eyes.2c Reviews

The Women on Platform Two : A Novel  by Laura Anthony      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Poignant story set in  Ireland in the late 60’s early 70’s. Attitudes towards women in Dublin are . Contraception is not allowed. Pregnant girls are thrown out onto the streets. Let’s not even talk about the Magdalene Laundries. Girls die from backyard treatments. Women are their husband’s chattels, abuse in marriage is common but never talked about. The story of a group of women for various reasons who challenge the law is based on a true story, heroic and life changing. The law is different across the border in Northern Ireland. The women take a stand. We join Saoirse in 2023 Dublin. She’s just discovered she and her partner Miles aren’t pregnant. She needs to getaways to think. She ends up on a train bound for Belfast with an older woman Maura Davenport bound for Belfast, and is enthralled by the story Maura tells. So much so that she ends up staying on the train. A courageous loo...

Midnight Streets  (Piccadilly Noir) by Phil Lecomber      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Children being lured or stolen from the streets of Soho and subjected to the wiles of a crazed organisation called Ancient Order of the Unicursal based on an ancient occult order. A forbidding, gutsy novel noir complete with the gumshoe English equivalent and a host of shady characters. The time frame is between the wars, 1929. Private detective George Harley becomes involved as a consultant with Scotland Yard, supposedly to be kept quiet. Of course there’s the bent Detective who’s trying to take the glory, even if the case is more complicated than Inspector Detective Quigg could even dream. T here’s always someone who’s been bribed, or pressured and closely guarded evidence is released by the newspapers. Harley is ex MI5. His girlfriend Cynthia Masters is a gem, from an upper middle class, slightly bohemian family.  Harley’s acquainted and friendly with the various gangs around Soho. However th...

A Whisper and a Curse (Raven & Wren Book 3) by Darcy Burke ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Matilda Wren and Hadrian Beckett, Earl of Ravenhurst, once more find themselves in the thick of events, this time prompted by Lord Ravenhurst’s mother, the Dowager Countess. Lady Ravenhurst wants to consult a spiritualist. Shes desperate to be in touch with her youngest son Gabriel who died in an accident, to ensure he’s alright and at peace. However she’s somewhat sceptical of mediums. Lady Ravenhurst hires Tilda to investigate the London Spiritualist Society whom the medium is associated with as she attends her first séance. Ravenshurst and Tilda accompany her. A day later the medium she consulted, Mrs. Frost is found dead, hanging from the stairs looking as though she’d levitated. The Leviation Killer becomes the talk of London, particularly as two more mediums die in the same manner—helped along by prussic acid. What’s more Lady Ravenhurst has not been deterred. Shes convinced Mrs. Frost skills were genuine ...

A Pernicious Fabrication  (Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries #13)   by Lynn Messina       ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, “ Her Outrageousness” is in a pickle. She’s dreading going to Haverill Hall with its hundreds of rooms and servants to match, the “massive Matlock ancestral estate.” Beatrice is pregnant. The thought of removing to the Hall maybe by September is weighs down on her. Now she learns Lady Abercrombie has autocratically, without permission, issued invitations to a house party at the Hall. Something Bea had said she didn’t want and something the atrociously managing Lady Abercombie had no right to do!  Bea’s secretly apprehensive about how the servants at the estate will react to her. All that fades though when the Crime  Lord, “Hell  and Fury” Hawes pays a visit to inform Beatrice and Kesgrave that he’s just come from the Duke’s cousin’s place and has found Mortimer dead, murdered. Hawe’s is calling in his marker. He wants Bea...

Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave  (Finlay Donovan #5)   by Elle Cosimano     ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Finlay Donovan and her friend/nanny, Vero go from one complicated situation to another without even trying. This time Finn’s ex husband Steve has been arrested for murdering missing man Guilford Dupree, and burying his body in a neighbor’s garden. Finlay knows that he’s innocent and for the sake of their children, and because she’s basically a decent person, feels compelled to prove it. The neighbor, Mrs. Haggerty ends up staying with Finlay, potty training her young son (hilarious!), and home schooling Finlay’s five year old daughter Delia, who snapped after being bullied mercilessly by a boy at school. This is a woman of determination and depth, and is entirely too knowing not to be up to something. Finn’s hot detective boyfriend Nick is on the scene. We love him. 💕 A heap of laughs, and some highly improbable but wholly believable situations, show that Cosimano is easily able...

Swordheart  by T. Kingfisher  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I had so much trouble controlling my laughter especially as it was  3am  in the morning and my partner was sound asleep. 😂🤣😂 Halla had to her complete surprise inherited her great uncle Silas’ estate. Silas’ sister Malva is not happy. So much so that Malva has imprisoned Halla in her attic bedroom until she consents to marry Malva’s son, Cousin Alver, he of the clammy hands. Looking around for a way to escape and finding none, she resorts to trying to stab herself using an old sword. She draws the sword a few inches when with a flash of electric blue light, out pops the sword’s resident guardian who will protect whomever draws the sword. He’s shocked because Halla’s scantily clothes, and Halla because, well, could this day get any worse? Halla becomes garrulous. She asks questions when she faces danger. Most people ignore her and think she’s empty headed. However it seems Sarkis is now sworn to defend her, garrulous or not....

Murder at the Orpheus Theatre  (A Tate and Bell Mystery #4) by Irina Shapiro   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This title in the Gemma Tate and Inspector Sebastian Bell Victorian mysteries started off rather dramatically where the lead actors in the play, Romeo and Juliet, didn’t arise from the death scene. Wow! Turmoil is everywhere throughout this title, deaths pile up and Gemma becomes a tad resentful because Sebastian has to warn her off, due to the attitude towards her of his Scotland Yard boss. Not that Gemma took much notice. Their first fight! Gemma investigates on her own in places it hasn’t occurred to Sebastian to look. When Gemma’s life is in danger, Sebastian doesn’t hesitate. Moments before I’d thought, ‘My goodness! How’s Gemma going to get out of this! Where are you Sebastian!’ Shapiro highlights the social issues of the age, women in danger from their husbands, children thrown out on the street, the attitudes of the more powerful. Old acquaintances are renewed. Sebastian faces ch...

An Island of Suspects  (Brittany Mystery #10) by Jean-Luc Bannalec            ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A body has been found on Belle-Île, one of the islands off the coast of Brittany.  Commissaire Georges Dupin (who hates travelling by boat) is called to investigate. A slow start that builds in tension and with many questions. Dupin assures the reader that, “It was always like that during a case: time lost all measure and structure.” Dupin‘s reflections on the islands are superb. They assault and assuage the senses—color, foods, aromas, sparkling waters, the geographic formations, the perfect coffee, all enclosing the question of not one, but two murders. Set in Breton, the book admits the haunts of Monet and the others. The islands sound absolutely wonderful. In a heartbeat I’d be there if possible. The denouement comes in the last chapters, all hanging on the slightest of clues. I’m transfixed by the plot, and beneath it all the philosophical discussions of...

The Devil's Charm  (Heirs and Spares #1) by Megan Frampton          ⭐️⭐️⭐️ A young woman Diantha, older daughter of the Earl of Courtenay, whose reaction to her free wheeling family is to take responsibility for them, meets the second son of the Duke of Wexford, Lord Lucian Eldridge, who on the surface is a dilettante, but underneath is kind generous and thoughtful I’m not too sure if this is a story taking a leaf out of Romeo and Juliet with two feuding families (without all the angst and aggression), or just a rather different love story with the son and daughter of the feuding families sorting things out for themselves. The Duke of Waxford, is dour and regimented and ready to disinherit his second son if he doesn’t prove himself in business negations with his enemy the Earl who is irresponsible and easily bored. Diantha wants to be less regimented and more spontaneous and chooses Lucian to help her. Hmm! Racey and sometimes absurd but still fun. A Avon ...

A Slash of Emerald  (Dr. Julia Lewis #2) by Patrice Mcdonough   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Inspector  Richard Tennant, of Scotland Yard, calls on Julia where he can to act as the coroner In his inquiries  This time he does it out of deference to a young woman’s feelings who’s been  brought in under the Contagious Diseases Act, as she’d been walking home from her work via St James’s Park, a dodgy part of London at night, and near to the barracks.  Annie O’Neil is a hat maker who’s also been working as an artist’s model. However neither the Act nor the constabulary in this time of 1867 discern between everyday workers and prostitutes. A doctor is needed to examine Annie to determine if she’s a prostitute. Julia is livid with the law. Her opinion is that, “ forced examinations are medical rape.” This is just the opening barrage in the murder of some respected members of society, apparently united until now, the puzzling disappearance and murder of young and respectable worki...

Mrs Hudson and the Capricorn Incident  (Holmes & Hudson Mysteries #7)   by Martin Davies  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Along with Flotsam, I (your humble reader)  agonized about what to write to Scraggs, Flotsam’s special friend, who’d years earlier had rescued her from the gutter, and placed her in the care of Mrs Hudson in the household of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Here, as a maid, she’d learnt to read and write, and proved to be a an asset in assisting with investigations. Scraggs (gone from barrow boy to part owner of a London store) has gone to Manchester for business meetings and and a look at some of the latest developments. Flotsam was always was able to put it off writing to Scraggs because something more demanded her attention. (A lot of guilt follows, swept away by the latest emergencies) Holmes has been bored but now several situations come to his attention,  including a request from Queen Victoria. All hands to the deck, naturally including Mrs Hudson and F...

Evidence of Evil  (Silver and Grey #2) by Mary Lancaster   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Solomon Grey and Constance Silver return to a new mystery. Constance has been contacted by a woman she’d helped some years ago Elizabeth was a young gentlewoman who'd found herself pregnant, abandoned by her supposed fiancé, then turned out onto the streets of London by her parents with nothing but the clothes she stood up in. Determined to fight for her unborn child this previously protected young woman, ignorant of the hardships she’d face, did the only thing she could to survive—she prostitued herself. Fortunately Constance found her and took her in, helping her to place her child for adoption, and then assisting her to take up various placements as a governess. Elizabeth’s last position as governess to the children of a widower, ended up with her marrying her employer, Sir Humphrey Maule. Now however Elizabeth is about to be arrested for murder and has asked Constance for help. The daughter of a neighbo...