eyes.2c Reviews

The Sanctuary  (Kerner & Weber #5) by Katrine Engberg   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Atmospheric Nordic noir had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. There’s a connection between a gruesome murder in Copenhagen that Annette Werner is in charge of and the Island of Bornholm where Jeppe Kørner has gone to recover his equilibrium after a harsh breakup. This tense Danish police procedural, the fifth and last in the Werner and Korner series is quite the ride! A Gallery Books ARC via NetGalley.                                               Many thanks to the author and publisher

Lost in Translation (BFI Classics)   by Suzanne Ferriss      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ‘Lost in Translation’ is one of my fave movies. I watch it at least once a year and never tire of it. Ferriss’ superb analysis gives gravitas to my many reasons for admiring it. Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson are just ideal in their portrayals of two people who accidentally meet in Tokyo. The improvisational tone of the movie, the talent of Murray and Johansson is noted. Sofia Coppola’s genius is applauded—her focused application of what she determines will work, coupled with her intuitive understanding. As Ferriss posits, “ Lost in Translation ingeniously and inventively manipulates cinematic conventions. This is the key to Coppola’s originality and to the film’s designation as a classic.” I love this summary, “the  film represents [Charlotte and Bob’s] unsettled emotional states as geographical and cultural dislocation: they are lost, physically and psychologically. [They] develop...

Taming the Rake   ( Lords in Love #2)   by Erica Ridley     ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Well I’ve got to say that Gladys Bell’s parents were harsh. In fact it seems they’d been contributing to her lack of confidence all her life. A young woman who has spent four years resigned to being on the wallflower part of the ballroom, who then has the life kissed out of her in the gardens at a marriage fair, naively assumes that the cad will approach her father for her hand. She’s wrong and is left dangling. Not only dangling but ruined. (I actually never knew that a wallflower is called that because of where they stand in relation to the dancing and why. That was illuminating. Oh, I surmised I knew, but Ridley gives a more coherent explanation than I’ve seen before.) Of course Gladys assumes that Reuben Medford, heir presumptive to a viscount (apparently the ton’s most notorious rake) will approach her father. It is after all an annual May Day Fair Ball at MARRYWELL! A place where people w...

Yours Truly, The Duke  (Say I Do, #1)   by Amelia Grey      ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Frederika Hale needs a husband to stall her cousin Jane taking Fredericka’s sister’s children from her. Frederika has had charge of her children for over a year. Jane has never visited or had anything to do with the children but recently having accepted her childless state, has decided she is best situated to bring the children up. The Duke of Wyatthaven needs a wife or else his grandmother’s fortune goes to a poetry society. The head of that Society is a man who taught Wyatt at Eton. A man who couldn’t punish the young heir to the dukedom, but his friends had no such impediments for the bully. It was quite hilarious watching the duke and his dukely friends attempting to compose a letter of marriage. Even more amusing was what he ended up with. It turns out Wyatt is quite an interesting man, far more than I found Frederika to be, who seems hampered by her own childhood insecurities I enjoyed the ...

Intrigue in Istanbul  (Jane Wunderly Mystery #4) by   Erica Ruth Neubauer     ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My first widowed Jane Wunderly novel. Since then I’ve very happily read the previous titles. If only to find out more about Redvers (now Janes fiancé), and how they met. More importantly who was the bad man Jane had been married to. Set in 1926, Jane arrives home in Boston with her fiancé only to find her archeological father’s dashed off to Istanbul, having taken out a loan on their house. Subsequently all the mail including details about the loan and repayments have been languishing. Jane realizes it’s only three weeks before their house is possessed by the Bank, so it’s off to Istanbul lickety split! There she runs into her Aunt Millie and her fiancé Lord Hughes, and a white Russian woman from Redvers past. Jane makes the acquaintance of a mysterious woman who knows her father rather well. I’m thrilled to recall various landmarks of Istanbul I’d visited in the past. The Blue Mo...

What Happens in the Ballroom  (Designing Debutantes #2) by   Sabrina Jeffries      ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Eliza Pierce is a widow! Happily! Her husband Samuel had eloped with her in an attempt, it now seems, to get his hands on her dowry. Not happening! Eliza’s father refused to come to the party! Now Sam is dead, killed at the Battle of Talavera. The rake she’d known as Sam's friend, Nathaniel Stanton, Earl of Foxstead, has returned as guardian to a young widow and her child.  Nathan hires Elegant Occasions to introduce Jocelin into society with a view to having her remarry. Eliza’s sure there’s some secret about Jocelin but doesn’t know what it could be. Her mind is filled with Nathan. She feels an irresistible pull towards him, although she’s no pushover.   With the little that Sam is discussed I get the feeling he had exercised sort of coercive control over Eliza. He actively did not want her “following the drum.” Gentlewomen did not do that. Although Eliza later...

  A Spinster's Guide to Danger and Dukes  (Ladies Most Scandalous #3) by   Manda Collins       ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Poppy Delamare had fled her enforced engagement to her wicked stepfather’s secretary. Under the name of Flora Deaver she’d journeyed to London and become a journalist. Now she’s going back to Little Kidding, Buckinghamshire, after reading that her sister Violet has been accused of murdering her husband—the man Poppy had run from! What follows is an engagement of convenience to Joshua Fielding, Duke of Langham, and a run in with the Duke’s sisters.  The Dowager had invited some young ladies she and his sisters approved of to a house party to inveigle the Duke into marriage. They’re quite disappointed! Ha! Add to this the disappearance of Violet, the startling discovery of the reinstatement of a satanist club on the Duke’s property. Include murder, blackmail and embezzlement into the mix and we’re awash with all sorts of possibilities. Poppy faces dan...

Damse l by   Evelyn Skye      ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Elodie is to marry the prince of Aurea. In return her country Inophe will be gifted enough wealth to help the drought stricken kingdom to survive. Of course she says yes. It helps that the prince is handsome and kind. Wined and dined, made welcome, she truly has been welcomed by her new countrymen. But after the wedding a different fate awaits. A fantasy telling of Theseus and the Minotaur, with no ball of string but generations of “brides” leaving messages and signs for those who would come after, and the minotaur being replaced by a dragon. Elodie is in for the fight of her life—literally. Captivating in some parts and decidedly clunky in others this felt more like a YA novel that resolved itself too quickly after the caves exploits, and the many twists. There’s some commentary on justice and the actions of the actions of the Aureans, what would you do sort of thing, but all in all, I found the ending fell short of the action i...

The Last Beekeeper by Julie Carrick Dalton     ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A dystopian novel set not too far in the future. Big corporations and governments have finally killed off the bees by ignoring warnings, using response based approaches rather than preventative, neglect, abundant use of pesticides, and finally, experimentation and early release of bees that have not been properly tested that it turns out, don’t save but will destroy! We follow the last beekeeper’s daughter as she struggles to let go of her part in the destruction of the bees, which in turn has lead to loss of crops, hunger and riots. So many flow on effects! I sit on my patio sipping my morning coffee, identifying and welcoming the various insects, including bees as they flit around the herb garden. I’m concerned about the loss of insects along the food change. Less flies, less of many of these little creatures. I’ve planted to attract bees. Sacha Severn was institutionalised when her father was jailed.His reader h hidde...

Murder Against the Odds (Warwick and Bell #3) by Janice Frost   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I’ve read all the Warwick and Bell crime stories thus far. It’s interesting in that Frost has chosen a different social dilemma / crime theme for each title. In Aginst the Odds gambling raises its ugly head. There’s also cohesive control, and the selling of children. This time a new born baby is left in a rotunda, a young protestor disappears, a man is murdered in the CBD, Jane Bell’s daughter has hooked up with a man much older than her who Jane fears might be controlling, and more. There are confluences of influence that surprise us all. With the gambling, people are being conned by unscrupulous loan sharks, and then finding themselves in thrall to those entities. DI Steph Warwick has been undergoing therapy and she’s somewhat less aggressive in her relationships with people. I tossed up between a 3 / 4 star response. In the end I feel that the moving parts came together well, even though Jane has lately be...

The Wolf and the Wildflower   by   Stacy Reid            ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ All of London is agog and aghast! The return of the lost Lord from the wilds of Canada! Missing for ten years, James heir to the Duke of Wolverton has returned home. His mother wants him presented to the Queen, acceptable to his fellow Lords, and ready for marriage—Yes! We’re talking the infamous marriage mart! A tall order for the Duke who’s been living in isolation for ten years!  I’m unsure as to whether this is a contemporary presentation of Tarzan where wolves have replaced apes or what! What we are not witnessing is a feral child, raised by wolves, but a boy/man who demonstrates the will and determination to survive being lost in the wilderness for so long, now being overwhelmed by a totally different society. The noise, the crush of humanity even pared down to family must be, was, more than he can at times cope with. Meanwhile Jules Southby has been called in with his fa...

  All Human Wisdom by Pierre Lemaitre      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Whoever said ‘vengeance is a dish best served cold’ absolutely had Madeleine Péricourt in mind. Set in prewar France of the late 1920’s, Madeleine is the heiress to a premier banking family. On the day of her father’s funeral, inexplicably her beloved son Paul defenestrates himself out of the second storey onto his grandfather’s coffin. When Madeleine’s fortunes suffered a reversal bought about by her jilted fiancé Gustavo Joubert (her father’s trusted senior executive) and aided by her companion Léonce,  Madeleine throws off her cloak of despondency and takes action. She  sets in place an involved and torturous revenge. For her lover Andre she has something else in mind. The man who helps her, Monsieur Dupré is an interesting foil to Madeleine. The pace is s_l _o_w to start with, but by the middle I was caught up in political, economical and social doings of the times, particularly as Hitler’s Ger...

A Killer in the Crystal Palace  (Keir and Levett Mystery #1) by Deb Marlowe    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Great Exhibition 1851  is  showcasing Britain’s Industrial genius to the world.   In the Crystal Palace, Niall Kier, an exhibitor, uses  his creative skills, forging everything from intricate panels of scrolled ironwork, huge gates detailing the thistle of Scotland, to finely wrought iron brooches. Nearby is a young woman, Kara Levett,  defying convention creating wonderful automations, clocks with several moving parts, the replica of a ship that played sea shanties, unfurled it’s sails and other startling features, and an automated man. When Kara’s automated man disappears and it’s discovered near a dead man with its arm ripped off, Kara is accused of his murder and the police try to take her away for questioning. Niall helps her escape and takes her to a magistrate in a different district, hoping to stave off her arrest. All the time Kara is being follo...

Infamous: a Novel   by   Lex Croucher           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ If you’re expecting dark romantic lordly heroes and striding Heyer type heroines, this is not that. This was, welcome to the world of bohemian, Byronic type artistes. We get there by our hero Eddie ( Edith Miller) haring off to spend time sitting at the feet of her adored poet Nash, in a ruined house, on an island that’s hard to get to. (Supposed artistic retreat for a summer house party. Parents are told his wife will chaperon the party, but therein lies another story). Nash is to help her hone her writing and introduce her to his publisher. The house is atmospheric (cold) possibly haunted (holes in roof causing moaning winds), with a silent staff (that is, few staff scurrying around trying to do all that can for their lord and master, a bigger pustule on the underside of the bottom I’ve ever seen). Nash is all daring do, given to outre gestures, childlike tantrums and deceitful escapades, inc...

The Cliff's Edge  (Bess Crawford #13) by Charles Todd        ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Bess Crawford’s home from Ireland. 1919, a year after the war is over. A letter arrives from cousin Melinda asking her to check out the employer/companion of an acquaintance from her South African days whose about to have surgery. Lady Beatrice is about her mother’s age older and a force to be reckoned with. She basically decides Bess will stay to help her with her recovery.  Whilst there a message comes that the Lady Beatrice’s godson, Gordon Neville, has been in an accident. Lady Beatrice is unable travel so she sends her companion, Lillian Taylor, and Bess into the wilds of Yorkshire to help. What they find is Gordon injured, having fallen from a small, yet rugged rise, the Knob, whilst looking for stray sheep. Another man is dead and Gordon is accused of murder. When they get to the Hall they find a particularly obnoxious policeman, Inspector Wade, trying to cart Gordon off to prison...

Earthly Remains (Commissario Brunetti #26) by Donna Leon ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A young girl has died in hospital. Antonio Ruggieri, aged Forty-two and a lawyer from an influential Venetian family, who gave the girl the pills, has come to the Questura for an interview. He’s slick, assured and speaks disrespectfully about the girl. His assistant Pucetti is angered and makes a move he shouldn’t. Staging a heart attack to stop Pucetti  brings about other problems that Brunetti hadn’t considered. Brunetti takes time off and spends it out on the laguna at the end of Sant’Erasmo at a villa of Paola’s Aunt Costanza. Caretaking the house is Davide Casati, a famous rower who rowed with Brunetti’s father. Casati takes Brunetti rowing and shows him his bees out beyond on the laguna. The bees are dying. Not long after this Casati is found, in his boat dead presumably injured when caught in a storm Brunetti investigates. Things are not as they seem, but where is the proof. It seems to me Leon looks at the i...

His Enterprising Duchess  (Enterprising Women #1)   by   Peri Maxwell   ⭐️⭐️⭐️ A story of second chance romance, with plenty of characters to dislike and love. After six years Lord Oliver Hawkins has returned from Canada  along with his son Simon,   to help his father, the Duke of Rushford, start a timber mill and sort out his affairs. His brother Garrett has died leaving accounts unpaid all around the place. His witch of a mother mourns his brother, despises Oliver and tries to control his life. Oliver is having none of that! But Oliver’s father unexpectedly dies and Oliver is left with battling debts and a dukedom he doesn’t want. Thea Fowler, now Smith, was the girl he left behind, who was to join him. He never sent for her and Thea was on her own.  Her time of travail when she was deserted by Oliver are hinted at as being harsh and unyielding. But now Thea  owns the local Inn, a successful venture, although all think she only works there. Her ...