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Review: The Tale of Hill Top Farm (The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter #1) by Susan Wittig Albert
England’s charming Lake District is the home to the quaint village of Sawrey. Here in this cozy country village, life is different. It is far removed from the hustle and bustle of London which is precisely why Beatrix Potter means to make Sawrey home. The beloved children’s book author has recently lot her fiance and with the success of her books, she finally has the means to afford a quiet country home: Hill Top Farm. Instead of the welcome they expect from a country village, Potter and her four legged friends are met with trepidation and pessimism. In 1905, it was almost unheard of for a women to purchase anything…
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Review: Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd
The name of the game is deception. Real or fake? Truth or lie? This gritty war time novel takes us all over Europe on an adventure unraveling espionage and flushing out spies. The novel opens in pre-WWI Vienna where London based actor Lysander Rief is taking a ‘holiday’ to resolve a ‘personal issue’ with a local psychiatrist. Must of Lysander’s “treatment’ and “cure” involves the psychological term Parallelism. This concept plays a large role in the themes/plot of the novel and with it’s characters. At his first appointment with the doctor, Lysander meets the frazzled, yet beautiful, Hettie Bull. He is immediately drawn to her but, since he is engaged…
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Review: Shades of Milk and Honey (Shades of Milk and Honey #1) by Mary Robinette Kowal
Woven intricately out of the ether, Mary Robinette Kowal creates and exhilarating new world of enchantment that will please Jane Austen fans and illusionist fiction fans alike. In the Regency era, Dorchester countryside, Jane and Melody Ellsworth are as opposite as any two sisters can be. While Melody is beautiful and charming, Jane is plain and lacks the feminine charms to secure a husband. Almost a confirmed spinster, Jane possesses other talents that might make her appealing to the right man…..she is a glamourist. Well accomplished in the art of glamour, Jane captures the imagination of all that she meets….wow people with her skills, but it is Melody the eligible bachelors are…
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Review: Full Dark House (Bryant and May #1) by Christopher Fowler
Modern day London is rocked by a bombing, killing a senior police detective. A detective that happens to be head of the special unit of the force: The Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU). Arthur Bryant was working late on an old case for his memoirs on a Sunday when the bomb exploded. Ironically he survived the Blitz of the 1940’s only to be blown up in his office decades later. His partner and fellow head of the PCU, John May, can’t help but wonder if the modern day bombing is somehow linked to their first case together at PCU back in 1940. Now in his 80’s May must try to find…
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Review: The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R. by Carole DeSanti
With a lush, enticing cover The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R. by Carole DeSanti can’t help but catch the eye. The cover conjures images of a romantic work of historic fiction, filled with extravagance and richness. The novel does deliver in that way. France is ushering in a new era, set in the years immediately before the Franco-Prussian War era (1870’s), the book follows the life of Eugenie Rigault who was born in the foie gras country region of France. There she meets a gentleman that she falls in love with and gives him her heart and body. They soon make plans to move to Paris where the man promises to ‘take…
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Review: The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley
All things have a way of coming back to us in the end. Even if just as a memory from long ago, they are still with us….always. Memories are a funny thing. How accurate are your memories? Has your subconscious twisted your memories and changed the from what really happened to what you remember? How much can you truly trust your memory? Those little moments of déjà vu, was it just that or perhaps you had really been there before in a past life. What recalls a memory most to you, scent? Sound? A place? There is much that science doesn’t know about memory and much that simply cannot be…
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Review: Wentworth Hall by Abby Grahame
All secrets have a way of coming out in the end. Every family has their own secrets that they would rather not become public knowledge….but when your family is rich….the gossip columns love nothing better than a juicy family secret. At Wentworth Hall, while family fortune might be in short supply….juicy secrets are not. Maggie Darlington has just returned from a year abroad in France with her mother and new born baby brother and his French nanny. While abroad Maggie has matured, almost beyond recognition….. she has cast off her girlish styles, activities, and friends. The once spirited, will-full teen has now conformed into a model young woman and with…
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Review: Mr Churchill’s Secretary (Maggie Hope #1) by Susan Elia MacNeal
With flaming red hair to match the bombs bursting in air, Margaret Hope sits behind a typist desk in the Prime Minsters office at Number 10…waiting to be useful to someone….anyone. Air raid sirens sound throughout London in 1940. Bombs drop from the air threatening to destroy the heart and soul of the British people. In this dark time, Winston Churchill has been named PM and with any luck, he will keep the British spirit alive while war rages on….though he knowns a German invasion is eminent, all he needs is a little bit of hope to give the people. As luck would have it, Churchill does have Hope in…
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Review: Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs #1) by Jacqueline Winspear
War changes everything. In 1910, the world is a different place. England is still at peace, the aristocracy rules Britain’s social scene, and the life of Maisie Dobbs changes forever. At thirteen, young Maisie goes to work as a maid in the London household of Lady Rowan Compton, a wealthy suffragette and philanthropist. Though she is poor, Maisie is rich in intelligence. One night, Lady Rowan finds Maisie reading in her library and not just reading but teaching herself Latin and philosophy. Recognizing that Maisie has an aptitude to do something useful with her life, Lady Rowan begins sponsoring private tutoring under her friend Dr. Maurice Blanche. Before she knows it, Maisie is…
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Review: A Stranger in Mayfair (Charles Lenox Mysteries #4) by Charles Finch
Charles Lenox’s is the quintessential armchair detective. Being a highborn well funded gentleman has it’s perks and one of them is being allowed eccentricities. For Lenox, his ‘eccentricity’ is….wait for it….a J-O-B! Being a detective is something most of Lenox’s friends frown upon, he frequently finds himself on the source of a good many jokes and though he is well liked, his profession isn’t deemed proper by his social circle. This fact is beginning to wear on Lenox though, after all he is an Oxford chappie and well liked in London society and with his older brother holding a seat in Parliament….Lenox longs to be truly respected. In the last…