eyes.2c Reviews

The Boxing Baroness  (Wicked Women of Whitechapel #1) by Minerva Spencer ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Marianne Simpson works as a pugilist in an all female circus troupe. There’s Marianne, Cecile a sharpshooter, and the strange woman Josephine Brown, who throws knives and has a familiar, a huge Raven who appears to speak in French. Marianne’s uncle, Barnabas Farnham operates the Farnham’s Fantastical Female Fayre.  Marianne is known as the boxing baroness due to a very ruthless rake, Baron Dominic Strickland,  staging a fake wedding service  and seducing her into believing they were married, then revealing the truth once his wife appeared on the scene. Now Marianne has a visitor. St. John Powell (Sin), the seventh Duke of Staunton. He’s been requested to bring Marianne to France with him. He needs to sort out the truth of whether his brother is alive or not. There’s no question that he’ll countenance failure in this endeavor. And the person requesting Marianne to go? Non ot...

The Duke Alone  by  Christi Caldwell  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A truly wonderful tale of a reclusive Duke mourning his lost love and a young woman who’s always felt out of place and forgotten. Lady Myrtle McQuoid awoke the morning of her family’s departure for their Scottish home to find they’d all gone—left without her. Confirming her belief that she was overlooked and never missed. After all no one returned for her—no one. Well she’d just have to shift for herself. Although maybe she could approach the “mad” duke next door, Val Bancroft, the Duke of Aragon.  Val was relentless in his sadness about his dead wife. They’d been childhood sweethearts. Now this young hoyden from next door who sang Christmas carols loudly and slightly off key, who had unruly hair and a smile to light up the night, was all set to annoy him. So ok he showed her how to light the fire and keep it banked, but that was it! Except it wasn’t! A Christmas story full of pain, awakening love and a young woman who...

A Heart Full of Headstones (Inspector Rebus #24) by   Ian Rankin  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Slowly the tension builds. The court opening had me puzzled. But then we go back and review the situation over the past weeks until now. Rebus has been contacted by Morris Gerald Cafferty, known as Big Ger. Cafferty calls in a favor. That favor has Rebus walking into the past, a past that strings from his time when he worked at Tynecastle. We are introduced to some old players and new, including DI Siobhan Clarke. Deceptively simple...Rebus walks his dog Brillo, wanders onto crime scenes, scopes out who’s doing what, puts things together, and comes up with answers.  An investigation into the policing culture at Tynecastle throws up some dirty linen from the past. As to why he’s in court? Well that would be telling. A somewhat quirky, dark and fascinating read. A Little, Brown and Company ARC via NetGalley.                       ...

To Capture His Heart  by Nancy Campbell Allen  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Eva Caldwell is a photographer who occasionally works alongside the local constabulary. She’s accompanied by her sidekick, ten year old Sammy. Nathan Winston is a detective who works with her cousin Amelie Hampton Baker’s husband, Michael Baker. There is an attraction between Eva and Nathan but neither is willing to admit to it. But now Nathan‘s mother is holding her annual week long house summer fundraiser at their family villa, Seaside. Nathan asks Eva to attend firstly as a photographer, and secondly as a cover for him to hide behind from his matchmaking mother. Add to this an escaped criminal from a previous case, Bernard Toole, who’s  out to get Nathan’s family as payback for Toole’s sister dying from  an infection caught in prison is stalking them. Already Nathan has had a black raven’s feather delivered in a cigar box. Toole wants vengeance and his targets are Nathan’s mother and sisters. The annual house...

Under a Veiled Moon (Inspector Corrovan #2) by  Karen Odden   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Michael Corravan, acting superintendent of the Wapping River Police is drawn into the murky flow of truth and lies as a disaster of devastating magnitude rips across London. A pleasure boat, The Princess Alice, filled with over 600 people is rammed by a steel-hulled collier on the River Thames. As the death toll soars the newspapers are out for blood, and it’s the Irish Republican Brotherhood that they’re ire has focused on.  Corrovan is tasked with leading the enquiry. The mayhem and loss of life is shocking. He’s also puzzled by a dead man at the East Lane Stairs, Southwark along the riverbank. Closer to home, Colin Doyle, a younger son of the family he grew up with, is in a spot of bother with moneylenders. This necessitates a visit to James McCabe of the Cobbwaller gang in Whitechapel.  Corrovan has his hands full as one investigation bleeds into the next. A long with his fears for his...

Mystery in Provence (Miss Ashford Investigates #1) by  Vivian Conroy   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Take an improbable situation—a young woman who takes on her dead father’s debts, pays them off working as a teacher in a school in the Swiss alps, suddenly discovers she’s the heir to her wealthy grandfathers fortune (including houses and cars apparently). The condition is that she’ll take on his work of “providing advice“ (detecting for those who need help) for anyone who asks. It’s all very subtle and it seems they’ll all be wealthy types. At first I went ho hum. The beginning was a tad too contrived. After it’s a bit of a fairytale beginning. However as we progressed into the story I became quite interested. There’s a body or two—not in the library but in interesting places nevertheless. And then there’s the family of the young woman Atalanta has chosen to help—all very dramatic with an overbearing mother who’s not going to let a little thing like a dead body stop the wedding. Not to menti...

One Woman's War : A Novel of the Real Miss Moneypenny   by Christine Wells      ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Victorie “Paddy” Bennett found herself in extraordinary circumstances fleeing the advance of the Germans in France. It’s here she first runs into Ian Fleming.  Once back in England she finds herself in Admiralty’s Room 39, signing the Secrets Act, and  working for Naval Intelligence. At the same time, a second story of a Viennese woman, Friedl Stöttinger, whose father was a committed Nazi, finds herself forced into being a double agent working for the Germans. A role she doesn’t want, and at some time will have to make a stand. Friedl can’t escape her background. The journey of these two women will cross over  eventually.  Ian Fleming’s outrageous ideas for spreading false information are documented. In his writing Paddy identifies herself as Miss Moneypenny. Underneath are hints of his very troubled relationship with Muriel Wright. We are mesmerized by these wi...

The Virgin Who Captured a Viscount (Swooning Virgins Society #5) by   Anna Bradley         ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Braw Daniel Brixton is surprised! Who is this feisty young woman who took him captive—even though he managed to free himself? Mairi Cameron is shocked that Daniel refuses to acknowledge her and her grandmother Lillias. In fact he thinks she’s lying. What? Mairi has come to London searching for him to return to Coldstream in order to set her grandmother free. She’s been accused of murdering—him! Daniel remembers nothing of his life before he was eight. Now this young woman who makes his blood boil in more than one way is tying him in knots with her lies. Lady Clifford sends them both to Scotland to find the truth. Which turns out to be more than Daniel had bargained for! Another lively story from Bradley and the Clifford Charity School for Wayward Girls. A Kensington Books ARC via NetGalley.                   ...

Within These Gilded Halls  by Abigail Wilson   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I wondered where this was going and was prepared for the insipid. But curiously, as I delved deeper, I was given the story of a young woman, Phoebe Radcliffe, daughter of the spymaster Lord Torrington, foolishly thought herself in love with a seductive Frenchman, an enemy of the state. After all this is the time of the Napoleonic Wars. When her girlish infatuation was revealed she fled to the Avonthorpe Manor to work for the renowned artist Miss Sally Drake, refurbishing a painted ballroom. Her lifelong friend Daniel accompanies her. It is a strange house she’s come into. There’s some dodgy personalities, but she has a companion to chaperone her, the friendship of the Butler and her joy with her work. That is until murder raises its foul head. Miss Drake is dead and her nephew the uptight Lt. Graham Burke rides into the household. That’s not all, there’s treasure to be had and the dying Miss Drake gives Phoebe the clue. N...

Secrets of the Nile  (Lady Emily Mystery #16) by Tasha Alexander   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ It’s 1904. Colin Hargreaves and Lady Emily find themselves accompanying Colin’s mother, Mrs Hargreaves, on a journey to Luxor in Egypt. An old friend of Mrs Hargreaves had been inviting her for years to accompany him. This year she’s decided to go. Colin’s daughter Katharina von Lange joins  them. Unfortunately at the end of a scrumptious meal their host takes a sip of his nightly tisane—and dies, poisoned by cyanide. Now it falls to Lady Emily and Colin to solve the mystery. As their quest continues it seems every guest has a reason to be at odds with their host. As they assemble their facts someone else is sending them clues. I freely admit to being seduced by the romantic descriptions of Egypt.  The other story is set in ancient times, in Regnal Year Two, in area in what is now an archeological dig called, “Pa Demi—the village—although it was officially known as Set-Ma’at—the Place of Tru...

The Medici Murders  (Venetian Mystery #1) by David Hewson  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A twisted tale of murder, at once engaging and satisfying. Arnold Clover, a retired archivist has retreated to Venice to live out his retirement surrounded by the places he and his wife loved. Except his wife died just as they were about to embark on a new order of life. Still Arnold came, and is now ensconced in Venice.  Captaino Valentina Fabbri of the Venetian Carbonierri has a corpse on her hands, not just any corpse but an English lord, or rather knight, Sir Marmaduke. Arnold had been offered a contract position, along with his friend Luca Volpetti, by the aging historian eager to startle the world with a theory about the assassination of Lorenzo de’Medici and the involvement of Michaelengelo for a populous history program.  The historian is Marmaduke Godolphin, a man he’d known in his early days at Cambridge. A man surrounded by those referred to as the Guilded Circle , who joined Godolphin ...

Mr Campion's Mosaic (Albert Campion Mystery #10) by  Mike Ripley   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ There I was completely foiled by Mr Campion’s mild mannered air of concern. Albert Campion, an investigator with formidable contacts including the Commander of the Metropolitan Police, has that rare something that makes him appear deceptively naive, concerned, and an old fashioned air of the polite gentleman who somehow stumbles into things. And stumble he does in this latest foray in his retirement. He’s been asked to speak to the Evadne Childe Society because their guest of honor had a mishap (which turned out to be an argument with a car). Evadne Childe was a mystery writer he happened to share a godmother with. The club asks him to follow a few things up about the Evadne’s book, The Moving Mosaic, to be remade into a two hour BBC production. The first of many it’s hoped. But there are problems and as Albert trundles on there are more—including attempted blackmail and murder. Rupert, Albert’...

The Merchant Murderers  (A Bloody Mary Mystery #7) by Michael Jecks   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Ah Jack! The trials and tribulations of this vain, self deceived rascal never fail to amaze me. He attracts trouble like bees to a honeypot. After his recent troubles with the tin miners of Cornwall, Jack’s headed away from London to France on the off chance that he’s bound to be caught up with the wrong side of the political machinations of his masters. He fled to the Cathedral town of Exeter, where he learns that Queen Mary is still in power, Lady Elizabeth is not in the tower, and he, as he is employed circuitously by the Lady Elizabeth as an assassin, can safely head for home. Swaggering around town, sure of his own importance as a elegant ”man of London,” disdainful of the plebeians he encounters, well naturally pride comes before a fall. His purse is stolen, he finds the dead body of the  ex priest Roger Lane. Powerful merchants and their henchman take an interest in him. He finds some...

A Fox in the Fold (Owen Archer #14) by  Candace Robb  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Power is changing in the English Court. It’s 1376. Prince Edward is dead. The Percy and Neville families are curious about Owen Archer. Princess Joan wants to retain Archer to serve her son, the young Prince Richard. The Prince’s uncles are circling, including the Duke of Lancaster. A naked body has been discovered in a field owned by Sheriff Ralph Hastings, lying near a cart full of stone. The carter fled when attacked. The other men had curiously disappeared. Is the body one of the carter’s men? At the same time William of Wykeham, the Bishop of  Winchester and the Chancellor of England has unexpectedly turned up escorting two of sisters from Wherwell Abbey. He’s come, against advice, in part to see how his waning power might be curtailed.  It appears there could be links between the Bishop, the stone being carted, and the dead body. In this tale Owen’s family comes under siege. There’s discord ...

The Winter Guest : A Mystery  by W. C. Ryan      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Ireland after the first World War. It’s 1921. The IRA has murdered one of their own, a woman, the Honourable Maud Prendeville, a hero of the Easter Uprising. Captain Tom Harkin has been sent by the IRA’s top people to investigate. Firstly because he had been engaged to Maud, and because he was once a secretary to Maud’s uncle, John Prendeville, who also is supplying a shipment of guns to the IRA. There was a legitimate insurance policy taken out for Maud which needs legally to be investigated. That would be his cover. He’d also received a telegram from Maud’s brother Billy asking him to come to Kilcolgon House.  His investigations lead him to make contact with a man who’s his opposite with the British Army, a man who was secretly associated with Maud, Major Hugo Vane. The man leading the British Auxilary Forces forces stationed in the district is Major Abercrombie. A harsh, sadistic leader who’d already...