eyes.2c Reviews

Fortune Favors the Wicked by   Theresa Romain Retired naval lieutenant Benjamin Frost encounters the gorgeous courtesan, Charlotte Perry in a village inn. Charlotte is running from her last paramour and towards her greatest secret by way of village of her childhood and her ruin. Newly minted golden guineas were stolen from the crown and rumour of the appearance of one has surfaced in Charlotte's old stamping ground. She has joined the search for a stolen treasure and the reward offered will turn her life around and fulfill her dreams. Benjamin is of the same mind. He has responsibilities and the reward money will make all the difference. But murder is abroad. There is danger from unknowns and and for Charlotte from her pursuing protector whom she has left to make a new beginning. Benjamin and Charlotte find a common meeting ground of passion and purpose. However there are twists that bar their happiness. Adventure and danger finds Charlotte and Benjamin as they contin...

To Lure a Proper Lady (Duke-Defying Daughters #1)   by  Ashlyn Macnamara Dysart is all that one could wish for as a hero. A gentleman who's turned  his back on society and has taken up the unusual livelihood of being a Bow Street Runner. When Lady Elizabeth Wilde confronts him at headquarters from fear that her severely incapacitated father is being slowly poisoned he accepts the case. To Lizzie he's an enigma and she finds herself drawn to him more than is seemly. Dysart is focused, thoughtful, compassionate with a healthy touch of the intelligent rogue. His meeting with Lady Elizabeth was unusual and that sounds the note for their relationship as the story develops. The Duke has ordained that a house party will happen and that his daughters are to seek husbands. He wants to die knowing that they will be settled prior to his death. He wants Lizzie to marry his heir, Lizzie's cousin, the weak insipid Lord Snowley Wilde. Thrust back into the arms of society, a...

Lady in the Smoke: A Victorian Mystery   by  Karen Odden This is a totally engaging historical Victorian mystery. Lady Elizabeth Fraser is returning from her failed London season to her home. The train she is travelling in is involved in an horrific accident. Elizabeth is freed from the wreck but cannot escape the carnage she is part of. Once safe in a guest house she discovers the handsome surgeon, Paul Wilcox, who had attended her at the disaster site, is operating on the kitchen table with no-one to assist him. Elizabeth steps up, even though if anyone knew her true status she would be a figure of scandal, despite the extenuating circumstances. What she doesn't know is that their lives will become even more entwined when Paul is arrested and charged with having caused the death of one of his patients. As Elizabeth tries to sort out the truth she finds herself embroiled in a conspiracy to do with the railway development, that government knowledge is being ...

Three Weeks To Wed (The Worthingtons #1)   by  Ella Quinn I do like  Lady Grace Carpenter and Mattheus, Earl of Worthington. The shoe is definitely on the other foot here. It is Lady Grace who seduces the handsome Worthington, Matt to his siblings and friends. Of course, cuspid's arrow ever sharp, just makes Mt Vesuvius' eruption look tame in comparison to the instantaneous fire that ignites between these two. But, for Grace this was a one night of opportunity never to be repeated. For Mattheus it was a waking call to true love. Grace has guardianship of her siblings, a hard fought battle, that she doesn't wish to give up any rights to. If she marries that guardianship is in danger. A risk she refuses to take. As Matt pursues his mystery woman and Grace deftly eludes him, the hide and seek that ensues is accompanied by a veritable tribe of siblings of all ages and two Great Danes. There's some hilarious happenings, especially with the siblings, some...

Highland Awakening: A Highland Knights Novel #2   by  Jennifer Haymore Lady Esme Hawkins seems to draw mischance and scandal towards herself without trying. So it's now up to her to make sure she is beyond reproach. A respectable marriage should help that. And maybe it will cover her darkest secret--a writer of steamy romances. That was all before she met Highland Knight, Camden McLeod in somewhat scandalous circumstances and discovered just what responses a kiss could evoke.  It would appear that Esme's fears link her sensuality to her 'gypsy' heritage. Although I can see why the Esme of that time might react like this, such an inclusion in a novel written today leads into a downward labelling cultural spiral. A difficult writer's choice. Esme is governed by her own and her society's perceptions. Of course Cam is the damned hero, never having known love who falls for the innocent, hidden siren, and then doesn't really know how to express th...

Cold Girl: A B.C. Blues Crime Novel   by  R.M. Greenaway   A missing singer and a killer dubbed the 'pickup killer' already having claimed three lives. A complex, edgy and dark read with some moments of unexpected rays of light. Featuring a cast of the lost and found. Lost on their path and found in many other ways.  Of being on the brink, of trusting and not trusting feelings. Of f riendships and family--working together and gone awry. Happenings as stark as the surrounding country of northern British Columbia--beyond Port Rupert, towards Hazleton before Smithers, a four hour drive away complete with logging roads and mountains in the depth of winter. (I looked at a map to get a further understanding of the area and distances. By the way, there's a very good reason why most of the map is white! Having flown into Port Rupert and caught the Marine Highway ferry north I do understand somewhat the isolation of these communities and 'tyranny' of distance...

To Win a Lady's Heart (The Landon Sisters #1)   by  Ingrid Hahn Lady Grace Landon has many shadows to dispel. John Merrick, the Earl of Corbeau has his own set of ghosts to slay. When Grace found a satisfying place to read some correspondence she rather the rest of her family didn't find out about, she wasn't to know that Lord Corbeau sought the same place to evade a party game he didn't want to join in. The thing was that he didn't leave the door ajar as Grace had. Being caught in a locked storeroom together was not planned, or even remotely sought. And yet this travesty against societal rules occurred. Particularly as this was the very a man whose proposal Grace had refused some years ago. But Lord Corbeau is ever mindful of his duty. Their hurried engagement and fraught courtship is frustrating as neither seems to be able to shake the past for obvious reasons. Following this love story is akin to walking across a rock pool in bare feet. Full...

Treachery at Lancaster Gate ( A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel #31) by Anne Perry '... the breaking of trust in the government was the beginning of anarchy' Oh My! Those twisty, deadly curve balls that Perry knows well how to let fly once again bowl me over for a six. This time Thomas Pitt, commander of Special Branch is facing bombings, police corruption and the possibility of collusion in high places. Collusion that threatens Jack Radley, Pitt's brother-in-law holding a highly placed position in the Foreign Office, who is currently working on a lucrative contract between the British and Chinese governments. Pitt's investigation could bring this all tumbling down like a house of cards. A bombing occurs, killing and injuring police officers. Anarchists are blamed, but as Pitt investigates all roads lead to the young, opium addicted son of Godrey Duncannon, the architect of those talks between the two governments. Godrey is essential to the success of the...

The Summer Before the War: A Novel   by  Helen Simonson Beatrice Nash makes her way into a small community at Rye in Sussex as the Latin teacher at the local school. It's 1914 in Edwardian England. In these times, just prior to World War I, women have their place and teaching Latin s not one of them. Her father had been a respected able Latin scholar. Beatrice had accompanied him and run the household. With his death, Beatrice, a t the mercy of relations is cast  adrift as it were by an autocratic aunt. Now all is bemusement and she enters a strange new world. What a wonderful microcosm of British society this book describes, as England is at the dawn of a new age that quickly turn into a fearful world. An amazing story, with strength, compassion and fascination on every page. In many ways I feel that what we have is a collection of vignettes on Edwardian life artfully woven into a complex, intimate and compelling story. The issues that raise t...

The Duke's Accidental Wife (Dukes of War  #7)   by  Erica Ridley   I was expecting something different from the  Duke of Ravenwood's story. I didn't expect him to find himself in a situation where he must do the 'honourable' thing, much less with a woman who regards him as so much less than what he really is. A woman he views as a hoyden and totally suspect. I also am stymied as to why his sister, Lady Amelia, pushed him to hold a social function when she knows that this is the very thing he hates. I also must confess that after my first stirrings of anger with Miss Katherine Ross, the woman who will turn Ravenwood's life upside down, I started to empathize with her. Katherine lives for her artistic endeavours and museum collections, Ravenswood for acting as he is supposed to--guiding the members of the House of Lords down the proper avenues. These two unlikely people have a not too enticing future if both simply glare at each other's dif...

The Forbidden Duke (The Untouchables #1)   by  Darcy Burke   I enjoyed Titus and Eleanor's story. A woman ruined and repudiated at the bidding of another. Eleanor Lockhart, or rather Nora, ten years ago was caught kissing a careless rake who had hinted at marriage but reneged when they were discovered. Little did Nora know that Titus, as leader of the group, had encouraged this outrageous behaviour. When  Titus St. John, Duke of Kendal, realizes the worthlessness of these pursuits he forswears his hedonistic life and only appears during the season for one reason--the ball held by his beloved stepmother, Lady Satterfield. Titus only ever dances one dance, and that with a nonentity. Over the years this behaviour has earned him the dubious title, the Forbidden Duke. To dance with him is to be elevated to 'interesting' Nora's living circumstances have changed. She seeks a position as a companion and Titus's stepmother employs her. She has decided to give N...

The Fearless Highlander (Highland Defender #1) by Amy Jarecki Once again the dreaded Fort William (representing English opression and butchery) is the backdrop against which the initial action of this story plays out. (Yes, the same Fort William that has been the backdrop for a number of highland romances set in the these times). It's 1692. Charlotte Hill, the daughter of the fort's colonel,  and the rugged clan heir,  Hugh MacIain meet in the fort's infirmary. He as a patient and she as a nursing assistant. Their  story is set against the ongoing English invasion of Scotland and in particular the massacre of Glen Coe. Imprisonment, attraction, escape, massacre, love, vengeance, clan loyalties and feuds, and political subterfuge all have a part to play. Charlotte is a woman of great fortitude, not the weakling sassenach that most think her. A staunch Jacobite, Hugh finds himself torn between his love and his cause. Enemies by birth, compellingly ...

The Forbidden Orchid   by   Sharon Biggs Waller This exotic Victorian story leads us from a small English village into the dangerous depths of China. Seventeen year old Elodie Buchanan takes on the responsibility of accompanying her father to China to hunt for a particular orchid, the Queen's Fancy in order to restore the family fortunes. Mind you, her father is unaware that she has joined him on the clipper Osprey, fortuitously aided by Alexander Balashov the second mate, until near to the end of the voyage.    Mr. Buchanan returned from his last plant hunt in the orient a broken man, having been caught up in the end of the Opium Wars with China in 1860 at Tien-Tsin, where he appears to have been captured and tortured. He's refused to see his family, has hidden out in a cottage in Kew Gardens, avoiding all. Unfortunately, as he didn't fulfill his orchid finding contract with the malevolent collector Mr. Erasmus Pringle, he is being forced to return t...

The Journey Home by Mary Jo Putney and Diane Chamberlain et. al. A raft of fascinating stories about the trials faced by men and women who went to war or find themselves in the middle of one and of the tribulations of those left behind and other such permeations. The stories range from the 1400's to sometime in the future and/or sometime in other worlds. The message of love and healing intertwined holds true for all the ages and places. I really enjoyed: Hero's Welcome by Rebecca York The Sacrifice by Cynthia Valero The Shadowed Heart by Catherine Asario A NetGalley ARC ****

Not Always a Saint (The Lost Lords #7) by Mary Jo Putney  Little does Daniel Herbert know that the battered and injured woman his sister would stagger into his infirmary with during the dark hours of the night would haunt his future coming to mean more to him that he could imagine. Jessie Kelham takes on the persona of that dark night and vanishes into a new life. Some years later Daniel becomes Lord Romayne his life as a doctor changes, and not necessarily to his liking. Meanwhile, Jessie's life too has changed. She harbours a secret that could bring ruin to those she loves. Now a widow, she is being threatened by her husband's former heir. In order to protect herself and her daughter Jessie considers remarrying, coincidentally at the same time Daniel has decided to look for a wife, someone more mature, perhaps a widow. They are of course destined to meet again.  Daniel is a truly accepting person, understanding of human nature and its frailties, honour...

For The Love of Old Bones   by  Michael Jecks I have read most of Michael Jeck's 'Knight Templar' series and find them a great addition to the Medieval Mystery genre.  'For the Love of Old Bones' does not disappoint. It is a finely honed collection of short stories revolving around deaths from some unknown source of the violence and the subsequent resolution of cause and culprit/s. Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, Keeper of the King's Peace for the county of Devonshire, is a man who seeks the truth of matters despite the often incompetence of the crown appointed coroners, who are more there because of their political connections than their shrewd abilities. Baldwin is a former Knight Templar who goes about his duties in a focused manner with great insight. He is featured in the first three stories. THE CORONER’S TALE  A young woman is murdered vilely in an alleyway in a Devonshire town. Sir Baldwin investigates. A few twists add to the mystery. FOR THE ...

A Fatal Inheritance: A Celtic historical mystery set in 16th century Ireland  (A Burren Mystery #13)  by  Cora Harrison    The building of tension coupled with the eeriness of the murder itself, the inclusion of the haunts of the old gods, all held my attention completely. The centre piece is the stone God, the Far Breige, to which the murder victim was  Bound  in a macabre lovers knot, the scene all hidden by the secretive mists, until the clarity of the sun cuts through, exposing all. As Mara, Brehon of the Burren, goes persistently and quietly about her business as the Brehon we are also treated to her canny observations about the people around her, her scholars and those she must interview to get to the truth. And that truth is in danger of being lost amongst the community's legends and beliefs in relation to the old gods. Mara is indeed a woman to be admired. Her mind is swift. She is reflective and powerful in her understand...

Death on the Riviera: A British Library Crime Classic (British Library Crime Classics Book 15) by John Bude The language structure here definitely reflects the 50's origins of this novel. An interesting look into writing in that era. The English detectives' journey to France, the tracking down of the forgerer and then other criminal happenings hold one in suspense, worthy of Sherlock Holmes. A tad 'golly gosh' mixed in with Boy's Own Magazine daring-do's and sleuthing. All the usual suspects with a couple of unusual ones thrown in for good measure. Enjoyable, with amusingly archaic turns of phrases as seen from sixty or so years on. A NetGalley ARC        *** 1/2

A Reckless Desire: A Breconridge Brothers Novel (The Breconridge Brothers Book 3) by  Isabella  Bradford Boldly Lord Rivers Fitzroy declares that he could take the merest person and turn them into an actress. His friend Sir Edward Everett takes him up on the wager. Lucia do Rossi comes from a family of dancers, yet she cannot dance. As a serving woman with her uncle's ballet company, she knows that she will never achieve anything more. Having been the object of Rivers declaration, she determines to have him take up the proposition.  Rivers, slightly the worse for wear when she presents herself at the font door the next morning, nevertheless decides to embark on the wager. What neither of them see is that the student and master will form a closer relationship. There's anguish a plenty and unrequited desires of the heart. When the big day comes or rather night falls, Lucia, now Mrs Willow has her moment on stage. I became quite entranced by Lucia. The chall...

The Passenger   by  Lisa Lutz I actually found myself not as invested in this story as I had hoped. Obviously others were absolutely delighted by it. Such a personal thing, what appeals, but I am a little over Thelma and/or Louise type stories. Blue is a character that I don't like and don't trust. But then Jo (the identity the mysterious Ryan communicates with) really has no choice. There is a heap of layers within layers hidden here but the sameness of the various small towns that Jo sheltered in leached a dreariness into the very soul of the story. Events certainly moved quickly and the situations Jo found herself in were unimaginable. I sort of had things figured out by the time we were a chapter into the last identity's story. The multiplicity of identities is gruelling. I was exhausted and so was the central character. Just for the record,  I liked Domonic--a lot. He pushed the stars to 3. A NetGalley ARC ***

The Infamous Heir  (Spare Heirs #1) by  Elizabeth Michels Lady Roselyn Grey is conflicted. We discover more about this as we go along. She is conflicted by who she really is and the life she feels she should plan for. Indeed the ease of being engaged prior to a London season meets all her criteria. She is unsure because she is the sister of the reputed 'mad' Duke of Thornwood. An engagement prior to her season would be so much easier. All that is thrown into chaos when her fiancé and Trevor Moore, Lord Ayton, and heir to Ormesby Place, is killed in an accident. When Trevor hands Roselyn his list of requirements for the marriage, any sane woman would have run for the hills. Roselyn doesn't seem to quite understand what she is getting into, apart from marrying the heir to the lands adjoining her family's. Ethan Moore has been earning a living as a prize fighter. He is the black sheep of the family and the childhood playmate of the now very ladylike, Rosely...

I Kissed a Rogue  (Covent Garden Cubs #3) by Shana Galen.       In the middle of Mayfair, after a ball, Lady Lillian-Anne Lennox finds herself dragged from her carriage, tied up and hooded, carried into a place of unimaginable odours, thrown onto a hard surface and left frantic and fearfully alone.  With the discovery of Lila missing her father the Duke of Lennox hires Sir Brook Derring, a canny investigator, to find her.This is the same Brook Derringer that years before Lila had callously refused when her sought her hand. Why should he assist? However help her he does! As the plot deepens and it becomes apparent that Lila is in real danger he bows to pressure from the Royal Prince and the Duke to go to extraordinary lengths to keep her safe. The thing is, Lila is no longer the autocratic, unfeeling woman he once knew. She has matured and regretted her unfeeling actions of the past.The struggle to keep Lila safe and to keep her at a distance fails ...

Wedding Night With the Earl: The Heirs' Club of Scoundrels #3    by  Amelia Grey Adam Greyhawke closed down completely when his beloved wife Annie died in childbirth. When he unwillingly becomes the Earl of Greyhawke, he finds, much to his disgust, that not only can he not reject the earlship but that he has a ready made heir to go along with it. Forced to go to London to attend to details about his inheritance he is stunned by a beautiful young woman across a crowded ballroom. When Miss Katharine Wright, injured in a carriage accident when young, is confronted by a handsome man who sees her (somewhat) and not her physical disability she is intrigued. When that intrigue deepens into something more she is puzzled by his attitudes. As she comes to understand more it seems that this man who so challenges and draws her is not interested in marriage. I loved Katherine's courage and Adam's uncertainty. I loved her directness and Adam's care. The story evol...

How to Handle a Scandal (The Scandalous Sisters #2)  by  Emily Greenwood   Hellfire Hall. That's where our heroine arrives after a gigantic misunderstanding that stretches back years and has led to this crossroad. Elizabeth Tarryton had wanted to find her own path. She was young and not yet ready to settle down. Tommy Halifax, a childhood friend and brother to her guardian, was wounded by her seemingly callous public rejection of his marriage proposal. He fled to India. Now he has returned and is faced with the young widow and his former passion, Elizabeth. An Elizabeth who has grown into a different woman. Can Tommy see her as she is now or will he be forever trapped in the memory of his humility at her hands? An enjoyable read A NetGalley ARC ****