are still for sale after months on the market and she just can’t understand why.
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Review: Longbourn by Jo Baker
Reader beware…..if you love Jane Austen and are looking for something that will give you a new ‘perspective’ about the Bennet sisters, keep on looking. Sure this novel includes the Bennet sisters and follows the traditional Pride and Prejudice story but that’s about it. Jo Baker remakes the classic story of Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of the below stairs staff but yet it’s a story all its own and noting close to the Austen classic. Sarah has been a maid at Longbourn since she was a child. She cleans the chamber pots, scrubs the laundry, polishes the floor and of course waits on the Bennet sisters.