eyes.2c Reviews

Stealing the Duke (The Scandal Sheet #2) by Jess Michaels            I was not greatly enamored by the Alexander Wittingham, the Duke of Avondale. Nor did I feel comfortable with the premise of said Duke using blackmail for his amorous designs. When the Earl of Martingale dies leaving his eldest daughter Marianne to discover his guilty secret and the artifacts he'd stolen from various ton associates she calls the police to have them returned. Arrk! Social ruin now in place!  Alas she finds one more piece so tries to sneak into Avondale's home and return it. Foolishly empty headed or desperate? I can't decide. Of course she's going to be caught! Unfortunately when this innocent young woman, without protection tries to set things to rights she becomes ensnared in a larger game. And so, Alexander Wittingham shot straight to the top of my blackguards list. I know all turns out well after some harrowing times but I just plain dislike the Duke! I'm al...

Bones of the Earth (Inspector Shan #10) by Eliot Pattison  How can I not give this final installment in the Detective Shan series five stars? I clung to every word Eliot put down, listened to every prayer uttered by the tibetans throughout these captivating pages, and was amazed by the depth of Eliot's understanding of the plight of Tibet in the face of Chinese occupation. Shan Tao Yun is front and center with Colonel Tan, governor of Lhadrung County, as they uncover corruption, murder and foul doings, all in the name of Beijing and the Motherland. The plight of the Tibetans is underscored even as Shan uncovers a massive, fraudulent plot surrounding the building of a dam smack in the center of a Tibetan holy place, known locally as Valley of the Gods, Holy Home, and Gekho’s Roost. When an American archeology student is killed by a mining explosion / accident when investigating a cave holding an ancient shrine, the intrigue ratchets up, especially as Tibetans she was assoc...

An Unwilling Earl (Mayfair Men of Mystery #1) by Sharon Cullen           Successful lawyer Jacob Baker and now newly minted earl Jacob Ashland, the Earl of Ashland and his friend, Oliver McCaron, the Earl of Armbruster are intrigued by crimes and have a pastime of solving and dissecting crimes. They have a weekly "Mayhem Meeting, as they liked to call it, where they perused the newspapers looking for the most sensational crimes and tried to solve them while drinking copious amounts of port." Apparently successfully as their friend Detective O'Leary occasionally joined them. "They were a strange trio—the earl, the solicitor, and the detective. Although ... there were now two earls and a detective." Currently, a spate of heinously disturbing crimes had come to light; servant girls were being brutally killed and dismembered and London working folk were panicked. But with the rescue by Jacob of a young boy from being trampled by a horse that armchair sleuth...

London’s Best Kept Secret (Midnight Secrets #2) by Anabelle Bryant It seems a late night bet at White's becomes a matter of some urgency for an unknown speculator as Jeremy Lockhart, Viscount Dearing's marriage plans progress. Besotted by his first glimpse of Lady Charlotte playing at a ton recital leaves this business minded Viscount dazzled. But how to win her? Using his superb business skills he orchestrates Charlotte's family into financial ruin and then presents himself as the savior to all their problems. Having won the lady by unfair means, Jeremy just doesn't know how to win her affection, and so leaves Charlotte to her own devices. Very awkward, a marriage in name only and Charlotte puzzled as to why the man who requested her hand in marriage has now left her to her own devices wondering how to grab her husband's attention. She does but not quite in the way she wanted. I really lost patience with these two, their bad timing and even worse dithering...

A Lord Apart (The Way to a Lord's Heart #1) by Jane Ashford             A bit of a conundrum and then some. Arthur Shelton, Earl of Macklin is still pursuing his aim of helping others to deal with death and the loss that represents. He wanders in and out of the story like a benevolent fairy god father. As he explains to his current array of guests, “Grief is insidious, almost palpable, and as variable as humankind ... No one can understand who hasn’t experienced a sudden loss. A black coat and a few platitudes are nothing.” This time Daniel Frith, Viscount Whitfield is the person he turns his attention towards. Daniel has had a solitary upbringing due to his parents always being abroad so frequently. And now with their deaths the abandoned inner child and the adult Daniel feel that disconnect keenly. In attempting to taking over the reins of his earldom, a puzzling question is why Rose Cottage been left to a complete stranger, one Penelope Pendleton...

How to Marry a Highlander (The McTiernay's #8) by Michele Sinclair            The story started off with a somewhat predictable set of circumstances. Wild highland gal, daughter of a nasty clan chief takes some time out for naked (of course) bathing, only to be disturbed by gorgeous, strapping highland warrior. They end up in lust in the water. There you go! Those ravenous, feisty highlanders, untamed and untrammeled! So that was all a bit sudden, but maybe understandable if you've been kept apart or kept yourself apart, either physically or emotionally from others. After all I am reading a romantic highlander historical novel! So suck up the improbables and read on. I rather think their initial encounter was mutually agreed seduction, and not too much of the "mysterious firebrand tempting [Dugan] with her wicked ways!"  "Her" being Adanel Mackbay. Dugan is a commander of the McTiernay clan and women apparently fall all over him. Let's just say ...

The Tanzania Conspiracy: A Max O'Brien Mystery (Max O'Brien #3) by Mario Bolduc     A strong, racey, crime noir that takes you from Tanzania to the United States and on to the north west area of Canada. From the scourge of abhorrent superstitious practices with albinism and body parts, centered in Tanzania to a black market trade in the world beyond (thanks to the dark side of the web), to the small exclusive world of American executioners in those States where the death penalty is still part of the legal system. There are two storytellers. We approach the story from the perspective of the first, Max O'Brien, a con man without pretensions. We first meet him carrying out a sting in Zanzibar. The second story teller is Roselyn Kerensky, wife of a retired executioner. How these two stories might intersect puzzled me. I kept wondering about the relevance. That was decisively put to rest as the action evolved. When Max is notified of the deaths of his ex mistress Valér...

A Death in Chelsea (A Mayfair 100 Mystery #2) by Lynn Brittney        The daughter of a Duchess is found hanged in her rooms. Suicide or murder? The odds ante up when it's discovered that Adeline Treborne is a gossip columnist whose scurrilous reports have had many a family or person shunned. And then there's the ugly question of blackmail. I still can't quite put my finger the  tone but maybe the Murdoch Mysteries comes close. I have to admit to enjoying the characters as they grow into their roles, as the central raison d'être for the Mayfair 100 team unfolds. Underlining the series are serious social issues which are often implied but mostly form part of a character's stated commentary. These might vary from mixed marriages, baby farming, the toll of war and how ill prepared Britain was for the devastating injuries and things like the need for artificial limbs, to the levelling of the social barriers. WW1 was the precipice for great change in all s...

Murder in Belgravia (A Mayfair 100 Mystery #1) by Lynn Brittney     I enjoyed the characters in this new series who seem to have wandered out of a post Edwardian soap opera. More like a social justice version of Upstairs Downstairs. Chief Inspector Beech is tasked by the Commissioner of Scotland Yard to bring together an elite group to meet the changing face of crime.  Beech's team consists of intelligent women with special skills, a doctor, lawyer and eventually one other, to investigate situations where it's difficult for the Yard to conduct their  inquiries, particularly if women are the central focus.  The male members of the team have proven specialised skills of one sort or another. WW1 is underway and that's bringing about its own special problems. The group is operating secretly as an experiment. Women are not accepted in the police force as yet. Beech's contacts lead to their operating out of a house in Mayfair with the telephone number 100 M...

Grey Sister (Book of the Ancestor #2) by Mark Lawrence I hung in every word, I was caged with the children sold by their parents, ran the path with Nona, sweated with Abbess Glass as the inquisitors took her for trial, and waited with baited breath as actions and plans came into being, at a cost and with little hope of survival. Nona as the scapegoat, is pursued by assassins and is the target of a vengeful wealthy family. Lawrence maintains the intensity and the raw untrammeled moments of terror brilliantly. A NetGalley ARC *****

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See     What can I say? I am once more blown away by a Lisa See novel. See exceeded my expectations with this epic narrative centered around the female divers of Jeju Island, Korea. Set from the 1930's on at the time of the Japanese Occupation and later under the United States care-taking forces. Told across time from the viewpoint of an older woman, Young-sook as she grapples with the twists her life has taken over these years, confronting her successes, failings and betrayals. Her friendship with Mi-ja, the daughter of a collaborator and the breakdown of that closeness, leaves us with Young-Sook's anger which is hard bitten and understandable. Her inability to forgive is tangible. Amongst the brightest moments are the scenes of the haenyeo (the women divers) collective as they commence diving accompanied by their rituals, patter and traditional comments. The picture of Young-Sook and Mi-ja making rubbings of things to remember is ju...

Unto Us a Son Is Given (Guido Brunetti #28) by Donna Leon     A brilliant, yet understated performance by Guido Brunetti, offset by his reading of The Trojan Women which seem to act as a reflective prompt for Guido all the way through. Along the way we are treated to an insight into Venetian culture and practices. I love it! Paolo's godfather, Gonzalo Rodríguez de Tejada, and a longtime family friend wants to adopt a younger man as his son. His friends, including Guido's father-in-law Count Orazio Falier, are shocked and try to dissuade him. For the younger man would inherit all. Then Gonzalo fall and dies in the street, and a close friend from Gonzalo's days in Chile comes to Venice, along with a former lover of Gonzalo's to hold a memorial dinner.  Unfortunately she is strangled in her hotel room. All of Brunetti's instincts come to the fore. He is on high alert. Yet the way forward seemingly comes to a full stop. The past haunts the future, but how? T...

A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell Mystery #4) by Deanna Raybourn      The dance between Stoker and Veronica Speedwell continues. Stocker is miffed with Veronica for disappearing to Madeira for six months. Stocker's brother Tiberius (Lord Templeton-Vane) calls on Veronica to persuade her to visit an old friend of his who lives on a wind torn Cornish Island. The carrot is a rare butterfly. How can Veronica resist that. Besides Stocker is being deliberately obtuse or provocative. I can't decide, and neither can Veronica. Tiberius' request is a ruse for something more sinister from the past, and it turns out, complicated. Apparently his friend Malcolm Romilly was to be married but the bride, Rosamund, went missing and to this day no-one has discovered any trace of her. The island has all the required sinister trappings that one would wish for and a village woman who has "the sight!" Veronica comes in for some foretelling that she recognizes when it...

The German Half-Bloods (The Half-Bloods Trilogy #1)   by Jana Petken     It was very hard for me to like this book. And yet the idea of writing a WWII story from a German point of view is worthwhile. Faced with the pressures put on families the decisions various members of the family made ring true. Though the Vogels are hardly your typical German family, the everyday person caught up in the storm of Hitler and the SS. The children of this family are privileged, half English and well educated. Privileges that make it possible for some of them to chart a course that others in the family and the society could not. English enough to confront and acknowledge what they see happening, that Hitler is not the savior of the German people and that something shocking is happening. Although it seems Wilfred and Dieter have some way to go. One can't help but admire the research behind Petkin's novel. A novel you either are drawn to or not. A NetGalley ARC ***

The Real Wallis Simpson: A New History of the American Divorcée Who Became the Duchess of Windsor by Anna Pasternak           Prince Edward and Wallis Simpson. Either a Shakespearean farce or a tragedy from beginning to end. I have always held some skepticism and admittedly a few prejudices towards Wallis and Edward and their so called fairytale romance. The man who gave up his kingship for the woman he loved. Pasternak paints a different picture from what I was used to and I must admit to being touched, particularly at Wallis' last days and the pettiness of the court in not letting her be referred to as HRH in those latter years. Embattled on all sides, determined to marry Wallis, Edward steamed ahead and to some extent his  bluff was called. I did shed some tears at the end struck by the misery that Wallis, a perectionist was forced to endure. And I did admire that Edward refused a morganatic marriage. He wanted to be honest with his subjects and ...

Literary Places (Inspired Traveler's Places) by Sarah Baxter. Illustrations by Amy Grimes          If you have a literary bent and are contemplating travel this is a fascinating book. Even if your not venturing to far flung place, this gem of a book will allow loads of armchair traveling.  Twenty-five locations were chosen from St Petersburg in Russia to Saigon in Vietnam and places both north and south of the equator and around the globe encompassing longitudes from England to Chile. I grappled with artist's impressions for the first couple of chapters. I am used to, and was expecting photographs, ideally artistically shot. You know a bridge or archway  looming through the bull rushes taken from a prone position etc. etc.  But here we have artistic impressions by Amy Grimes, superbly rendered, colorful, and often showing a 'naive' primitivism influence, with occasional magic realism touches. These art works, capturing the essence of place...

Smoke and Ashes (Sam Wyndham #3) by Abir Mukherjee      My second reading of Abir Mukherjee's murder mystery novel set against related socioeconomic and political conditions in 1920's India, continues to  enthrall. I am totally smitten with the goings on of former Scotland Yard detective Captain Sam Wyndham and his co policeman, Surendranath (Surrender-Not) Bannerjee  As always Mukherjee's knowledge of political events in 1920's Calcutta is well grounded. Sam's struggle with opium addiction (a result of his psychological traumas of the Great War) continues. Not that it slows down his thinking processes but it does mean that sometimes he's in the wrong place at the wrong or right time depending on your point of view. This time Sam realizes that a ritualistic seeming murder is something he's witnessed already, in fact the night before at an opium den. And that's not a story your going to relate to your colleagues! A further murder of a nurse that h...

A Lyons in Winter: A Box Set by Pamela Sherwood  An opportunity to become reacquainted with Sherwood's larger than life 'Lyon's Pride' family was to good to miss. These 'holiday themed' novellas featuring Harold Lyons, the Duke of Whitborough,  Helene de Sevigny-Lyons, his Duchess and and their various offsprings, are filled with the towering personalities. A chance to reread some of their stories and explore new (to me) novellas--a  pleasure! Madeline Lyon's tale is charming, as is Lord Gervase and Margaret Bellemy's (née Carlisle) untimely romance. All that frisson, jealousies and untamed energy displayed within the  family is both  riveting and exhausting. What light can indeed break upon the causes for such a dysfunctional family? And yet light does cast its penetrating beam on many inhabiting the pages of this Box Set. I was awed by Sherwood's use of Shakespearian themes, reworked into the various Lyon episodes. The avid quoting of the...

After She's Gone: A Novel (Hanne Lagerlind-Schön #2)   by Camilla Grebe            The skeleton of an infant girl is found near a cairn by teenagers making out. It's 2009. A place where a local legend about the Ghostly Child is centered. The cairn is like a ley line for the small village of Ormberg, a crossroads, attracting all sorts of misery and mystery. Fast forward to 2017 and we have a young woman found dead near that same cairn, a police profiler Hanne Lagerlind-Schön, is found in the surrounding forest suffering from hypothermia memory loss, and her partner in life and work, has disappeared. This gritty story is told in tandem by two people. Jake a teenage boy whose guilty secret impedes the investigation and Marlin the policewoman who was the teenager who found the skeleton all those years ago. Alongside murder we become privet to personal struggles of Jake and Marlin and their places within this tight knit community. Set in the Arctic ...

Firstborn (House War #7) by Michelle West       As with all her writing, Michelle West has produced a dense work in this return to the world inhabited by denizens of the House War novels. I had to back peddle my thinking just to catchup to the here and now of this seventh book of this series. Jewel ATerafin and her den-kin Carver Rae are the central springboards for what is to follow. I was challenged by the pacing of the tale but rewarded somewhat for my perseverance. I read all that I can of Michelle West / Sagara and although the Chronicles of Elantra are my personal favorites, I'm hoping to become more convinced by these new contributions to the House War series. Looking forward to what will be! A NetGalley ARC ***