Review: Declan’s Cross (Sharpe and Donovan #3) by Carla Neggers

Marine Biologist, Julianne Maroney, has just had her heart broken by her long time friend recently turned lover, Andy Donovan.

She needs to take some time to herself so when she meets Lindsey Hargreaves, a fellow marine science enthusiast, she welcomes the chance to make a chance.

Lindsey has a field office in Ireland that she is trying to get off the ground and would love to have Julianne’s help setting it up.

Julianne accepts without a second thought and books her ticket to Ireland almost immediately.

Meanwhile, FBI agents Emma Sharp and Colin Donovan (Andy’s brother) are in Ireland on holiday when they learn that Julianne is going to be staying in the small village of Declan’s Cross.

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Review: His Majesty’s Hope (Maggie Hope Mystery #3) by Susan Elia MacNeal

Maggie Hope has finally gotten the opportunity she has been waiting for to prove herself. After serving as a secret agent and saving Princess Elizabeth in the previous book, Maggie’s performance has earned her a full-fledged membership into the newly formed black ops organization. She is now a Special Operations Executive—or more commonly known as a spook.

Britain plans to drop her behind enemy lines in Germany where she will bug the office of a high ranking Nazi official who just happens to be her estranged mother. The mission is only supposed to last a couple of days—in and out. But when an opportunity presents itself for Maggie to stay on longer and further infiltrate the German society, she decides to press her luck.

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Review: Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell

Terror has gripped the foggy streets of London in 1854. A family of five has been found brutally murdered–beaten to death with their throats slit–the youngest victim was an infant. Since nothing was taken and the crime scene neatly staged, it can only be considered a crime of the deranged.

Constable Becker was first on the scene, only missing the murderer by a matter of minutes. After raising the alarm, Detective Inspector Sean Ryan arrives and he immediately sees potential in Becker as an assistant.

They gather what few clues were left at the crime scene and realize they aren’t dealing with a mad man, but rather an educated man of means.

The crime itself closely resembles another infamous murder that happened forty three years earlier, The Ratcliffe Highway murders. The famous author Thomas De Quincey also wrote an essay portraying and praising these murders as ‘fine works of art’.

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Review: And Only to Deceive (Lady Emily #1) by Tasha Alexander

Lady Emily Ashford is not in love with her new husband, the Viscount Philip Ashford. In fact she hardly knows him. So when she receives word that her husband died on safari in Africa, she can hardly morn a man she barely knows.

Emily married Philip to escape the constraints of her family and hoped that marriage would provide that. Now that she is a widow, she finds she has even more freedom than she did as a wife.

All of London society can’t stop singing the praises of Lord Ashford to Emily which makes her uncomfortable, but in an effort to at least try and morn the stranger she married, Emily listens to their stories.

She soon discovers that Philip was in fact wildly interesting and very much in love with her. Not only did Philip love to hunt on the “Dark Continent”, he was a romantic at heart with a love for Emily she has no idea existed; he also was a lover and collector of ancient antiquities and Greek literature.

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Review: Princess Elizabeth’s Spy (Maggie Hope Mystery #2) by Susan Elia MacNeal

Being a spy sounds so much cooler and glamorous without all the physical training doesn’t it? That’s exactly what’s running through Maggie Hope’s mind while she’s at Camp Spook.

After helping uncover a terrorist cell and cracking some difficult codes is the first book, Maggie has been recruited to work for MI5….an opportunity she simply can’t pass up there’s only one problem….the biggest muscle in Maggie’s body is her brain.

But when she arrives at Camp Spook, she wasn’t counting on all the drills and exercises. It is quickly apparent that she is not cut out for MI5’s spy academy. After only a couple of weeks, her supervisor calls her in and tells her he is pulling her from Camp Spook.

At first Maggie is crushed, but there is still some Hope to be had….MI5 is going to reassign her.

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