Genre: historical fiction

A- #AudioBookReview: The Murder of Mr. Ma by John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> audio reviews> audiobooks> book reviews
A- #AudioBookReview: The Murder of Mr. Ma by John Shen Yen Nee and SJ RozanThe Murder of Mr. Ma (Dee & Lao, #1) by John Shen Yen Nee, S.J. Rozan
Narrator: Daniel York Loh
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss, supplied by publisher via Libro.fm
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: Dee & Lao #1
Pages: 312
Length: 8 hours and 24 minutes
Published by Recorded Books, Soho Crime on April 2, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

For fans of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films, this stunning, swashbuckling series opener by a powerhouse duo of authors is at once comfortingly familiar and tantalizingly new.
Two unlikely allies race through the cobbled streets of 1920s London in search of a killer targeting Chinese immigrants.
London, 1924. When shy academic Lao She meets larger-than-life Judge Dee Ren Jie, his life abruptly turns from books and lectures to daring chases and narrow escapes. Dee has come to London to investigate the murder of a man he’d known during World War I when serving with the Chinese Labour Corps. No sooner has Dee interviewed the grieving widow than another dead body turns up. Then another. All stabbed to death withg a butterfly sword. Will Dee and Lao be able to connect the threads of the murders—or are they next in line as victims?
John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan’s groundbreaking collaboration blends traditional gong'an crime fiction and the most iconic aspects of the Sherlock Holmes canon. Dee and Lao encounter the aristocracy and the street-child telegraph, churchmen and thieves in this clever, cinematic mystery that’s as thrilling and visual as an action film, as imaginative and transporting as a timeless classic.

My Review:

It can be considered both sad and ironic that Ma Ze Ren had left his native China in pursuit of fortune and adventure among the Chinese Labour Corps in the trenches of World War I, survived, immigrated to London and opened a successful shop dealing in Chinese antiquities – having seemingly attained all that he had originally sought – only to be killed in the midst of his shop by means of one of those self-same antiquities he intended to sell.

When they both served in the Labour Corps, Ma Ze Ren and several of his compatriots had come to an agreement with the man who served as the liaison between the Chinese Labour Corps members and the British officers who used them as cannon fodder, Judge Dee Ren Jie, that Dee would make arrangements to send their bodies back home if the chances of war required such service.

The war may be long over when this story opens in 1924, but that contract still holds Judge Dee, so he has come to London to take care of Ma’s final arrangements. But before he can even begin, Dee is taken up in the midst of a labor riot along with other Chinese men protesting for fair wages and treatment in a city that considers them something less than fully human.

Which is where the chronicler of this tale, scholar and author Lao She, comes into the tale. Dee needs to be out of jail before an enemy realizes that he has this nemesis in his clutches. Bertrand Russell wishes to help his friend Dee without getting his own name attached to this scandalous business.

And Lao She is bored out of his mind – even if he is unwilling to admit it to himself – spending his days teaching Chinese language and literature to students who have no love or care for the language or the people who speak it, merely a desire to get a leg up on their fellows in the commercial opportunities opening up in a modernized China.

Lao is supposed to be clandestinely exchanged for Dee – but Lao gives away the game with every move he makes and every word he’s not supposed to be uttering. So a prison break it is, with Lao, Dee and Russell scattering along with the rest of the prisoners.

But Dee still has a mission, Lao has acquitted himself well in the melee and has acquired a taste for danger and adventure he never realized blazed within him. Reluctant partners, resistant friends, together they will uncover not one but two murder plots in a fascinating tale that takes readers from the homes of the intelligentsia to the alleys of Limehouse – with a stop among the pioneers of the silver screen along the heights and depths of its way – only to arrive frantic and breathless at one of the first principles in any investigation:

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Escape Rating A-: The Murder of Mr. Ma was the highlighted review in the online mystery/crime review newsletter First Clue several months ago, and something about that review caught my attention and held it more than long enough for me to mark the title in Edelweiss as “Highly Anticipated” and immediately grab it when my anticipation was rewarded with the availability of an eARC and later an early audiobook.

(The above is a hint. If you love mysteries, subscribe to First Clue!)

The comparison in many reviews of this book are to Holmes and Watson, particularly the Holmes played by Robert Downey Jr. in the Guy Ritchie movies – because that particular version of Holmes is considerably more active than most.

As has been confessed before, I am a sucker for a Holmes pastiche, so I would have been interested in this book on that basis alone, but I think that quick comparison sells Dee and Lao and The Murder of Mr. Ma a bit short in this particular instance.

There is a surface resemblance in that Dee is the more active and experienced investigator – with or without resorting to the martial arts – while Lao, like Watson, is the newbie at this particular game and is tasked with creating a record of the adventure rather than necessarily figuring out the solution on his own. And if this combination appeals, Barker & Llewelyn are a bit closer analog than Holmes and Watson in more ways than the initially obvious.

What takes this story up another notch or ten is that both Dee and Lao were real historical figures – who never met due to having lived centuries apart. But Lao was a Chinese scholar in London during this period in real life, while Dee was a figure out of legend whose adventures were popularized by Robert van Gulik in the mid-20th century. (So if you think Dee’s name sounds familiar, that’s most likely the reason.)

Of course, what makes any mystery is the way the case itself is laid out and investigated, and that’s where this one draws the reader in its whirlwind every bit as much as Dee pulls Lao along in his wake. Because at first it seems as if the murder was a result of the prejudice and anti-Chinese sentiment that Dee, Lao and their countrymen face on every side in London in 1924, not helped at all by the popular “Yellow Peril” movies that play on and sensationalize the British fear of “the other”.

But the more Dee and Lao, with the able assistance and frequent succor of Dee’s friend Hoong, search for clues and motives, the less that simple but terrible conclusion feels like the entirety of the answer – not that it doesn’t underlay that answer but it’s just not the whole of the thing. Particularly as that answer is made even more elusive by Lao’s struggles with his pride and his naivete, and Dee’s ongoing attempts to extract himself from his opium addiction.

This is a mystery with layers surrounding layers, wheels within wheels, two investigators neither of whom are having their best day and criminals whose overweening pride finally gets in their way. And it’s marvelous.

The audiobook, narrated by Daniel York Loh,  was a delight, but as is so often the case, I switched to text near the end because I couldn’t figure it out either and I just HAD to know. I have two and only two quibbles with the whole thing. I REALLY wanted Lao to get over his mooning over his landlady’s daughter because it was obvious from the beginning that he was deluding himself about his prospects and almost willfully blind to the obvious. His vain hopes and how thoroughly they were going to be dashed took a lot of audio time. My other quibble – a much bigger one – is that the short story that introduced this fascinating pair “The Killing of Henry Davenport” in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine does not appear to be available online, and that there’s no second book firmly fixed on the horizon. Dee’s and Lao’s investigations NEED to be a series. So much. So very much.

Which means that I leave this review pleased that Lao finally let himself get hit with the clue-by-four regarding Miss Wendell, and that rumors of a second book leave me with hope on that front as well.

A+ #BookReview: The Black Hand by Will Thomas + #Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> book reviews> Giveaways
A+ #BookReview: The Black Hand by Will Thomas + #GiveawayThe Black Hand (Barker & Llewelyn, #5) by Will Thomas
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, mystery
Series: Barker & Llewelyn #5
Pages: 289
Published by Touchstone on July 1, 2008
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

When an Italian assassin's body is found floating in a barrel in Victorian London's East End, enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his assistant Thomas Llewelyn are called in to investigate. Soon corpses begin to appear all over London, each accompanied by a Mafia Black Hand note. As Barker and Llewelyn dig deeper, they become entangled in the vendettas of rival Italian syndicates -- and it is no longer clear who is a friend or foe.

My Review:

So far, at least, the Barker & Llewelyn series is a bit like a caper movie. Not that Cyrus Barker and his assistant Thomas Llewelyn are committing capers – their job is to either thwart or investigate such goings-on. Instead, just like a good caper movie, the story opens at a climactic moment and then rewinds to the beginning of the story we’ve just been dropped into the middle of so we can see how things came to such a desperate pass.

As those climactic moments are generally life-threatening, and specifically threatening to the life of Thomas Llewelyn, it’s a good thing that we go into that pulse-pounding scene knowing that Llewelyn must have survived. After all, part of his job as private enquiry agent Cyrus Barker’s assistant is to chronicle Barker’s cases – and dead men tell no tales.

The tale that Llewelyn has to tell this time around is the story of a brewing turf war among London’s criminal underbelly. There’s a new player in the old game of gangs and turf and money, but a new player under a very old and familiar name – the Sicilian Mafia.

Muscling for territory in wide-open London with their signature stilettos against native gangs and older immigrant groups who rely on fists, brickbats and other coshes to get their dirty work done, the incomers cut a wide swath, literally, through the forces scrambling to array against them.

Including both Scotland Yard and the Home Office, which is where Barker and Llewelyn get dragooned into the fight. A fight that Barker most certainly did not start, but is utterly determined to finish – no matter how many favors he has to call in, how many compromises he has to make, or how many of his own hostages to fortune he has to put in harm’s way.

Escape Rating A+: There are three – well, at least three – things going on in this book, and every single one of them just adds to the reader’s compulsion to keep turning the pages, starting from that chilling, riveting opening.

The first thing, of course, is the case itself. The Mafia – or at least one arm or finger of that organization – is doing its damndest to carve out a toehold for itself in London – by carving up as many as possible until they get their way.

Barker’s remit – to be handled however he sees fit – is to make London so hot for the Sicilian gangs that they go back to Sicily, before their brand of bloody assassination becomes the norm in London.

But just because Barker has carte blanche from the Home Office, that doesn’t mean they’ll provide him with anything else, and certainly not any of their own forces. They don’t even want Scotland Yard involved but have left Barker to do things as he sees best. After all, they can always blame him for whatever goes wrong after the fact.

He sees best to call in a whole lot of favors, which means that the reader, through Thomas Llewelyn’s eyes and pen, gets to learn a whole lot more about who Barker really is under the persona he has created for himself, where he comes from, and who and what he holds dear. As well as how many rules, regulations, laws and ethics he is willing to bend if not outright break to see this thing through.

Those revelations rock Llewelyn to his foundations but don’t change his mind one single bit about following the man he refers to as ‘the Guv’ anywhere he leads – even into the jaws of hell.

So, there’s the case. Then there’s the deeper dive into Barker’s secrets – a set of revelations that should continue as the series progresses.

Last but not least there’s the resonance to the now in this story that is very much steeped in the ‘then’. Because while the case may be about the Mafia, what’s behind their advent into London is a debate about immigration and immigrants and just how easy or difficult it should be and just how much enforcement is necessary and which way and upon whom the economic impacts have and will fall.

And doesn’t all of that sound bloody familiar?

I’m here for all of the above, but even if just one part of that appeals to you, the fully realized historical setting, the whodunnit, the network of ‘Irregulars’ that Barker and Llewelyn are developing, Llewelyn’s continued training, OR the way that the past links to the present, this series is utterly fan-damn-tastic every single step of the way.

The deeper I read into this series, the better it gets. Each book in the series has been tight, taut, thrilling and compelling, all at the same marvelous time. They’ve just been awesome so far, and I can’t recommend the whole thing highly enough – although I plan to keep trying. I also, of course, plan to keep reading, and suspect that it won’t be long before I pick up the next book in the series, Fatal Enquiry.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Because I’ve enjoyed this series so much so far, it was an obvious choice for one of this week’s Blogo-Birthday giveaways – especially as the latest book in the series, Death and Glory, is coming out later this month!

Drumroll please! On this third day of my Blogo-Birthday Celebration, today’s giveaway is the winner’s choice of ANY book in the Barker & Llewelyn series in any format, up to $25 (US) which should be enough to get even Death and Glory if you’re already caught up!

Good luck with today’s giveaway and remember that there’s more to come!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A+ #BookReview: The Hellfire Conspiracy by Will Thomas

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> book reviews
A+ #BookReview: The Hellfire Conspiracy by Will ThomasThe Hellfire Conspiracy (Barker & Llewelyn, #4) by Will Thomas
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, mystery
Series: Barker & Llewelyn #4
Pages: 338
Published by Touchstone on July 10, 2007
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

In the latest adventure in what is "fast becoming one of the genre's best historical-mystery series" (Booklist), roughhewn private enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his assistant Thomas Llewelyn must track down London's first serial killer.
When Barker and Llewelyn are hired to find a girl from the upper classes who has gone missing in the East End, they assume her kidnapping is the work of white slavers. But when they discover five girls have been murdered in Bethnal Green, taunting letters begin to arrive in Craig's Court from a killer calling himself Mr. Miacca.
Barker fears that Miacca might be part of the Hellfire Club, a group of powerful, hedonistic aristocrats performing Satanic rituals. He must track the fiend to his hideout, while Llewelyn confronts the man who put him in prison.
Dodging muckrakers, navigating the murky Thames under cover of darkness, and infiltrating London's most powerful secret society, The Hellfire Conspiracy is another wild ride that "brings to life a London roiling with secret leagues, deadly organizations, and hidden clubs" (Ron Bernas, Detroit Free Press).

My Review:

This fourth entry in the marvelously absorbing Barker & Llewelyn historical mystery (after The Limehouse Text) will grab the reader by the throat and not let go until the end – even as one’s gorge rises more than a bit at the nature of the crimes committed.

A young girl has been kidnapped in Bethnal Green, a down-at-heels neighborhood that seems to be on the cusp between gentrifying and falling straight down into hell alongside its infamous neighbor, Whitechapel.

But the girl is not a resident of the area, she’s just a bored little visitor forced to tag along with her do-gooding mother as she volunteers at one of the many charitable institutions in the area. If Gwendolyn DeVere had been a local girl, it’s sad to say that no one would have cared and the police would have paid no attention whatsoever. Girls and women come to bad ends in Bethnal Green every single day.

Middle and upper class children are an entirely different matter. The police ARE interested in the disappearance of the child of one of the Queen’s elite Life Guards. Howsomever, as Cyrus Barker and his assistant Thomas Llewelyn do their best to bring the girl’s abductor to justice, it seems as if the police are not merely one step ahead of them, but actively hindering their investigation.

Whether because they resent Barker working on their patch, whether it’s merely inter-agency warfare between Scotland Yard and the Thames River Police or even if they are protecting a potentially guilty party out of respect or loyalty is just one of many things that stick in Barker’s craw.

The case, as heinous as it is, looks to be the work of a serial killer. But Barker’s investigation turns up an even more disgusting angle – albeit one not quite as gruesome. Because the death of one well-to-do child has kicked off a hornet’s nest in the middle of the internecine war between privilege and reform.

The reformers want to raise the age of legal consent to 16, because too many young girls are forced in prostitution at much too early an age. The nobility want to retain their privilege to ‘buy’ 13 year old girls and ‘keep’ them until the girls are no longer young and fresh faced, and then have the right to get another – and another.

And it’s a privilege that some of them, at least, are willing to kill for. Including Llewelyn’s old nemesis.

More than one reckoning is due, and Barker and Llewelyn intend to deliver. Whatever it might cost them.

Escape Rating A+: I just wasn’t getting into the book I planned to read, I flailed, I bailed, and found myself back in Victorian England with Barker & Llewelyn, and fell right into The Hellfire Conspiracy.

Which, now that I think about it, is a bit of a pun of a title – although not a funny one. The original club operated about a century before this one, but it’s all in the family. Literally, as the most infamous earlier incarnation was organized by the current reprobate’s grandfather, took place in the same location, and was just as disgusting as this one. And there certainly is a conspiracy of silence regarding their membership and the depraved practices those members engage in, but it’s not the actual conspiracy at the heart of the actual crime spree. Although in a way, it sorta/kinda is.

That the Hellfire Club in either version is not the actual murderer is a bit of a surprise twist, because they are utterly disgusting, and so are their aims and practices. Yet they are able to operate pretty much in plain sight because of their immense privilege.

Part of what makes this series so fascinating is that it takes place at around the same time as the Sherlock Holmes stories, but it operates in an entirely different sphere. Barker and Llewelyn are both middle-class at best, are able to blend in with ‘the quality’ when necessary, but their hearts and their sensibilities are with people of their own class and further down the economic scale.

What made this particular case so absorbing was that it happens at the intersection of so many things, both historical and fictional.

Fictionally, we get a bit more information about both Barker’s and Llewelyn’s still obscure pasts, which is being revealed in tiny bites in each book. HIstorically the political infighting between the Reform Movement and the aristocracy, along with the somewhat exaggerated but real fears of so-called ‘White Slavery’ made the reform cause that much more urgent even as the nobility dug in their heels and the muckraking newspapers of the day breathlessly reported on both sides adds even more hair-raising facets to a case that was already sensational.

But it’s the characters of Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn themselves that keep the reader turning pages. Especially in a case like this one, where they go in knowing that the odds of a happy ending are very much against them, but determined to bring as much justice as can be had to all the victims of this atrocity; the living and the dead.

This series has turned out to be THE BEST comfort/go to series, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the dark and terrible places that they have to go to in order to find some measure of justice. Even though, very much like in the Sebastian St. Cyr series, that measure is seldom as full as one would like it to be because some of the perpetrators are above the investigator’s touch.

But that means I will certainly be back for the next book in this series, The Black Hand, the next time I flail, need to bail, and have to find a compelling story to take refuge in.

A- #BookReview: The Graveyard of the Hesperides by Lindsey Davis

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
A- #BookReview: The Graveyard of the Hesperides by Lindsey DavisThe Graveyard of the Hesperides (Flavia Albia Mystery, #4) by Lindsey Davis
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: Flavia Albia #4
Pages: 336
Published by Minotaur Books on April 14, 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

In first century Rome, Flavia Albia, the daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, has taken up her father's former profession as an informer. On a typical day, it's small cases—cheating spouses, employees dipping into the till—but this isn't a typical day.
Her beloved, the plebeian Manlius Faustus, has recently moved in and decided that they should get married in a big, showy ceremony as part of beginning a proper domestic life together. Also, his contracting firm has been renovating a rundown dive bar called The Garden of the Hesperides, only to uncover human remains buried in the backyard. There have been rumors for years that the previous owner of the bar, now deceased, killed a bar maid and these are presumably her remains. In the choice between planning a wedding and looking into a crime from long ago, Albia would much rather investigate a possible murder. Or murders, as more and more remains are uncovered, revealing that something truly horrible has been going on at the Hesperides.
As she gets closer to the truth behind the bodies in the backyard, Albia's investigation has put her in the cross-hairs—which might be the only way she'll get out of the wedding and away from all her relatives who are desperate to 'help.'

My Review:

No matter how much technology advances, human nature remains pretty much the same, and that’s a big part of what makes historical mysteries so much fun AND so absorbing. That’s especially true in the Marcus Didius Falco series and its literal daughter-series, Flavia Albia, of which this book, The Graveyard of the Hesperides, is the fourth.

The setting is the Roman Empire in the first century A.D., often, but not always, in Rome itself, as this book is. Flavia Albia is a private informer – read that as private investigator – following in the footsteps of her very much alive but only occasionally meddling adopted father, Marcus Didius Falco, the protagonist of the earlier series.

Falco married above himself in the earlier series, the son of a relatively poor and constantly scheming plebeian family who married a Senator’s daughter. As The Graveyard of the Hesperides opens – both literally and figuratively – Flavia Albia is about to do the same.

Which is where the domestic half of the story kicks in, as the wedding is approaching quickly – as are her soon-to-be in-laws. Flavia loves her fiance – but his family, well, not so much. And very much vice-versa.

In other words, she’s happy to be marrying HIM, but not at all sure about ‘THEM’. A set of conflicted feelings that many feel on the eve of their wedding to someone who seems like the one sane person in a family of crackpots. And not that her intended wouldn’t feel justified having the exact same trepidations about Flavia’s family, as readers already know that Falco takes a bit of getting used to at the best of times!

But that’s the domestic half of the story, the part that in any mystery series centers on the life of the investigator and the gang of helpers and hinderers that coalesce around them as they poke their noses into places that someone inevitably believes they don’t belong.

And that’s where the opening of the graveyard of the Hesperides comes in. The Garden of the Hesperides is the open-air backside of a down-at-heels bar in an equally insalubrious neighborhood. Fiance Tiberius Manlius Faustus owns the construction company that is renovating the place, specifically that back garden.

There have been rumors for years that one of the barmaids is buried back there, so when the construction crew finds human bones, no one is all that surprised. But they don’t just find one set of bones – they find six. Now that is a surprise!

Even more surprising, it looks like all six bodies were buried at the same time and in the exact same way – very neatly and tidily at that. Almost as if all those deaths were planned. And executed.

And yet, after the night that barmaid disappeared, the place opened up the next morning and no one noticed anything amiss except that one missing employee that no one missed all that much. But there are suddenly a whole lot of people really eager for Flavia Albia to forget all those bones and mind her own business. They obviously don’t know the woman, because figuring out whodunnit absolutely IS her business.

One that she is determined to carry out no matter how many ‘frighteners’ stand in her way.

Escape Rating A-: I first met Flavia Albia’s adopted father, Marcus Didius Falco, in the book The Silver Pigs,, over 30 years ago. This was back in the days when I had a long commute to work, audiobooks were still books on actual tape, and the selection was pretty slim. Mystery was the one category there were already lots of – quite possibly because it’s damn hard to thumb to the end of a book on tape.

At the time, the concept behind the Falco series was a bit like the bear dancing; you’re not surprised it’s done well, you’re surprised it’s done AT ALL. Much like one of my other favorite historical mystery series that began around the same time, the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series that started with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.

Flavia Albia’s investigations also remind me of two other long-running mystery series, one historical and one not, at least as it was written. The Crispin Guest Medieval Noir series by Jeri Westerson, beginning with Veil of Lies, is similar to Falco and his daughter in that it posits a noir-type gumshoe in an era that probably didn’t have anyone who fit that description, and yet still manages to immerse its character and the reader in that unexpected time and place to the point where you feels the broken cobblestones under your own feet as you read.

Last but not least, although the series is contemporary and not historical (sorta/kinda, as the first book, The Blessing Way, came out in 1970). Anne Hillerman’s continuation of her father’s long-running Leaphorn and Chee series into her Leaphorn, Chee and Manuelito series changes its focus and updates its perspective by moving the original father-figure protagonist to the sidelines and introducing a female perspective in the form of a new daughter or daughter-like investigator.

In other words, I came into this book with a whole lot of nostalgia and more than a bit of mystery reading background and baggage crowding my thoughts and falling out a bit willy-nilly all over the place. After all, it’s been nearly two years since I last visited Flavia Albia and her family in Deadly Election.

And I’m struck again that what makes this series work – and what made the previous serious work as well – is the singular voice of its protagonist. We view Flavia Albia’s Rome through her eyes and hear her voice, filled with her reflections on her world and her place in it. She’s probably even more cynical and hard-bitten than her father, because she’s been through a school of much harder knocks and is both grateful for the safety, privilege and freedom that her adoption by Falco and Helena Justina affords her AND still conscience of just how desperate her situation was before and how easy it would be for her to fall back to the bottom.

So this case, which is wrapped around the death of a woman who was probably a prostitute and/or a procurer and supplier of sex workers, taking her as it does into the lives of many still living that life – most of them slaves who have no hope and no choice – hits her hard and reminds her of the fragility of life and her own current happiness in it.

Even as she is in the midst of her own wedding and the hope of future happiness that it brings. If she can just manage to solve this case and get her in-laws out of her own and her formidable mother’s hair before someone’s face gets shoved into fist. Quite possibly her father’s.

So come for the historical setting. Or the portrait of life in a time and place that manages to be both long ago and far away but feels just the right amount of familiar. Stay for the family shenanigans – or just for Flavia Albia’s wry, cynical commentary upon them. Either way, you’ll get caught up in the mystery and its resolution, leading right back into the opening of this review; that technology, in this case forensic science, may have changed a lot in the past two millennia, but human nature hasn’t changed a bit.

I know that I’ll be back for the next book in this series, The Third Nero, if only to learn how Tiberius Manlius and Flavia Albia manage to recover from the shocking conclusion to both the case and their wedding festivities.

A- #BookReview: Murder at the Merton Library by Andrea Penrose

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
A- #BookReview: Murder at the Merton Library by Andrea PenroseMurder at the Merton Library (Wrexford & Sloane, #7) by Andrea Penrose
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, mystery, regency mystery
Series: Wrexford & Sloane #7
Pages: 361
Published by Kensington Books on September 26, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Responding to an urgent plea from a troubled family friend, the Earl of Wrexford journeys to Oxford only to find the reclusive university librarian has been murdered and a rare manuscript has gone missing. The only clue is that someone overheard an argument in which Wrexford’s name was mentioned. At the same time, Charlotte—working under her pen name, A. J. Quill—must determine whether a laboratory fire was arson and if it’s connected to the race between competing consortiums to build a new type of ship—one that can cross the ocean powered by steam rather than sails—with the potential to revolutionize military power and world commerce. That the race involves new innovations in finance and entrepreneurship only adds to the high stakes—especially as their good friend Kit Sheffield may be an investor in one of the competitors. As they delve deeper into the baffling clues, Wrexford and Charlotte begin to realize that things are not what they seem. An evil conspiracy is lurking in the shadows and threatens all they hold dear—unless they can tie the loose threads together before it’s too late . . .

My Review:

As is usual in the Wrexford & Sloane series, the titular murder is only the beginning of the mystery. Also, as usual, the reader both is and is not a witness to said murder. We hear what is said, and done, but we get few, if any clues about who the perpetrator might be. At least, not until Wrex and his wife Charlotte discover that the deed was done – and that it hits a little too close to home.

No matter how much, or how sincerely, they promised each other that they wanted a bit of peace and quiet with no murder investigations at the end of the previous book in the series, Murder at the Serpentine Bridge.

(They promise each other the same at the end of this entry in the series. I’m getting the impression that THAT is going to be a recurring theme of the series – one of the VERY few things they promise each other and the rest of their family that is doomed to lay unfulfilled. On that other hand, if their lives were that peaceful, this marvelous series wouldn’t exist!)

The mystery in this particular entry in the series hits both close to home and reaches back into the past. It’s also a case of woulda, coulda, shoulda in more ways than one.

One of the regrets of Wrex’ life before he met Charlotte is related to the death of his younger brother, Thomas, during the recently concluded, or at least paused, Napoleonic Wars. (Napoleon is in exile on Elba in the process of becoming less “able” as that old palindrome had it, “Able was I ere I saw Elba.”

Wrex’ brother and his cohort died by treachery, as someone on the British side sold their location to the French for gold. But the identity of the traitor was never uncovered. Eight years later, the only survivor of Thomas’ unit finally figures out that identity – right before the man kills him in ice-cold blood.

Wrex owes it to his brother, owes it to his own past, that the traitor be unmasked and brought to justice. Meanwhile, his wife Charlotte, AKA the satirical cartoonist A.J. Quill, is mired in an investigation of her own in London, looking into the possibilities of corporate espionage that surround the race to solve an engineering problem that will, quite literally, change the world.

Several inventors say they are on the cusp of building a steam engine capable of powering a ship out of sight of land and out of the reach of fuel – across the vast oceans.

If Britain owns the solution, their naval power will be assured for centuries. If the newly-fledged United States figures it out first, the century will be theirs. If Russia manages to steal either the plans or the engineers who make them – or better yet both – they will become a superpower the likes of which they have not yet dreamed of.

The two cases, a murder in Oxford – at Merton Library, hence the title of the book – and theft, arson and fraud in London, shouldn’t REALLY have any relationship to each other. But there are few if any clues in either case, leading Wrex, Charlotte and their ever-growing found family to cast about for the tiniest of threads that might point them in the right direction.

Or any.

As those threads are gathered, they do point somewhere, but not anywhere that either Wrex or Charlotte imagined. Because those clues all point towards their two cases becoming one – even though neither of them believes that makes any sense at all.

But as another famous detective will have said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Escape Rating A-: I discovered this series last summer – another time when I was hunting for a good mystery series – and it has been an absolute delight every single time I’ve picked the series back up. But I held onto this entry because I’ve learned that no matter how great a series is – and this absolutely is – it just isn’t a good idea to read the series books too closely together no matter how much I’m tempted.

But when I picked up the eARC for the next book, Murder at King’s Crossing, last week, I decided it was time to get caught up, so here we are. Also, I just can’t resist a murder set in a library – even if the story doesn’t stay in the library quite as long as I might have liked.

I said at the top that this was a ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda’ kind of story. What I meant by that is that there are elements of both mysteries that were on the cusp of going a different way, or rather, in one case a character should have made a different choice, and in another, an invention would have happened IF real, historical circumstances had been just a bit different.

The macguffin that drives much of this story is almost real. Or rather, is in the process of becoming real but isn’t quite there yet. As this story takes place in 1814, steam power has been proven to work and is already revolutionizing transportation. Ocean-going vessels are the next big – really, really big – step. It’s a problem that is absolutely going to be solved and certainly was solved within the decade.

All of which means that the developments were oh-so-close and the stakes were oh-so-high, so it’s not surprising that the competition was equally as fierce, that corporate and government espionage was a very real factor, and that the possibilities for financial fraud were ridiculously high, giving that side of the mystery equation an air of plausibility, near-certainty, and hope triumphing over experience that felt very real.

At the same time, Wrex’ side of the mystery, the part that revolved around the death of his brother, was equally familiar but for different reasons. There have been other Regency-set mystery series where exactly this type of treason led to just this manner of death for someone close to the protagonist – with just the same desire for revenge and retribution motivating the investigator, whether amateur or professions, to bend more of the rules than is comfortable for either the character or the reader. (I know I’ve read at least one such book relatively recently, so if this plot sounds familiar to you and you recall what it was, please let me know!)

And on my third hand, one of the people caught up in this farrago clearly wasn’t onboard with all the deviltry involved, and could have had made much different choices, and we are confused by and feel for that character almost as much as Charlotte does.

Overall and absolutely positively, I had a grand time with this entry in the series, as it tells two mysteries very well, feels marvelously steeped in its time and place, AND allows for character growth on the part of most of the members of the family. It certainly had this reader on the edge of their seat as everything built to an explosive crisis.

So now I’m twice as eager as I was before to start Murder at King’s Crossing, and am glad that I only have a few months to wait!

A- #BookReview: Always Remember by Mary Balogh

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
A- #BookReview: Always Remember by Mary BaloghAlways Remember (Ravenswood #3) by Mary Balogh
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical romance, regency romance
Series: Ravenswood #3
Pages: 366
Published by Berkley on January 16, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Lady Jennifer Arden and Ben Ellis know that a match between them is out of the question. Yet their hearts yearn for the impossible. Discover a new heartwarming story from New York Times bestselling author and beloved “queen of Regency romance” Mary Balogh.Left unable to walk by a childhood illness, Lady Jennifer, sister of the Duke of Wilby, has grown up to make a happy place for herself in society. Outgoing and cheerful, she has many friends and enjoys the pleasures of high society—even if she cannot dance at balls or stroll in Hyde Park. She is blessed with a large, loving, and protective family. But she secretly dreams of marriage and children, and of walking—and dancing.When Ben Ellis comes across Lady Jennifer as she struggles to walk with the aid of primitive crutches, he instantly understands her yearning. He is a fixer. It is often said of him that he never saw a practical problem he did not have to solve. He wants to help her discover independence and motion—driving a carriage, swimming, even walking a different way. But he must be careful. He is the bastard son of the late Earl of Stratton. Though he was raised with the earl’s family, he knows he does not really belong in the world of the ton.Jennifer is shocked—and intrigued—by Ben’s ideas, and both families are alarmed by the growing friendship and perhaps more that they sense developing between the two. A duke’s sister certainly cannot marry the bastard son of an earl. Except sometimes, love can find a way.

My Review:

At the beginning of the Ravenswood series, back in Remember Love, I compared the late and more or less lamented Earl of Stratton, Caleb Ware, with the late and entirely unlamented Humphrey Westcott, Earl of Riverdale, the discovery of whose marital perfidy kicked off that series, and found both of them wanting in only slightly different ways and degrees.

As that earlier series continued through the stories of all the family members impacted by the lies that were shockingly revealed upon Westcott’s death, the man was never redeemed – not even in memory. In fact, as the impacts of his lies rippled out in the years after his death, the worse a character he became.

Therefore, one of the fascinating things about Caleb Ware, Earl of Stratton, is the way that his memory has been redeemed in the years after his death. Not that he wasn’t unfaithful to his wife from the very beginning of their marriage, and not that he didn’t constantly seek love, approval and attention wherever he went, but the reasons behind his actions become clearer with each book – even though that book is centered around another character entirely.

That is especially true of this third book in the series, after Remember Love and Remember Me, because the male protagonist of this story is Ware’s illegitimate oldest son Ben, whose mother was, as it turns out, truly, the love of Ware’s life.

A woman of his own class who he would have married if he could have, but that would have made her guilty of the same sin as Humphrey Westcott. It would have made Lady Janette Kelliston, who her son only knew as plain ‘Jane Ellis’, a bigamist.

But this is, after all, Ben’s story and not the story of his parents, although his discovery of the truth about that relationship and so much more is a central part of his story. While he does not discover those truths until well into this story, it does set the stage for the things he already does know about himself.

That in spite of his complete and thoroughgoing acceptance by Caleb Ware’s legal family for all of Ben’s life, he is, and always will be, the Earl’s bastard. And therefore, not eligible to marry any of the girls – and now women – he meets as part of his membership in the Ware family.

Which means that when widowed Ben and his three-year-old daughter Joy come to Ravenswood Hall to celebrate the revival of the annual Summer Fete, even though he has marriage on his mind he does not expect to find anyone who would consider him suitable among his family’s aristocratic guests.

Because he is NOT suitable, as the rest of the world is all too willing to remind him. The question is whether he, and the woman with whom he falls in love in spite of all the whispers against it, are willing to damn the consequences and the social opprobrium likely to follow in their wake.

Escape Rating A-: I came into Always Remember with high hopes after a bit of disappointment with Remember Me. I liked the characters of that book well enough, but Lady Philippa Ware was a bit TOO perfect and too privileged to identify with and that affected my reading of her story quite a lot.

The heroine of this entry in the series, Pippa’s now sister-in-law Lady Jennifer Arden, is far from perfect – although she fakes it well. Not the perfect beauty that Pippa absolutely does have, but rather, a perfect amiability – or at least the appearance of it – that allows her to find as much happiness and fulfillment in the life that the lifelong disability that remains after a childhood illness (most likely polio) has left her with as is possible. Which is quite a lot if one puts their mind to it, which Lady Jennifer absolutely does.

So this is a romance between an unconventional hero – at least for a Regency romance – and an equally unusual heroine – for any romance at all. That it is their differences from the others around them that brings them together – even as their differences in social position pulls them apart – that made even the possibilities of this story something I was definitely looking forward to.

Ben Ellis and Lady Jennifer Arden find a bond because they are able to see behind each other’s masks to find the real person within. Both are in positions where they ‘should’ be grateful. He because his father’s family took him in and made him their own – as much as they could and considerably more than he knew he had any right to expect. Lady Jennifer’s entire family has rearranged itself, and continues to do so, in order to make sure that she is taken care of, has as much freedom and opportunity as they believe is safe for her, and in general has a good, well-privileged life with friends and opportunities and someone always available to take care of her.

But they are both in pursuit of the missing pieces in their lives. Ben needs to know about his mother’s family, for the sake of his own identity as well as that of his daughter. Lady Jennifer is twenty-five years old, she needs to find out what her OWN limits are. From her perspective, she has one blighted leg but the rest of her, including most definitely her heart and her brain, are just fine. She is an adult and needs to forge her own path – even if that path is navigated on crutches or in a wheelchair.

Ben sees possibilities for her. She sees answers for him. Together, they forge a path that no one expected, and that some would have preferred they not even begin to try. I half expected the author to contrive a solution that would make Ben legally legitimate no matter the actual circumstances of his birth in order to clear that path, but it made for a much better story that the easy solution was not taken after all, making this a deeply earned HEA that kept me up late because I had to find out how it ended.

Speaking of endings, this could be the ending of the Ravenswood series, but I sincerely hope that it is not. The late – and now reasonably lamented – Earl of Stratton and his Countess had several more children who have yet to find their own HEAs. I’d LOVE to see their stories added to this series!

Grade A #BookReview: The Lantern’s Dance by Laurie R. King

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Grade A #BookReview: The Lantern’s Dance by Laurie R. KingThe Lantern's Dance (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, #18) by Laurie R. King
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss, supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, mystery
Series: Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #18
Pages: 300
Published by Bantam on February 13, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, hoping for a respite in the French countryside, are instead caught up in a case that turns both bewildering and intensely personal.
After their recent adventures in Transylvania, Russell and Holmes look forward to spending time with Holmes' son, the famous artist Damian Adler, and his family. But when they arrive at Damian’s house, they discover that the Adlers have fled from a mysterious threat.
Holmes rushes after Damian while Russell, slowed down by a recent injury, stays behind to search the empty house. In Damian’s studio, she discovers four crates packed with memorabilia related to Holmes’ grand-uncle, the artist Horace Vernet. It’s an odd mix of treasures and clutter, including a tarnished silver lamp with a rotating an antique yet sophisticated form of zoetrope, fitted with strips of paper whose images dance with the lantern’s spin.
In the same crate is an old journal written in a nearly impenetrable code. Intrigued, Russell sets about deciphering the intricate cryptograph, slowly realizing that each entry is built around an image—the first of which is a child, bundled into a carriage by an abductor, watching her mother recede from view.
Russell is troubled, then entranced, but each entry she decodes brings more questions. Who is the young woman who created this elaborate puzzle? What does she have to do with Damian, or the Vernets—or the threat hovering over the house?
The secrets of the past appear to be reaching into the present. And it seems increasingly urgent that Russell figure out how the journal and lantern are related to Damian—and possibly to Sherlock Holmes himself.
Could there be things about his own history that even the master detective does not perceive?

My Review:

As Holmes himself once said, “Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms,” but as this 18th book in the continuing chronicles of Sherlock Holmes and his apprentice-turned-wife Mary Russell opens, Holmes is considerably more worried about the form that blood might take spilled from his son’s veins on the floor of the French cottage where Holmes adult son, Damien Adler, his young daughter Estelle and his wife-to-be Dr. Aileen Henning have set up house and home in Damien’s inheritance from his mother Irene Adler.

Someone, a man Adler described as a ‘lascar’ broke into his home in the middle of the night, kukri in hand, to do who knows what damage or cause who knows what type of mayhem.

Adler does his best to convince himself it was all a prank gone wrong. But Holmes, with too many enemies still lurking in his shady past and even his more circumspect present, is not nearly so sanguine about the whole thing. There are, after all, plenty of criminals who would like to put the squeeze on Sherlock Holmes by threatening his son and his granddaughter, and most likely even more powers and potentates who would be interested in having some leverage against that puller of the British Empire’s strings and minder of its webs, Mycroft Holmes, by kidnapping his nephew and great-niece.

Holmes’ primary concern, desire and dilemma, all in one gordian knot of emotions he is reluctant in the extreme to untangle, is to get Damien, Aileen and Estelle somewhere safe so that he can run the meager clues about the break in and its elusive perpetrator to ground. Possibly to put them in that ground if necessary.

Damien wants to continue his work as an up-and-coming surrealist artist – AND he wants his father to explain what the hell is going on. In other words, Damien Adler wants to be treated as the adult he is as well as protect his family.

While Russell is, at least at the outset, a bit of a ‘fifth wheel’ in this family drama of which she is more of an appendage that a central part. Unfortunately for her, an appendage with a sprained ankle, hobbling around on crutches, in the house where her predecessor, the famous and famously beautiful Irene Adler, once ruled. If her ankle wasn’t already making her miserable enough, this entire situation has more than enough undercurrents to discomfit even Russell.

So the dust on the initial break in settles with Damien in Paris, Holmes following behind to check for traps, tagalongs and any possible gathering of confederates, while Russell is left behind in Irene Adler’s old house, going through the detritus of codes long left unbroken and old family secrets. Only to discover that the reason for the break in has been hidden in plain sight, and that too many of the truths that Sherlock Holmes has believed all his life were lies all along.

And that more of that art in the blood that his son received in full measure from his mother’s well-known artistic family bore other, more mysterious fruit much closer to its source.

Escape Rating A: This one begins slowly, as Russell languishes – a bit – alone in the countryside while Holmes hares off to Paris and points beyond. At first, it felt like the story was creeping along, much as Russell is doing with her crutches. But Russell’s temporary infirmity forces her to sit still – something that chafes at her no end.

But that stillness – and the lack of ability to rush about after Holmes – forces her to take the time to explore her briefly confined circumstances. And thereby, quite literally, hangs this tale.

Also, and fascinatingly so, as Russell’s leg gets better, as she graduates from crutches to a cane to walking unaided, as she picks up her pace the story increases its pace in tandem. By the time she is able to unravel all of the mysteries, she is searching Paris on foot, chasing down leads and putting the pieces together at her – and her story’s – usual brisk pace.

So initially, while Holmes is the active partner and Russell is stuck in place, he’s actually spinning his wheels, trying to safeguard someone who refuses to obey orders, looking over his shoulder at every moment, and always operating at an information deficit as he’s forced to react to circumstances rather than think first and then act.

Russell has that luxury. She’s stuck, she has time to think, and plenty to think about. While Holmes and the rest of the family are running, she’s questioning the locals and exploring the house, where she finds clues that lead her to the true heart of the mystery – and to its bittersweet conclusion.

In the end, I did love this entry in the series, although it took me a bit to get there because of that slow start. But now that I’ve finished, I’m left with the impression that this is more of a family story than it is the kind of mystery that has more often been featured in this series, and in the Holmes canon and Russell Kanon in general. On this, the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice – the story where Russell nearly tripped over Holmes on the Sussex Downs – it feels right that we go back to, not their beginning, but rather to Holmes’ own beginning, and get a much clearer picture of where he came from and the forces that made him – and Mycroft for that matter – the men they became.

In other words, The Lantern’s Dance feels like a story that will be utterly riveting for fans of the series, but would not make a good place for a newcomer to start. If you have not yet had the pleasure of Mary Russell’s acquaintance, I highly recommend that you begin at the beginning, with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and settle in for a long and delightful read.

#BookReview: Remember Me by Mary Balogh

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C+ Reviews
#BookReview: Remember Me by Mary BaloghRemember Me (Ravenswood, #2) by Mary Balogh
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical romance, regency romance
Series: Ravenswood #2
Pages: 368
Published by Berkley on June 20, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Can Lady Philippa Ware forgive the man who once shattered all her youthful dreams? Discover the passionate and heartwarming new novel on the redemptive power of love from New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh.
Philippa, elder daughter of the Earl of Stratton, grew up eagerly anticipating a glittering debut and a brilliant marriage. Then her brother caught their father out in a clandestine affair and denounced him publicly. The whole family was disgraced, and Philippa's hopes grew dim, then were fully shattered when she overheard the dashing, handsome Marquess of Roath viciously insult her upon learning of her father's identity. Only years later does Philippa find the courage to go to London at last to meet the ton. She is an instant success and enjoys a close friendship with the granddaughter of a duke. Only one man can spoil everything for her, but surely he will not be in London this year.
The Duke of Wilby is nearing death and has tasked his grandson and heir, Lucas Arden, Marquess of Roath, with marrying and producing a son before it is too late. Lucas, who usually shuns London, goes there early in the Season in the hope of finding an eligible bride before his grandparents come and find one for him. He is instantly attracted to his sister's new friend, until that young lady asks a simple question: "Remember me?" And suddenly he does remember her, as well as the reason why the daughter of the Earl of Stratton is the one woman he can never marry--even if his heart tells him she is the only woman he wants.
Unfortunately for Philippa and Lucas, the autocratic duke and his duchess have other ideas and believe them to be perfect for each other. They will simply not take no for an answer. Telling Philippa the full truth is the hardest thing Lucas has ever faced, and the discovery of it will change them both before they discover the healing power of love.

My Review:

The elderly Duke of Wilby may be the most aptly titled character to ever grace the pages of a Regency romance. Because his will has been done, generally to his satisfaction, for most of his long life, and he fully intends that his will be done one last time before the end that his doctor has predicted comes to pass.

On the whole, Wilby is a rather benevolent dictator when it comes to his family, but he seems to have never been faced with an opposition implacable enough to stand against him that couldn’t be overcome. With the possible exceptions of time, old age and death. Although even there he’s negotiating for better terms – or at least terms of his own choosing.

He has only one surviving heir, his grandson Lucas. Lucas’ father died of recklessness years before, there was no spare, the old Duke had no brothers and the next heir is a cousin that frankly neither he nor Lucas believe is worthy of the title. Someone they know will have no care for the many female members of the family who will be left to his dubious mercy if Lucas dies before he has his own ‘heir and a spare’.

The elderly Duke – and his redoubtable Duchess – are determined that Lucas, now twenty six, will spend the coming Season in London, scouring the Marriage Mart for a bride they all find suitable – whether he wills it or not. For that matter, whether SHE wills it or not as well.

The seemingly immovable object standing in the way of Wilby’s plan is Lady Philippa Stratton, daughter of the late Earl of Stratton. Her brother now holds the title. Pippa is twenty two, wealthy in her own right, and her brother is no longer her guardian. She can do as she pleases when it comes to the Season and the Marriage Mart.

She does not please to marry Lucas Arden. Because once upon a time, just a few years previously when they were both a bit younger and a whole lot less cognizant of the effect a few careless words might have on the people around them, Pippa heard Lucas refer to her as ‘spoiled goods’. Not for any action of hers, but for her father’s indiscreet, utterly scandalous, behavior.

A scandal that touched Lucas every bit as closely as it did Pippa. But eavesdroppers seldom hear anything to their credit, and that was the case here. He owes her an explanation AND an abject apology. But it is water very much under the bridge at this point. That she let his words blight the next four years of her life isn’t ALL on him. Although she still doesn’t owe him the time of day.

But the Duke of Wilby is certain that Pippa and Lucas are perfect for each other. And he’ll move heaven, earth and everything in between in order to get them to see it too. Before his negotiations with his Maker come due.

Escape Rating C+: I had intended to read the third book in the Ravenswood series, Always Remember, this week but when I realized that I’d skipped this second book, Remember Me, I switched things up. I’ll get to Always Remember sometimes in February because it’s still the right month for a LOT of romance.

Howsomever, I ended up with a lot more mixed feelings about Remember Me than I expected after the first book in this series, Remember Love – which I liked rather a lot.

There were a couple of things that kept me from falling quite as hard for this second book in the series, one of which was the sheer proximity to yesterday’s book. Part of the reason I enjoyed A Body at the Séance so much was that I found Mabel Canning’s whole, entire life easy to identify with. She’s not rich, she’s not privileged, she’s a woman making it on her own and her life and times are just close enough that it’s easy to step into her shoes. Possibly except for the murder investigations she keeps falling into but still, she’s someone I’d love to have tea with.

Lady Philippa Ware is certainly a good character, as well as a decent human being, but in comparison with Mabel she’s too rich, too privileged, too beautiful and just too damn perfect to be anything other than a fairy tale princess character – including the title. I liked her, I could see why all the other characters warm to her, but she’s got it so easy in so many ways, in a time and place where so many people did not, that I didn’t love her nearly as much as I did Mabel – or as Lucas and his whole, entire family came to do.

I also need to confess that the conflict in this story, the engine moving the plot forward, the way that the Duke of Wilby in his role as benevolent tyrant pushed so hard to have his will be done, to make all the characters move on his chessboard without ever listening to a word they said about their own lives, is triggering for me in ways I can’t explain. And I fully recognize this is a ‘me’ thing and likely not a ‘you’ thing.

But still, I found myself utterly conflicted between the fact that ‘dammit he was right’ and just how much I wanted someone to push back against him and make it stick that it spoiled the story for me. There are so many ways his pushing and shoving could have and should have gone wrong that I wanted to scream at someone the whole way through.

Your reading mileage may definitely vary. In fact, I hope it does because I think a LOT of people are going to love this book. I’m just not one of them although I certainly expected to be.

Which leads me back around to the NEXT book in this series, the one I thought I’d be reading this week, Always Remember. I’m looking forward to that story because Lucas’ sister, Lady Jennifer Arden, has faced hardships and tragedies in spite of her wealth and status, and it looks like she’ll be finding a life-partner in spite of all the predictions that a woman with a fortune who can’t walk and can only get around in a push chair has no chance to marry anyone who will not be more invested in her fortune than herself. I have high hopes that Pippa’s older half brother Ben, the child of one of her father’s many, many scandals, will prove everyone wrong. Because Jenny deserves her own happy ever after and I’m looking forward to seeing her get it!

#BookReview Wild and Distant Seas by Tara Karr Roberts

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview Wild and Distant Seas by Tara Karr RobertsWild and Distant Seas by Tara Karr Roberts
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: historical fantasy, historical fiction, literary fiction, magical realism
Pages: 304
Published by W. W. Norton & Company on January 2, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A gorgeous debut, laced through with magic, following four generations of women as they seek to chart their own futures. Evangeline Hussey’s husband is dead―lost at sea―and she has only managed to hold on to his Nantucket inn by employing a curious gift to glimpse and re-form the recent memories of those around her. One night, an idealistic sailor appears on her doorstep asking her to call him Ishmael, and her careful illusion begins to fracture. He soon sails away with Ahab to hunt an infamous white whale, and Evangeline is left to forge a life from the pieces that remain.
Her choices ripple through generations, across continents, and into the depths of the sea, in a narrative that follows Evangeline and her descendants from mid-nineteenth century Nantucket to Boston, Brazil, Florence, and Idaho. Moving, beautifully written, and elegantly conceived, Wild and Distant Seas takes Moby-Dick as its starting point, but Tara Karr Roberts brings four remarkable women to life in a spellbinding epic all her own.

My Review:

He said “Call me Ishmael” – and she did. But that is not where this distaff perspective on Moby-Dick begins.

It begins with Evangeline Hussey reinventing herself for the second time. The first time was when she ran away from a past we never see and found herself on Nantucket Island as the whaling industry was nearing the end of its heyday. She marries an innkeeper and intends to settle down for the rest of her life making chowder.

But Evangeline has a gift. She has just a bit of magic, a spark that allows her to do two things she’s going to rely on and fight against in the years to come. She can see through the eyes of people she knows, and she can make people believe and even DO what she wants. Through her gift, she sees that her husband’s small boat has capsized and he has drowned at sea, but she enforces the belief among the townspeople that he is just away on a business trip and will be back sooner or later.

It’s a lie she continually reinforces because she knows that his family – who have lived in Nantucket for generations – mightily disapprove of her and her marriage, and that they will take the inn away from her if they can. It’s the only home she knows and she can’t let that happen, so she lies and MAKES people believe it – for so many years that the lie reinforces itself.

Until Ishmael and Queequeg arrive at her Try Pots Inn, just before they sign up for Captain Ahad’s ill-omened and ultimately ill-fated voyage on the cursed Pequod. The story that Ishmael eventually tells in Moby-Dick.

But before the Pequod set sail, Ishmael and Evangeline had a brief dalliance that resulted in a child. A daughter born with no knowledge of her father but an even greater portion of her mother’s gifts.

Wild and Distant Seas is the story of Evangeline’s legacy, both her gifts and the endless pursuit of the missing Ishmael that she bequeathed to her daughter, her granddaughter, and even her great-granddaughter as they journey endlessly and fruitlessly, until at last one of them finally finds her way home.

Escape Rating B: Wild and Distant Seas is a story that is constantly in dialog with its predecessor, Moby-Dick. At points it hews close, and at others it is at more than a bit of a remove, but the great white whale is always swimming in the background.

And this is the point where I confess that I never read the damn thing. Yes, I know it’s considered to be one of the ‘Great American Novels’ and a literary classic, etc., etc., etc., but I was never forced to read it in high school and had no inclination afterward. It’s somewhere between a complete sausage fest and a boys’ own adventure (even if in the same way that Lord of the Flies is a boys’ own adventure) and the American literary canon is just full of those.

So part of my interest in Wild and Distant Seas was that it gives a distaff perspective on a story that otherwise doesn’t have a female perspective in it AT ALL. Considering how many men never came home from the whaling industry, a story about what happened after that was itself an interesting possibility for historical fiction, even if this book also has a bit of a literary fiction vibe to it.

What makes the story work is that it is absolutely NOT Ishmael’s story, as the original was. Instead, it’s the story of his absence and the lengths that absence drives Evangeline and her descendants to in pursuit of the truth of their origins. He’s a gaping hole in each of their histories that they are all trying to fill.

As each of the women in Evangeline’s line tell their stories, the other thread that links them is their use, misuse and abuse of the gift that they’ve inherited from her. Each of them is capable of bending others to their will, none of them are able to resist the impulse to use that power, and all of them ultimately realize that their gift has cost more than they’ve ever gained from it, which brings them, at last, back to their point of origin.

But the way each of their stories is told is through their first person perspective, with the torch of story passing from one woman to another when they each first use their gift, making each of their stories about the price they pay for that use.

Which, oddly enough, brings the story back to Moby-Dick and the price of Ahab’s obsession, in more ways than one.

In the end, as the story shifted protagonists and perspectives, I found some of their journeys more compelling than others, and I empathized more with Evangeline’s adult perspective than I did the learning period that her descendants inevitably went through. So ultimately I have mixed feelings but this turned out to be a fascinating way to explore a classic from a sideways point of view.

Review: The Twilight Queen by Jeri Westerson

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: The Twilight Queen by Jeri WestersonThe Twilight Queen (A King's Fool mystery, 2) by Jeri Westerson
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: King's Fool #2
Pages: 224
Published by Severn House on January 2, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Court jester Will Somers is drawn into another gripping and entertaining mystery when malevolent forces strike again at the court of Henry VIII - and Anne Boleyn is the target.
Greenwich, Palace of Placentia, April 1536. Queen Anne is in peril. In the mid of night, court jester Will Somers is summoned to an urgent assignation when she discovers a body in her chamber. The queen wants Will to find out who the man is and how he ended up there. Is someone trying to frame her for his murder?
Anne has many enemies at court, and to make matters worse, Henry VIII is lining up his next conquest and suspects her of treason. Has the formidable Oliver Cromwell been whispering vile lies in the king's ears, and could Anne be the target of a Catholic conspiracy? As further attacks plague the court, Will is determined to uncover the truth behind the plotting and devilry, but he will need to keep hold of all his wits to do so!

My Review:

There are characters, whether real or imagined, who seem to get reinvented or reinterpreted for each generation. Henry VIII, that towering, looming figure of British history, with his outsized body and equally outsized personality – along with his fascinating and scandalous pursuit of a son and heir for his crown – seems to be one of those characters.

That his story – or rather the reinterpretation of his story through the characters of his six wives – has been reimagined yet again in the Tony Award winning Broadway play, Six: The Musical, is just the latest in a long line of portrayals, beginning with the Bard himself, William Shakespeare, written under the rule of King James I of England and VI of Scotland – a reign that could be said to be the direct result of Henry’s failure to secure a healthy male heir.

Which makes this portrayal of Henry, his court and his wives and paramours, as seen through the eyes of his Court Fool, Will Somers, just that much more fascinating and relevant, as it appears that this series is also going to trip its way through Henry’s nearly 40-year reign through the machinations of his court and his courtiers through each of his successive – but not all that successful – marriages.

The first book in this series, Courting Dragons, took place as Catherine of Aragon’s star at court was rapidly waning, and Anne Boleyn’s was on the ascendant.

In the midst of the King’s ‘Great Matter’, the impending divorce that severed not only Henry’s first marriage but also his country’s religion, a murder took place among the foreign diplomatic corps that threatened to destabilize the already fraught negotiations over, well, pretty much everything at that point.

A murder that was ultimately solved by a not-so-foolish investigation by the King’s Fool, Will Somers.

Just as that first murder of a Spanish diplomat had political implications for Catherine of Aragon, the murder that opens The Twilight Queen has potentially deadly implications for Anne Boleyn, whose brief, tumultuous reign is now in its twilight.

A dead musician has been discovered in the Queen’s private chambers. It’s obvious to Anne that the intent is to stir up rumors that she is unfaithful to her royal husband. A treasonous pot that someone influential at court is already stirring.

Because no good deed goes unpunished, when the Queen has need of a discreet investigator, she calls upon the King’s Fool to poke his nose into all the places he can to figure out who left this dead and potentially deadly ‘package’ in her private chambers – in the hopes that the truth will stave off her inevitable downfall.

Escape Rating B: Genre blends such as historical mystery are always a balancing act – much like Will Somers position is a balancing act between making his sovereign laugh, forcing his master to stop and think – and keeping both his job and his head.

For a historical mystery to be successful, it has to balance upon the knife edge of being true to its historical setting AND following the somewhat strict conventions of the mystery genre. It must allow the reader to maintain that crucial willing suspension of disbelief when it comes to history while still delivering that ‘romance of justice’ that is crucial to a mystery’s satisfactory ending.

As much as I love this particular period of history, this series so far reads like it tilts more than a bit towards the description and details of the historical setting. Not that the mystery doesn’t get solved, but rather that the mystery feels more like an excuse to dive into the history instead of the historical period being a setting for a mystery.

Reflecting on this second book in the series, I believe that impression is a result of Will Somers’ life and work being so far removed from ordinary life either in his time or our own. Even Crispin Guest, the protagonist of the author’s Medieval Noir series, feels like more of a standard archetype, as he’s operating as a kind of private investigator in a big city. Even though the details of his circumstances are even a century or two before Somers, what Guest does and the way he does it – and how he feels about it – reads as something surprisingly familiar.

Will Somers’ dependence on and love of his ‘master’ the King, on the other hand, jars a bit in the 21st century mind whether it rings true or not. A kind interpretation of their relationship would liken it to the relationship between Frodo and Sam in The Lord of the Rings – except that Frodo couldn’t order Sam’s head to be struck off. Will Somers’ relationship with his king reads a bit too close to the so-called ‘love’ of slaves for their masters in the antebellum South. It’s not comfortable, no matter how fascinating a character Somers has turned out to be.

Which he most definitely is.

In the end, I found the history behind this story more interesting than the mystery within its pages. Your reading mileage, of course, may vary. I am, however, still terribly curious about the next book in this series, which is planned to take place during Henry’s brief but fruitful marriage to Jane Seymour, tentatively titled, Rebellious Grace.