eyes.2c Reviews

The Ruffler's Child  (Thomas the Falconer  Mysteries #1) by John Pilkington           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is the first in The Falconer mystery series set in turbulent Elizabethan times. A body in the forest, and a bear set the scene.  Thomas and his falcons a highlight. Sent to London to buy some special gyrfalcons along with Lady Margaret who is attending her dead brother’s affairs, Thomas uncovers threats against his mistress. He nearly loses his life as he tries to solve Margaret’s problems. The two grow closer for one night, but they are mistress and servant. That is all they can be. I loved the explanation of the various stratas of society. The masterless folks—the Vagrom, the Abahrams, the people at the market, the beggars, those at court—all very colorful and enlivening. Sexual tensions undergirding the relationship between Lady Margaret and Thomas add an extra oomph to the storyline. I’m so ready to read others in this series. A Boldwood Book...

A Whisper of Secrecy (Raven & Wren #5) by Darcy Burke   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Twists and turns await in the latest episode of this very readable Victorian mystery  series. The brutal murder of a former detective of the Metropolitan Police in the same manner as her father, albeit ten years ago, focuses Tilda’s attention once again on his demise. Particularly as Padgett had her father’s name on a slip of parchment in his pocket. Tilda’s investigative partner Hadrian Becket, Earl of Ravenwood, makes it his business to have her father’s car reopened. Currently Tilda’s inquiring into the theft of some valuable silverware which includes a tureen and a salver. Both pieces feature intricate stags designs. Shockingly, the mother who'd deserted Tilda and her grandmother and left them destitute has swanned back into their lives! What! Then of course there’s Hadrian. Tilda is scared of her feelings for him, made even more fanciful with her mother’s blatant match making attempts. As the two inve...

The Lyon Who Desired Me  (The Lyon Den’s Connected World)   by Tracy Sumner           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ There’s been a flurry of tales lately about scientifically or mathematical bent young ladies struggling in society to either make a good marriage, not wanting to be married, or married for convenience, all the while hiding their intellectual abilities under a bushel as it were. Not so Lady Louisa Radcliffe. She’s known for her explosions and incendiary  happenings. Louisa has a large dowry and is the daughter of a duke. However she decides to take charge when it looks like a dullard, a senseless earl, is going to offer for her. Louisa wants more. She seeks help from the mysterious Mrs. Dove-Lyon. Louisa’s interests have landed on the volatile rake and gambler Dominic Beckett, who just happens, in a convoluted roundabout way, to be related somehow to Mrs. Dove-Lyons. Louisa’s decision is based on an encounter with Dominic in a bookshop when they were bo...

Sense and Suitability  by Pepper Basham           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Only Emmeline Lockhart, Gentleman’s daughter with no dowry to speak of, could turn heartache into something else. When she waited in the garden for Simon Reeves to propose, nephew to the Viscount of Ravenscross, little did she know that he’d left her after penning a short note. Emme is devastated and retreats to her home in St Groves to heal and write. Would that the healing would happen! The writing certainly is. Stranger things do happen, especially whilst she’s visiting a distraught widow on behalf of her cousin Thomas, the local vicar. Emme certainly didn’t expect to meet Simon, now Viscount Ravenscross, after she’d chased a young child on a rather fast horse. A girl she’d spied dragging a sack onto the back of her horse replete with the widow’s stolen chickens. Nor did she expect to be precipitously thrown over her own horse’s head into a pond only  to be rescued by said Viscount. Simon ...

The Hidden City  (Charles Lenox Mystery #15) by Charles Finch           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Private Investigator Charles Lenox’s business is successful. Charles has had a message from his former Housekeeper, Elizabeth Huggins, from his early days of detecting. She’s back in London living in a house where a murder took place. Strange disturbances are occurring. Charles responds quickly and finds himself following a thread that runs throughout London to places where other deaths have happened and he and his partner Graham find small, imperceptible carvings marked on these buildings. On the home front, out of the blue, he receives a message that his brother Jasper has died in India and his daughter is coming to London. Imagine his surprise when not one, but two young ladies turn up. Lord Edmund, Charles’ widowed older brother, has thrown himself into politics and has taken up a seat in parliament. He’s seen as the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lady Jane, Charles...

A Lady Most Wayward  (Queen’s Deadly Damsels #5) by Darcy McGuire          ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Just when the Duchess of Dorset, Lady Philippa Winterbourne, thought she was on the trail of the Crow, someone stopped her in her tracks. That someone was Lady Olivia Smithwyke, Marchioness Brightmore. Lady Philippa is the leader of the Queen’s Deadly Damsels committed to searching out the identity of the leader of the Devil’s Sons and destroying him. The Devil’s Sons are a network of the powerful and the degenerate, mainly noblemen, who steal girls and young women, use and abuse them, and then secretes them overseas to places like brothels. Olivia has been playing a fraught hand, never more so than when her daughter is taken by the Devil’s Sons. She needs the help of the Deadly Damsels. Taut with friction and undeniable attraction between the two main characters this is a Victorian sapphic thriller that encompasses danger, secrets and love! A Boldwood ARC via NetGalley. ...