Occasionally I review a book for NetGalley. I just re-read a review I wrote last fall, long before its release date (today), and thought I'd mention it here, in case there are other people who don't read the reviews on the bookseller sites.   

Resting Place by Camille Sten is a page-turner. A murder, a manor house deep 
in the Swedish countryside, longstanding family conflicts, and a blizzard provide plenty of atmosphere, questions and chills. Ms. Sten knows how to write an eerily compelling mystery. I read until I absolutely had to go to bed, and then bits of Resting Place intruded on my dreams. The surprising denouement will leave you pondering. I’m looking forward to another book by this author.

Note: I read a lot, and I’m a tough critic. I don’t recall a single typo, wrong word/bad word choice, or clunky bit in this book. This is so rare, I’m amazed.

I received an ARC for my fair review.

And then I thought, why not post a review of one that's not out yet? So here's what I wrote about And By Fire, a dual-time police procedural by Evie Hawtrey, which will come out on May 10, 2022.   

When dual time novels work well, they can be very good indeed. Because I am picky about historical detail, I am frequently not so much disappointed as annoyed. Even the best author may trip when writing about an earlier period through failure to do enough research or to understand just how much he or she does not know. Evie Hawtrey’s dual time police procedural/mystery And By Fire came as a pleasant surprise.

The modern day sections involve the hunt for a serial arsonist in London by a pair of detectives, male and female, who have a prior romantic history. That by itself makes a good story. The parts set in 1666 at the time of London’s Great Fire follow the efforts of a fireworks maker and a lady-in-waiting to solve the murder of a friend committed during that conflagration. The background is well researched and the characters are believable for that period. They are not 21^st century people in costume.

The two sets of characters’ methods and situations differ but some of their dilemmas are the same. Together the stories dovetail and reinforce each other. This was a thoroughly enjoyable read.

I received an ARC in return for my unbiased review of And By Fire.  

Note: Galley proofs come with the advisory that typographical errors will be corrected before publication. As I have seen many, many typos in books put out by major publishing houses, I tend to be cynical. In this case, I do hope the publisher corrected the use of  "alright" which was my only real criticism of this novel. No matter how many times you see “alright” appearing in professionally published books, it’s still not a real word. 

From https://www.grammarly.com/blog/alright-vs-all-right/ “People are often surprised to learn that alright is not an accepted spelling of all right. Although the one-word spelling of alright is seen in informal writing, teachers and editors will always consider it incorrect. To use the expression with impunity, it is best to spell it as two words: all right.”

   

TALES FROM THE HIGHLANDS by Martha Keyes

 

I should have written a glowing review of the first Martha Keyes novel I read, THE WIDOW AND THE HIGHLANDER. Maybe it’s just as well I waited, because now I‘ve finished all four of the TALES FROM THE HIGHLANDS and can praise them all in one review, a great saving of time. 

Here’s what I like about these traditional Georgian historical romances. They’re in the manner of Georgette Heyer, so there are no obligatory sex scenes, but with a Scottish accent. The characters face real, believable problems and dangers.

The setting, story, characters, and detail all feel authentic, which is rarer than one might wish in historical romance. 

The quality of the writing is good,  and the books kept me reading (I can’t guess how many other novels I’ve started, put down, and never picked up again because they just weren’t compelling enough). Now I’m reading Ms. Keyes’s OF LANDS HIGH AND LOW.

If you enjoy historical romance and don’t insist on the characters tearing each other’s clothing off every thirty pages, these are for you.  

The series:

THE WIDOW AND THE HIGHLANDER

THE ENEMY AND MISS INNES

THE INNKEEPER AND THE FUGITIVE

THE GENTLEMAN AND THE MAID

A Westminster Wedding

 It's been a long haul.

My sixth novel, Portia & the Merchant of London,  was released in February of last year. The seventh, A Westminster Wedding, should (I hope!) come out in the next two or three months. The delay was caused by the need to make some extensive revisions and then by scheduling issues. I believe I've got one more set of galleys to look at, but the cover and blurb are done. 

The title does not refer to a wedding at St. George's, Hanover Square. It's taken from N. Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary, published in 1737:

Westminster-wedding, a Whore and a Rogue married together.

Sometimes I like to play with the tropes and conventions often found in historical romance. No, the heroine is not a prostitute, and the hero is not a rogue...strictly speaking. But there is an archrogue in a supporting role, and deceit galore.

The blurb:

The Barding earldom may be doomed. A shocking suggestion may provide another potential heir.

Miles Halliwell, Barding’s man of business, owes everything to the earl. Does loyalty to his employer require him to deal with a known criminal and incite forgery? Unfortunately for Miles’s peace of mind, it may.

To protect her family’s reputation, Julia St. John, daughter of a baron, has given up everything to live in obscurity with an illegitimate son and no better future in sight. The earl’s family offers a new life…at the cost of a few more lies. 

  

   

Why do you write?

 A while ago, Anna Faversham, whose books I always enjoy, posed a question on her Goodreads blog. 

The question was, "Why do you write?" She received half a dozen answers, which you can see  at 

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6905076.Anna_Faversham/blog. 

The answers were surprisingly varied, suggesting this is actually a more complex question than one might think. So I'm asking the same question of my blog, Facebook and other social media readers/followers:

If you write, why do you write? 

Inquiring minds want to know.

    

DAMNING THE DEAD by Kerry Blaisdell: release date 1/5/2022

 I guess this is my year for reviewing non-Georgian/Regency novels. Recently I finished Kerry Blaisdell's third novel in her series featuring Hyacinth Finch, who is sort-of-dead illicit antiquities dealer on a mission from the Archangel Michael.

Do I need to say I read the third because I really enjoyed the preceding books? If you haven't read Debriefing the Dead and Waking the Dead, do that before Damning the Dead.

Kerry Blaisdell’s Damning the Dead is the third in her Dead series. You might have thought Hyacinth Finch’s life—half-life? Non-life?—couldn’t get more complicated. You would be mistaken. She started out as an inoffensive buyer and seller of stolen antiquities. Now in the third book, she’s up to her neck in demons, Nazis, ghosts, and two boyfriends, one of them dead, the other half-demon. Then there’s her part-time job for Michael, the Archangel, and her guardianship of her nephew. They’re all bound to conflict at some point.

There’s a peculiar realism to these novels. Hyacinth is no superhero and neither are her allies. In spite of supernatural dangers, the characters still have to eat (if they’re even half alive), find transportation, and deal with sneaky and/or jealous boyfriends. Hyacinth remains ethically challenged in some respects. 

That grounded-in-reality feeling and the fact I’ve never yet foreseen all the twists and turns in Ms. Blaisdell’s novels keeps me reading. Also they’re page-turners. 

I received an ARC for my unbiased review.

  

 

Once in a while I review a book, usually one in the Georgian/Regency period. I do like other historical fiction, however, and mysteries, and besides, my father grew up in New York City not long after the period in which this series is set. I could not resist reading this turn-of-the-century mystery.

I’ve read and liked several of Rhys Bowen’s novels so I had high expectations for Wild Irish Rose by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles. There are a number of series running to a dozen or eighteen books that I love and keep reading, but I’ve been reading them since the first, and I think that makes a difference. Wild Irish Rose is the 18^th in the novels featuring Molly Murphy Sullivan. I found it difficult to establish a rapport with the characters, coming to it so late.

I did expect something a little meatier, more in the tradition of Anne Perry’s Victorian mysteries or Charles Todd’s WWI and early 20^th century mysteries. Something that bothered me a little is that it’s my understanding that the various ethnic groups in New York in the 19^th and early 20^th century tended to live in their own neighborhoods, like Little Italy in the case of Italian immigrants. There seems to be more of an ethnic mix in Molly’s neighborhood.

Another stumbling block for me was that Molly didn’t “feel” like a comparatively recent immigrant. But again, that may be because I’m a Joanie-come-lately to the books.

However, it’s well written and an entertaining read and fans of the series will probably enjoy it.  It’s scheduled for release on March 1, 2022.

 I received an ARC of Wild Irish Rose in exchange for my unbiased review.

 

I’m running a little behind this year. Today I put the Halloween decorations away except for the skeleton sitting on the rollator between the kitchen and the front room. I also put up a string of lights to augment the string still up from last December…or maybe the December before that.

I meant to do something seasonal and New Mexico for the blog this time but ran out of that commodity. So instead, here’s a semi-seasonal ditty:

My Favorite New Mexico Things (with apologies to The Sound of Music)

Rain in the arroyos and lightning that flashes,

Dust in your bedding and clothing and lashes,

Dry canyon winds that blow in the spring,

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

Doors and sashes in blue and old royal roads,

Pickups with firewood and artwork in loads,

Rose colored adobes and red chile strings,

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

Roadrunners that dash with never a stop,

Mesas standing tall with pueblos on top,

Kachinas and kivas, hidalgos and kings,

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

Happy holidays, everyone.