eyes.2c Reviews

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto              ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Absolutely hilarious story about a wedding photographer working in the family business with her mother and four incredibly volatile aunties. The aunties are fabulous!!! We all need aunties like these! Chan can’t make the break from her family. That ruined her love life—when she let the love of her life, Nathan, go. Take a murdered body, aunts involved in getting rid of it, a huge wedding on Santa Lucia Island off the coast of Southern California, missing presents and the return of the love of your life and you have a complex, totally over the top wonderful love story. I laughed all the way through—when I wasn’t cringing or inside yelling No-o-o-oh! Cautionary tale meets comedy of manners enroute to romance! A super read! A Berkley Group ARC via NetGalley

The Persuasion of Miss Kate (My Notorious Aunt #4) by Kathleen Baldwin              ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Charming story that has our young heroine flustered, confused and angry when her fiancé, Lord Grayson Colter, breaks off their engagement in the middle of the Clapsfort-on-Wye assembly ball. Hot headed Kate Linnet is at a loss, constrained by having to parent her three younger sisters after the death of their mother in childbirth, she swings between the unspoken desire for freedom and her duty and responsibility. Who sweeps in to save the day but her wicked auntie, Lady Honore Alameda, a rather scandalous doyen of society. She has come to take Kate away for a London season but somehow ends up with all four young women. One of the girls is not quite ready to debut, and Tilly the youngest, all of eleven, is rather precociously wonderful. Of course things don’t run smoothly, Lady Honore’s plans are not necessarily the most prudent, but seem to get results. Kate must contemplate some decisions—fre

Someone Wanton His Way Comes (Wantons of Waverton #1) by Christi Caldwell           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A young woman is trying to keep her life together after discovering her dead husband Norman Prescott, the Earl of Norfolk, was on the verge of leaving her.  The dead man’s closest friend from Eton days, Clayton Kearsley, Viscount St. John, realises he hasn’t honored his friend Norfolk’s request to look after his wife Sylvia, along with her son, despite his anger with Norfolk. Meanwhile Lady Sylvia Caufield, the Countess of Norfolk, has taken up residence with two other women, Lady Annalee and Valerie Bragger.  The two women living with Sylvia have come there by an interesting route. They are considered outrageous. Along with other women they form an association,  the Mismatch Society, to take a stand against women being bartered in marriage. Amongst them are some of Clayton’s sisters and his mother. Of course this becomes scandalous. So much so that Sylvia’s in laws see this as a way to gettin

The Last Bookshop in London: A Novel of World War II by Madeline Martin               ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The building of a story around a young woman, Grace Bennett, discovering the joy of books and bookshops. Translating that love into something special during these times. Grace ends up working in a bookstore off from the main drag. Ultimately she finds herself reading to assorted people who share her Underground Shelter during the London Blitz. Sometimes they come to the bookstore for continuations, a masterful stroke! Oh and yes there is a gentleman. He really is! Such a joyous story in the midst of hardship and tragedy. What is special is the way Grace grows from a shy country girl into her own person. A Harlequin ARC via NetGalley 

The Accidental Duke (The Mad Matchmaking Men of Waterloo #1) by Barbara Devlin           ⭐️⭐️ 1/2 A wounded younger son, British Army Major Erasmus Hildebrand Bartlett, now heir to a dukedom returns from Waterloo a shattered man. Unfortunately his father, the Duke of Swanborough, decides his son is mad because of his physical injuries—the loss of an arm, and his worrisome behavior. A consequence of his post traumatic battle memories. Lady Arabella Hortence Gibbs, daughter of the Earl Ainsworth and the Duke’s best friend had been betrothed to Erasmus’ brother, the heir. They’ve decided that that betrothal can carry across to the current heir. The betrothal papers had not referred to Erasmus by name but by title, so the contract remains valid. What no-one knows is the Duke’s nefarious plans to gain a new heir. He intends to snatch any male progeny and have Erasmus committed to an institution. He dismisses Arabella. I really liked her strength of character and steadfastness. I enjoyed h

Death with a Double Edge (Daniel Pitt #4) by Anne Perry             ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1911 and King George V is England’s monarch. The violent death of a senior lawyer in the law firm where Daniel Pitt works, fford Croft and Gibson, rocks the firm and opens up chaos and danger for Daniel, Thomas and Charlotte. A man Daniel believes to be Kitteridge is discovered brutally murdered in a seedy part of London, an alley in Mile End, a “pretty bad part of the East end.” Heart in mouth Daniel goes to identify the body. It turns out the dead man is Jonah Drake. “Drake had been a very clever man, had won most of his cases, even when they seemed impossible.” A man who “knew the law as Daniel knew the alphabet.” The question is, what was it that took Drake to this area? Daniel and Kitteridge need to investigate whether Drake’s murder has anything to do with his previous cases. Drake’s main area of expertise has been with cases around embezzlement. Concerns for the firm’s reputation drive Daniel and Kit

The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen             ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Two seperate times, two women who travel to Venice to discover the art world that exists there..  Juliet Browning has been before in 1928 but left hurriedly with her great aunt. She travels there again in 1938 to attend La Accademia di Belle Arti, the Academy of Fine Arts, a life dream. She’s reacquainted with a young man, Leonardo Da Rossi who Juliet had met on her previous visit. When war breaks out Juliet remains in Venice—until she can’t! Caroline Grant, her great niece, who’d previous to her marriage had studied design, is in the midst of a divorce and child custody questions, all at the time of the Twin Towers attack. From her Great-Aunt Lettie she inherits some money, a box with Caroline’s name on it, containing three old fashioned keys, a ring and necklace and two sketchbooks. Caroline decides to travel to Venice, to scatter Aunt’s ashes and to see if there’s anyway she can solve the mystery of the keys. I loved the way

Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson            ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I love descriptions of those Interbellum years of the 1920’s and 30’s where there was a buzz in the air. Paris was bursting with creativity—artists, writers, designers, Gertrude Stein, the Fitzgerald’s, Picasso, the Hemingway’s! And into this world fell Ivy in pursuit of her dream to enter a Paris fashion house. Well that didn’t work out, but she did meet writer Andres Armand. Her great granddaughter Hannah has a bad relationship (think zero) with her mother Marla, doesn’t know who her father is and has just lost her Gram who brought her up. To cap it all off she’s just broken up with her boyfriend  What is it about the romance of a hidden apartment left as though people had just walked out waiting for their return.? It gets me every time. I thought I’d grow tired of this trope—I haven’t as yet! The mystery pulls us in. And to find it is unexpectedly yours, to find a great grandmother with a secret life is both shocking and exc

The Defiant Wife (The Three Mrs #2) by Jess Michaels              ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Phillipa Montgomery was the second wife of bigamist Erasmus Montgomery. Erasmus had three wives and had been pursuing a fourth. Three wives had given him three dowries to play with.  He’s now dead and his lover (Phillipa’s former maid, and mother to his child, has fled the country. Phillipa is looking after little Kenley to whom she’s grown very close.  Returning to Bath with Rhys Montgomery, the Earl of Leighton, she finds her parents disowning her and previous friends hissing her out of stores. Regency Society it seems is not ready for women tricked into marriage, even though they too have been mislead. Bit perhaps that’s the problem and their ire needs a focus. Rhys is trying to clean up the mess his half brother has left behind. Is Phillipa part of that mess, a distraction or more? If not a distraction then the sooner they go their seperate ways the better. Maybe! Given their rather steamy relationship thing

The Garden of Angels by David Hewson      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really, I had trouble finding words to suit. A mesmerising read. Set in Venice, partly during 1943 and the Nazi occupation and partly from the late 90’s on. Containing underlying commentary on the fierce independent character of the Venetian people, a look at those who chose to survive alongside the Nazis and those who chose to fight, the ordinary people, the Fascists (the Black Brigade), the Mussolini National Guard, and the Resistance fighters. We switch between a young weaver, Paolo Uccello, whose parents have been killed in an air raid, who agrees to aid two Jewish Resistance Fighters on the run. Then we come into the 90’s when it seems Venetians want to forget the past and the cost.  A story in six amazing parts. A story that dwells in the unromantic aspects of Venice. In the beginning I’d wondered if I’d finish. Less than a chapter in I was hooked and stormed my way through the rest. What a tale it is, switching between the Ve

The Lantern Boats by Tessa Morris-Suzuki               ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A young Scottish Japanese woman has been repatriated from Australia to Japan after the war. Elly and her family had been residents in Australia and interned there during the war. In Japan she meets and married a Scots journalist, Fergus Ruskin. They are looking to adopt a child,  A Japanese youth, Kamiya Jun, from islands off from Russia was working on a smuggling boat, and through a series of happenings ends up in an American intelligence unit that has a very low profile, a Black Ops type organisation. Elly and Jun’s lives intersect when he sees her attending an event entitled, Study Circle on Women in the New China. The woman he’s been tracking, Vida Vidanto, the Japanese Poet, whom he dubs The Fox is speaking. Elly hardly knows Vida, but she accepts an invitation to lunch, curious to know more about her, afraid of what her husband Fergus’ relationship might be with Vida. And so Elly and Vida get dragged into Jun’s surv

Murder in the Cloister ( Christine de Pizan Mystery #4)   by Tania Bayard             ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Murder and more in an ancient French priory near Paris. A Religious House supported by the King of France. An interesting medieval mystery read in terms of the history of the times and the widespread beliefs about sorcery. Christine de Pizan is tasked by King Charles VI, upon the request of the Dominican Prioress, to journey to the Royal Priory of Saint-Louis at Poissy, ostensibly to to copy an important manuscript and  visit her daughter who has taken orders there.  Christine knows there's more to the matter. The Priory has no need of her expertise, having plenty in house. She will be accompanied by Brother Michel from the Abbey of Saint-Denis and Henri de Picart.  Christine is warned by a member of Queen Isabeau's retinue that, ‘Something is wrong at Poissy, and they’re willing to do what the prioress asks because they’re concerned for their daughter.’  Politics and power play a par

A Wicked Conceit (Lady Darby Mystery #9)   by Anna Lee Huber              ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1832, Edinburgh. Cholera is rife, although more in the crowded squalid areas of the city. Kiera (Lady Darby)and her husband Sebastian Cage are expecting their first child. Kiera has information she knows will hurt Cage and she withdraws from informing him at the request of Lord Henry Kerr who wishes to inform Cage himself. Kiera, although reluctant to do that, agrees. But as time draws out and Henry doesn’t comply she feels even more anxious. A new play based on the book The King of Grassmarket is sweeping the various theatres. A play about the notorious gang lord, Bonnie Brock Kincaid. Rumours are running high is high that have Brock as the father of Kiera’s child, much to her’s and Cage’s annoyance and consternation. Brock (a very private man) is upset because his life and activities have become open to foes. As Kiera angrily tells Brock, ‘The entire book was a disquieting swirl of fact and fiction,

To Love and to Loathe (Regency Vows #2) by Martha Waters           ⭐️⭐️⭐️ A bet, a house party, a philandering Marquess, and a not so Merry Widow. Lady Diana Templeton had fought battles with handsome rake and scoundrel Jeremy Overington, the Marquess of Willingham, since she was a child. Their latest scrimmage is a bet that Diana takes with Jeremy that he’ll be married before the year's out (even if she has to parade every young woman she knows before him, or have him caught in a compromising position.)  A disgruntled remark thrown at Jeremy by his last mistress as he disappeared from her life had him reviewing his performance as a lover. Meanwhile, determined never to marry again the widowed Diana is wondering if she should indeed take a lover. When Jeremy inquires about her openness to a liaison between the two of them, there’s an emphatic No! and a reconsidered Maybe! All the marks of an excellent regency romp, with a wonderful grandmother to the Marquess who was so delightful

What the Devil Knows  (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery #16)   by C.S. Harris           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The massacre of a family, the untimely suicide of the main suspect, the death of a despicable magistrate, mutineers, blatant corruption concerning licences and taxes for pubs in the East End. The pressure by Breweries for publicans to only buy from certain breweries under threat of harm to them or their loved ones. There’s a veritable plague of disorder. Viscount Sebastian St. Cyr is tasked to assist and as his investigation moves forward greed, graft and extortion are a stench in his nostrils. The Home Secretary, Henry Addington, Viscount Sidmouth, has asked  Sir Henry Lovejoy, a Bow Street magistrate and friend to Sebastian to oversee the investigation. Surgeon Paul Gibson of course becomes engaged in looking at the cause of some of the deaths. For unknown reasons (and cynically, of course!) Hero’s father Lord Jarvis is involved, but how is the question. Lord Jarvis is a slippery character,  M