eyes.2c Reviews

The Secret of the Three Fates  (Ruby Vaughn Mystery #3) by Jess Armstrong       ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Ruby Vaughn has travelled to Manhurst Castle, Scotland, with  her friend and employer Mr. Owen,  to attend of all things, a seance.  It’s highly unusual that Mr. Owen insist they go. There’s not one but three mediums (more witches than mediums) and then when the Pellar turns up the mediums keep saying something dastardly was going to happen. It did! One of the medium’s Lucy Campbell asked Ruby to meet her at midnight at the bridge. Ruby finds her face down in the icy lake. She jumped in to try to rescue Lucy, but she was dead. The police tried to pin the murder on Ruby. She was having nothing of it. Before the tale finishes there’s been murder, truths not revealed or distorted, attempted killings on Ruby and so much more, including the possibility of a figure from Ruby’s past. All very exciting! The fate of Ruby, the Pellar and Mr. Owen once again suck...

The Duke's Man-at-Arms  (Duke’s Guard #11) by C.H. Admirand     ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Well, a fine story to end the year’s reading on. I loved healer Michaela Colborne and Emmet O’Malley’s story of endurance, of the healing power of love and laughter, all tied up with a wicked Lord given his comeuppance. Oh, and a couple of guardian angels thrown in for good measure. When an injured Michaela, the healing angel of the streets is kidnapped and left tied up in an abandoned building with rats honing in on her, it was a close run thing as to whether Emmett would find her in time. O’Malley is the head of the Duke of Wyndmere’s guard in London. Michaela is rescued, but her past is now rushing into the present. What happens is both shocking and uplifting. Emmett is a rock for her in her time of need. A swoon worthy tale, a new episode in my guilty pleasures reading of Admirand’s fabulous Duke’s Guard series. A Dragonblade ARC via NetGalley.               ...

The Case of the Missing Maid  (Harriet Morrow Investigates #1) by Rob Osler  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Chicago 1898. Pinkerton had appointed a woman operative decades ago. Harriet Morrow has always been encouraged to be herself. She knows about Pinkerton but she doesn’t hold her breath when she decides to apply to a detective agency for a job. She’s stunned when finds out she’s been accepted. Not that that shows up in her workplace. On her first day neither the receptionist or the secretaries will believe that she’s a new operative. Quite a circus! Only when verified by Mr Prescott, the agency owner do they evince a modicum of belief. But then she’s given a desk in the secretaries’ room? Still Harriet wasn’t going to let that deter her. Harriet fast becomes a bike riding, gun toting, bowler hat and men’s shoes wearing investigator (practical!), as she tracks down a maid that’s disappeared from the residence of a neighbor of Mr. Prescott’s.  The other operatives and the police believe t...

The Trouble with the Daring Governess  by Annie Burrows  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A wonderful governess (quite in the way of Georgette Heyer’s heroine’s) who has to cajole and offer advice to her very pretty, spoilt charge who’s also an heiress. What to do but laugh when Rosalind Hinchcliffe knocked her charge’s forbidden suitor, Cecil Baxter, off her balcony with a volume of Sense and Sensibility. Rosalind thought she’d killed him. Fortunately her boss, Lord Caldicot had just come home and he, practical man that he is, helped her with the situation. Michael was not raised to be the Marquess. He was an army officer. At the importuning of his family he’s  finally come home to take up his duties, supporting and chaperoning his ward Susannah in her first season. Mostly that means paying the bills.  He’s a continual disappointment to said family who are contriving to find him a wife. Well of course events go from one highly improbable situation to the next and I heartily enjoyed them ...

Nobody's Rogue  (Rogues of Redemption #4) by Brenna Ash     ⭐️⭐️💫 Tale of a captured jewel thief who wasn’t, and an earl who’d been one of Wellington’s reconnaissance scouts and was now bored. Malcolm Kennedy, Earl of Cassillis, has been asked to guard Lord Wilson’s wife’s jewellery. They are holding a ball and lately many of society has been robbed during grand events by a thief known as the Phantom Prowler. The Prowler  had struck all around Edinburgh. Yes, it’s set in Scotland, but I hated tussling with the verra’s, the dinna’s and the canna’s. It distracted me from the story. Malcolm discovers Lizzie Barclay with her hands in Lady Wilson’s jewelry armoire. Lizzie is convinced Lady Wilson has stolen her grandmother’s necklace and earrings. She’s contrived to come to the ball in place of her parents. Lizzie convinces Malcolm to her home to let her prove her innocence.  Of course they fall in love. Lizzie throws herself at Malcolm. He is equally as smitten as...

The Matter of the Secret Bride  (Rosalind Thorne Mysteries #8)   by Darcie Wilde   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Rosalind is asked for discretion and help by the King’s longtime mistress and possible wife Mrs Maria Fitzherbert. Mrs Fitzherbert’s morganatic marriage to King George could be exposed if it falls into the wrong hands. George is suing for divorce from Princess Caroline and the two camps are firmly and riotously dividing the nation. No sooner has Rosalind said yes to Mrs Fitzherbert, one of the main background players is murdered. What follows is more death, secrets, and planned elopements. The game is definitely afoot! As well, Rosalind is involved with ex Bow Street runner Adam Harkness but marrying him will mean her loss of independence that she’s fought so hard for. All her gathered put together family of close knit friends play important roles, supporting Rosalind in full—Alice, Amelia, George. Looming in the background is Lady Jersey and Countess Levine, both of whom could e...

Invisible Helix  (Detective Galileo ##5) by Keigo Higashino       ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The complex situation of a death that goes from at first glance relatively simple to murder, highly involved, and back to its simple root’s is teasingly intriguing. All very laid back despite the accompanying twists.  A body is found with a bullet in its back. A young woman has a partner she’s reported missing. Now the woman can’t be found. Chief Inspector Kusanagi and his team explore the angle of domestic abuse.  In the mix is an older woman who’s much struck by the younger woman and as time goes on she’s convinced Sonoka Shimauchi is her granddaughter. Is this a lie or the truth? The story’s beginnings lay in the past decades back when a young mother places her daughter on the steps of an orphanage accompanied by a very distinctive hand made doll. It takes Professor Manabu Yukawa (Detective Galileo) to quietly make sense of it all So much space and time throughout the story to ...

The Unlikely War Hero : A Vietnam War’s POW Story of Courage and Resilience in the Hanoi Hilton by Marc Leepson       ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Unlikely is the key word in the relaying of twenty year old Seaman Apprentice Doug Hegdahl’s story of captivity in North Vietnam. Ending up in the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ after falling overboard from his ship the U.S.S. Canberra, a guided missile cruiser,  off North Vietnam in the South China Sea, the picture we have of Doug is an highly intelligent young man whose bumbling attitude covered an adept mind. The lowest ranking prisoner in the Hilton, Doug was dismissed as being importantly, or even capable. The men he was imprisoned with, including Senator John McCain, are legend. This is his and their stories and how against his wishes Doug was ordered by the camp higher command to take release as a POW to let the Pentagon know about POW’s who’d been listed as dead or MIA. Doug finally came home against his will, having memorized the details of ...

The Chrysanthemum Tiger  (Gabriel Tavener Mystery #3) by Alys Clare      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Having discovered that he’s no longer ill when stepping onto a boat Gabe wastes no time putting his affairs in order and grabbing with two eager hands the chance to voyage across the oceans once more. Gabe joins the Luipaard as the ship’s physician which will travel to the Eastern Seas. The merchant Walter Haverleigh is sending his fastest ship on this trade mission which he believes will make them all very wealthy. Gabe did not expect to be away for three years. He did he expect their trading goal to be Japan. Nor did he expect to be leaving with treasures that would incur the wrath of a wealthy Japanese warlord  One so angry that he had ships and men pursuing Gabe back to England. Exotic and exciting, added to by Gabe’s coming up against the mystical that illuminates the universe. Gabe explores the world, friendship, family and home as he comes to realize where his heart truly...

No Ordinary Duchess  (Greycourt #3 ) by Elizabeth Hoyt        ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Lady Elspeth de Moray met a stranger in the Duke of Windermere’s library. When voices were heard outside the stranger whipped her up to an upper area to hide. What’s happening? Well, apart from the fact that Elspeth liked the smell and feel of him and actually sniffed him! Yes, that’s right sniffed him! That was the first meeting between Elspeth and Julian Greycourt, the duke’s nephew and heir. Oh, and it turns out Elspeth’s brother Ran is Julian’s enemy! Elspeth has come to England from Scotland to search the Greycourt libraries. She   belongs to a secret organization  that helps females,  the Wise Women.   However the Hags have become fearful. They have closed ranks and are withdrawing. Elspeth believes that’s wrong and is looking for their founder’s writings,   Maighread’s diary.  Julian is also searching for notes, his mother’s diary. He believes it cont...

Murder's Snare  (A Brother Athelstan Mystery #23) by Paul Doherty        ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Brother Athelstan and Sir John Cranston, Lord High Coroner of London have a truly horrific problem to solve. In 1358 Free Companies were formed by English lords who ravaged their way across Normandy unchecked, pillaging, robbing and killing all before them, including women and children. Now some thirty years later those same  lords are being dealt with, in appalling and horrific circumstances. The French government has sent a diplomatic party to claim justice against one company, the Via Crucis, but someone is beating them to it. It’s the Feast of the Epiphany and masques are to be held at Athelstan’s parish of St Erconwald’s in Southwark. Later King Richard is viewing a masque performed by the men and women who’d been children taken from Normandy to England at those times of the Free Companies rampage. Brother Athelstan has his hands full governing his unruly flock. He’s f...