• Review: Death of an Unsung Hero (Lady Montfort Mystery #4) by Tessa Arlen

    I’ve had the pleasure of reading all but one of the books in the Lady Montford Mystery series and they have all been wonderful reads. I love watching how Arlen’s writing has evolved over the series so far and this book was such a pleasure to read! This book really stood out to me as the best in the series thus far though. Maybe it’s my love of WWI that really made this one stand out or maybe it was seeing the progression of Lady Montford and seeing her family, but either way this was a lovely read and I loved it on many levels! In 1916, the world is…

  • Review: Murder at Half Moon Gate (A Wrexford & Sloane Mystery #2) by Andrea Penrose

    Last year I had the pleasure of reviewing the first book in a new series, Murder on Black Swan Lane, which was an exciting first book. I was anxious to read the next book and was thrilled to finally see it on Netgalley! In the first book, I loved getting to know the protagonist, Lord Wrexford and Mrs Slone. While each had something that I liked independently, the thing I loved most about them was the chemistry. This book would no doubt capitalize on that chemistry. When Lord Wrexford discovers the body of a gifted inventor in a dark London alley, he promptly alerts the watchman and lets the authorities…

  • Review: A Brush with Shadows (Lady Darby Mystery #6) by Anna Lee Huber

    The last Lady Darby book was a little bit of a left down for me. That said, I was eager to see what this book held because I really love Anna Lee Huber’s books, not just the Lady Darby books, but all of her books! The thing that excited me most about this book was the eye catching cover. I totally need this sunny yellow dress to wear around town….it’s beautiful. I was absolutely in love with this cover…..yes I know that’s terrible but it’s the truth. I was happy to read this because the happy yellow dress made it so….especially on the cliffs of the moors. SOLD. July 1831.…

  • Review: Death Below Stairs (Kat Holloway Mysteries #1) by Jennifer Ashley

    This book kept hoping up all over my Twitter feed and I had my eye on it for so long. I had been searching for something a little different from the usual high society murder mystery series. And this looked like the perfect combo, cook from a big house tuned sleuth…sounds intriguing. So I was thrilled when I got the chance to review an early copy! Highly sought-after young cook Kat Holloway takes a position in a Mayfair mansion and soon finds herself immersed in the odd household of Lord Rankin. Kat is unbothered by the family’s eccentricities as long as they stay away from her kitchen, but trouble finds…

  • Review: This Side of Murder (Verity Kent #1) by Anna Lee Huber

    As many of you know, I binge read almost all of Anna Lee Huber’s books this year. I love the Lady Darby books and I also loved her Gothic Myths book as well! Huber rapidly became a favorite author of mine and I was eager to read her latest book series about Verity Kent. I saw a lot of this book on Twitter so I tried to procure a copy before it’s release but sadly I waited too long! So I had to resort to my local library….which I waited like 3 weeks for it to come in. By then I had almost lost interest in reading it but when…

  • Review: Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

    When this one came up for review, I almost passed on it. I am not entirely sure why…..maybe because it was up for review in September and I wasn’t ready to start thinking about anything Christmas related until at least November. Or maybe it was because it was a collaboratively written novel, or that the title wasn’t grabbing me. I don’t know, for some reason I almost passed but I am terribly glad that I didn’t pass on this one! August 1914. England is at war. As Evie Elliott watches her brother, Will, and his best friend, Thomas Harding, depart for the front, she believes—as everyone does—that it will be…

  • Review: Cocoa Beach by Beatriz Williams

    I am a total fan girl of Beatriz Williams, let’s just get that out of the way right off the bat. I love her books. She has a beautiful, lyrical story telling style and I am almost always completely engrossed in her novels! This novel was all over my Twitter feed for weeks and I broke down and bought it because I couldn’t pass up such an interesting sounding novel plus it’s set in WWI so you know I was all over that! Burdened by a dark family secret, Virginia Fortescue flees her oppressive home in New York City for the battlefields of World War I France. While an ambulance…

  • Review: In Farleigh Field: A Novel of World War II by Rhys Bowen

    Rhys Bowen is probably best known for her Royal Spyness Mysteries series and her Molly Murphy Mysteries. She typically writes cozy mysteries, so when this book came across my desk for review, it sounded like something completely new for her which is why I decided to try it. I’ve been reading a lot of cozy mysteries lately and welcomed a little break. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this one. The title suggests more literature, ‘A Novel of World War II’ says more literature rather than mystery to me. But yet the description sounded more mystery. Either way, I liked what I saw for the description and ultimately…

  • Review: A Death by Any Other Name (Lady Montfort Mystery #3) by Tessa Arlen

    I am always on the look out for new murder mysteries, preferably with a female lead ‘detectives’ and set in England. While this isn’t my first novel by this author, it felt new to me. I read Tessa Arlen’s first book in this series, DEATH OF A DISHONORABLE GENTLEMAN, back in early 2015 and though I wasn’t completely hooked at the beginning, I was invested enough to finish it and was rewarded for my tenacity. I didn’t read the second book in this series for some reason, but when the third book came up for review it sounded rather good so I decided to give her books another go. I…

  • Review: No Man’s Land by Simon Tolkien

    So an embarrassing full literary disclosure….I have never read any of The Lord of the Rings books so I have no first hand knowledge of JRR Tolkien’s writing abilities but the popularity of the series speaks for itself. Many have praised this debut novel by Simon Tolkien (JRR’s grandson), as worthy of the Tolkien name in the literary world. When this novel came across my desk for review, the last name of course immediately captured my attention and I was eager to see what the novel was about. Obviously the Tolkien name carries a lot of clout in the literary world but I wondered if this new author would be…