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What’s a girl to do 🤷‍♀️

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The Mismatch of the Season  by Michelle Kenney      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ What a whirlwind ride! Following the escapades of a young woman who wants to have freedom and not have to marry the purple onion Duke is anything but calm. Her first attempt at freedom has Phoebe Fairfax fleeing her home dressed as a youth on the mail coach. At a dinner stop she unwittingly imbibes in the landlords “devils brew”, challenges a highway man to a duel and is injured and rescued by the noted Corinthian Viscount Damerel who mistakes her for a ‘bit of muslin’ as Phoebe so succinctly terms it. Realising his mistake Damerel takes her back to her home and her dreadful older brother Thomas who is insisting she accept the betrothal pledge her father had made with the Earl of Cumberland just after she was born. It’s a matter of honor! However their Aunt Harriet persuades Thomas to allow his sisters to go to Bath for the waters for Phoebe’s younger invalided sister, Josephine. The visit doesn’t start w...
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Fighting the traditions that bind!

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The Lotus Shoes : A Novel  by Jan Yang      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Even though she’s from a peasant family Little Flower’s mother, Aa Noeng, had insisted Little Flower have her feet bound from the age of four. In this way Little Flower might make a more prosperous marriage in the future. (“Four Inch Golden Lillies” is the name given to properly bound feet. The explanation of how this custom came into being is told.) Only that advantage was not to be. Little Flower’s father died and the family fell on hard times. So much so that Aa Noeng sold Little Flower into slavery. She becomes a muizai- From that time on Little Flower’s spirit was sorely tested but she rose up and in her own way faced down all the hardships she encountered. Trapped in the same cycle is her spoilt mistress , who continually blames Little Flower for her problems. Linjing is implacable in her dislike and tries to foil any advancement Little Flower might make at every opportunity. Aa Noeng had been so proud of L...
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Will Somers, court jester and court observer!

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Rebellious Grace  (King’s Fool Mystery #3) by Jeri Westerson     ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The perilous life of Henry VIII‘s court jester Will Somers continues to be complex. Will himself is both discerning, convoluted and endearing. Will’s devotion to Henry and the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth is real. His struggles with the love he has for Marion his wife and for Nicholas Patchett, Lord Hammond. A quandary! He loves them both and yet he has said to Marion he will stay true to his love for her, not love his paramours. Ahh! Will is a torn man. Geoffrey Payne, a courtier close to Queen Jane (Seymour) has been brutally killed, buried and then dug up again and his body disembowelled. Will has declared he will find the murderer. We are led down an intricate path, part of which includes Queen Jane’s fool, Janie Foole.  Westerson’s note on the role of fools is fascinating reading. I enjoyed Will’s interactions with the Windsor Herald of Arms in Ordinary, Charles Wriothesley,  an o...
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Jack Blackjack…always the innocent perpetrator!

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Death Comes in Threes  (A Bloody Mary Tudor Mystery #9) by Michael Jecks     ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️    Ah Jack! Our beloved, narcissistic opportunist, devoted mostly to his own survival.  Because Jack does have his moments of wanting to be more than he is. Alas those moments are few and always end up differently to how he planned. His latest misadventures takes up sixteen parts veering between Jack’s point of view and John Blount’s chronicles. Queen Mary is supposedly pregnant and spymasters serving Mary, Elizabeth and Philip are plotting, weaving plans for what comes next. Even those on the same side are confusing each other as they move their  strategies forward in  secret. And our unlikely, somewhat loveable anti hero Black Jack is caught between them all. Jack’s accused of murdering three people, of course all is happenstance. When he innocently tries to clear himself he trips over so many plots it makes his head spin, which he’s doing already due to the...
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Regaining love!

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Remember When : Clarissa’s Story (Ravenswood #4) by Mary Balogh        ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Eighteen year old Matthew Taylor is shocked when his best friend  Clarissa Greenfield,  all of seventeen, tells him she’s going to marry Caleb Ware, Earl of Stratton. Fast forward thirty years. Clarissa Ware is now fifty and  Dowager Duchess of Stratton. Some years ago the family was dealt a stunning blow when the Duke brought his mistress to the village installing her in the Inn as a widow looking for somewhere to settle down. Prior to this Caleb had kept his parliamentary life and country life separate. His son Devlin confronted him in front of the villagers at the local ball.  Matthew’s always felt rejected by his family and now his secret love and friend will be out of his life. Clarissa words cut. Clarissa has now been a widow for six years. Having done her duty she decides to retreat to Ravenswood to think about her future. It is here she is reacquainted with ...
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Explosive! Literally and metaphorically!

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Holmes Is Missing  (Holmes, Margaret and Poe #2 )  by James Patterson; Brian Sitts           By the seat of your pants read. Well what can’t expect anything less from these two authors.  Brendon Holmes is AWOL, sort of. Margaret Marple is leaning into the new challenge and concerned for Holmes. Auguste Poe is still pulling out the right vintage muscle car for the right moment.  Their research assistant / housekeeper, and so much more, Virginia is fabulous. I’m loving the mysteries these three are coming to grips with, or in Holmes’s case—not! When danger comes into their home and hearth a villain of an entirely different stamp emerges.  We’re left wondering “What’s next?” A Little, Brown & Co ARC via NetGalley.                                               Many thanks to the author and publisher.
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The Secret of the Three Fates  (Ruby Vaughn Mystery #3) by Jess Armstrong       ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Ruby Vaughn has travelled to Manhurst Castle, Scotland, with  her friend and employer Mr. Owen,  to attend of all things, a seance.  It’s highly unusual that Mr. Owen insist they go. There’s not one but three mediums (more witches than mediums) and then when the Pellar turns up the mediums keep saying something dastardly was going to happen. It did! One of the medium’s Lucy Campbell asked Ruby to meet her at midnight at the bridge. Ruby finds her face down in the icy lake. She jumped in to try to rescue Lucy, but she was dead. The police tried to pin the murder on Ruby. She was having nothing of it. Before the tale finishes there’s been murder, truths not revealed or distorted, attempted killings on Ruby and so much more, including the possibility of a figure from Ruby’s past. All very exciting! The fate of Ruby, the Pellar and Mr. Owen once again suck...
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