-
Review: A Prisoner in Malta by Phillip DePoy
Someone is plotting to kill Queen Elizabeth. The Queen’s spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham has changed the nineteen year old Christopher Marlowe with tracking down the truth of this impending threat. The only thing anyone knows for sure is there is a prisoner who has information about the plot and Walsingham feels sure that Marlowe can rescue the prisoner and discover what there is to know about the threat. Christopher Marlowe has quite the reputation….he’s known as a brawler, womanizer, genius, and social upstart at Cambridge. His investigation will take him through a treacherous world of Catholic sympathizers, the Spanish government, and double agents…..this isn’t going to be an open and…
-
Review: The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden and the Trial of the Century by Sarah Miller
On August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts in a most gruesome way…..someone took a hatchet to their skulls. And the prime suspect, their daughter Lizzie Borden. The story quickly became the ‘story of the century’. There was no concrete evidence, but rather a lot of circumstantial evidence against Lizzie…..but enough that she was arrested for the crimes. The trial that took place was front page news and was labeled ‘sensational’ by the press. But what was even more sensational was that Lizzie was found not guilty. This book follows the murder, trial, and aftermath of one of histories most shocking…
-
Review: The Secret Life of Anna Blanc by Jennifer Kincheloe
Young socialite Anna Blanc is one walking scandal after the other. She is expected to be a good girl and do exactly what her father wants, however she is impulsive and longing for excietment in her life…..bad combo. When she runs off to elope with a handsome, but rather rake-ish gentleman, her father intervenes and gets the marriage annulled and takes Anna back to his mansion in LA and basically puts her under house arrest. Feeling more confined than ever, her eludes her chaperon on a rare afternoon out so she can attend a suffragette rally, but ends up getting arrested instead. While she is at the police station, she…
-
Special Feature and Excerpt: THE ORACLE (The Sarah Weston Chronicles #3) by D.J. Niko
The Oracle (The Sarah Weston Chronicles, Book Three) by D.J Niko Publication Date: November 10, 2015 Medallion Press Paperback; 456p ISBN-13: 978-1605426273 Genre: Historical/Archaeological Adventure In Delphi, the mountain city deemed by the Greek gods to be the center of the Earth, a cult of neo-pagans re-create with painstaking authenticity ancient rituals to glorify the god Apollo and deliver oracles to seekers from around the world. When antiquities are stolen from a museum in nearby Thebes, British archaeologist Sarah Weston and her American partner, Daniel Madigan, are drawn into a plot that goes beyond harmless role-playing: someone’s using the Delphian oracle as a smoke screen for an information…
-
Review: Home by Nightfall (Charles Lenox Mysteries #9) by Charles Finch
The once arm chair detective, Charles Lenox, has now successfully made the big shift to being in ‘trade’ with his detective agency and partners. Things seem to be going well for Lenox, Dallington, and Polly….they have after all hired a ‘staff’ of detectives to help with their work load, but their rival LeMire also threatens to take away some of their business. All of London is buzzing with the disappearance of a famous German pianist….everyone is speculating that the Yard will call in a consulting detective firm….Lenox hopes it’s his. While he waits to hear if he will be brought in, his brother Edmund is grieving the loss of his wife…
-
Review: The Lake House by Kate Morton
Alice Edevane grew up in a charming lake house on Cornwall coast just after the Great War. Cornwall is a mystical place that inspires imagination and welcomes thoughts of magic. A perfect place to inspire a young girl to write. Alice always knew she wanted to be a writer and living in a large home full of people with their own ‘stories’ she couldn’t help but write them down. But one summer, the unthinkable happens….her brother disappears without a trace never to be seen again. Alice thinks she knows what happened and for the next seventy years she harbors extreme guilt. Now a successful mystery writer, Alice buries her secret deep…
-
Special Feature: The Spine Tingling Literary Canon List for Halloween
Halloween is just around the corner and this week on The Lit Bitch we are talking about the books that make you want to curl up and hide under the covers of your bed. You know those books that scare you so bad that every little noise in your house makes you jump and wonder….is there a monster under my bed??? The folks at Casper Mattresses have a great blog called Pillow Talk and they are doing a super fun ‘haunted’ feature on their blog for Halloween where they talk about spooky hotels (including the Heathman Hotel in Portland, a personal fav of mine being from Oregon and all). Casper is a great company full…
-
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…
-
Spotlight Feature: MARGARET KERR MYSTERY SERIES
Please join Margaret Kerr as she tours the blogosphere for her Margaret Kerr Mystery Series, from October 12-23, with HF Virtual Book Tours, and enter to win one of three (3) Sets of A TRUST BETRAYED and THE FIRE IN THE FLINT in eBook! A Trust Betrayed (Book One) “Thirteenth-century Edinburgh comes off the page cold and convincing, from the smoke and noise of the tavern kitchen to Holyrood Abbey under a treacherous abbot. Most enjoyable.” —THE LIST In the spring of 1297 the English army controls lowland Scotland and Margaret Kerr’s husband Roger Sinclair is missing. He’d headed to Dundee in autumn, writing to Margaret with a promise to…
-
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.…