eyes.2c Reviews

The Ruffler's Child  (Thomas the Falconer  Mysteries #1) by John Pilkington           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is the first in The Falconer mystery series set in turbulent Elizabethan times. A body in the forest, and a bear set the scene.  Thomas and his falcons a highlight. Sent to London to buy some special gyrfalcons along with Lady Margaret who is attending her dead brother’s affairs, Thomas uncovers threats against his mistress. He nearly loses his life as he tries to solve Margaret’s problems. The two grow closer for one night, but they are mistress and servant. That is all they can be. I loved the explanation of the various stratas of society. The masterless folks—the Vagrom, the Abahrams, the people at the market, the beggars, those at court—all very colorful and enlivening. Sexual tensions undergirding the relationship between Lady Margaret and Thomas add an extra oomph to the storyline. I’m so ready to read others in this series. A Boldwood Book...

A Whisper of Secrecy (Raven & Wren #5) by Darcy Burke   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Twists and turns await in the latest episode of this very readable Victorian mystery  series. The brutal murder of a former detective of the Metropolitan Police in the same manner as her father, albeit ten years ago, focuses Tilda’s attention once again on his demise. Particularly as Padgett had her father’s name on a slip of parchment in his pocket. Tilda’s investigative partner Hadrian Becket, Earl of Ravenwood, makes it his business to have her father’s car reopened. Currently Tilda’s inquiring into the theft of some valuable silverware which includes a tureen and a salver. Both pieces feature intricate stags designs. Shockingly, the mother who'd deserted Tilda and her grandmother and left them destitute has swanned back into their lives! What! Then of course there’s Hadrian. Tilda is scared of her feelings for him, made even more fanciful with her mother’s blatant match making attempts. As the two inve...

The Lyon Who Desired Me  (The Lyon Den’s Connected World)   by Tracy Sumner           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ There’s been a flurry of tales lately about scientifically or mathematical bent young ladies struggling in society to either make a good marriage, not wanting to be married, or married for convenience, all the while hiding their intellectual abilities under a bushel as it were. Not so Lady Louisa Radcliffe. She’s known for her explosions and incendiary  happenings. Louisa has a large dowry and is the daughter of a duke. However she decides to take charge when it looks like a dullard, a senseless earl, is going to offer for her. Louisa wants more. She seeks help from the mysterious Mrs. Dove-Lyon. Louisa’s interests have landed on the volatile rake and gambler Dominic Beckett, who just happens, in a convoluted roundabout way, to be related somehow to Mrs. Dove-Lyons. Louisa’s decision is based on an encounter with Dominic in a bookshop when they were bo...

Sense and Suitability  by Pepper Basham           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Only Emmeline Lockhart, Gentleman’s daughter with no dowry to speak of, could turn heartache into something else. When she waited in the garden for Simon Reeves to propose, nephew to the Viscount of Ravenscross, little did she know that he’d left her after penning a short note. Emme is devastated and retreats to her home in St Groves to heal and write. Would that the healing would happen! The writing certainly is. Stranger things do happen, especially whilst she’s visiting a distraught widow on behalf of her cousin Thomas, the local vicar. Emme certainly didn’t expect to meet Simon, now Viscount Ravenscross, after she’d chased a young child on a rather fast horse. A girl she’d spied dragging a sack onto the back of her horse replete with the widow’s stolen chickens. Nor did she expect to be precipitously thrown over her own horse’s head into a pond only  to be rescued by said Viscount. Simon ...

The Hidden City  (Charles Lenox Mystery #15) by Charles Finch           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Private Investigator Charles Lenox’s business is successful. Charles has had a message from his former Housekeeper, Elizabeth Huggins, from his early days of detecting. She’s back in London living in a house where a murder took place. Strange disturbances are occurring. Charles responds quickly and finds himself following a thread that runs throughout London to places where other deaths have happened and he and his partner Graham find small, imperceptible carvings marked on these buildings. On the home front, out of the blue, he receives a message that his brother Jasper has died in India and his daughter is coming to London. Imagine his surprise when not one, but two young ladies turn up. Lord Edmund, Charles’ widowed older brother, has thrown himself into politics and has taken up a seat in parliament. He’s seen as the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lady Jane, Charles...

A Lady Most Wayward  (Queen’s Deadly Damsels #5) by Darcy McGuire          ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Just when the Duchess of Dorset, Lady Philippa Winterbourne, thought she was on the trail of the Crow, someone stopped her in her tracks. That someone was Lady Olivia Smithwyke, Marchioness Brightmore. Lady Philippa is the leader of the Queen’s Deadly Damsels committed to searching out the identity of the leader of the Devil’s Sons and destroying him. The Devil’s Sons are a network of the powerful and the degenerate, mainly noblemen, who steal girls and young women, use and abuse them, and then secretes them overseas to places like brothels. Olivia has been playing a fraught hand, never more so than when her daughter is taken by the Devil’s Sons. She needs the help of the Deadly Damsels. Taut with friction and undeniable attraction between the two main characters this is a Victorian sapphic thriller that encompasses danger, secrets and love! A Boldwood ARC via NetGalley. ...

These Violet Delights : A Novel by Madeleine Roux      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Violet Arden has always seen things differently. Her heart and mind follow the siren’s call of creativity. Unfortunately her aspirations as an artist hit rock bottom when she’s publicly confronted at an exhibition in Mayfair by the fiancée of three years of her French mentor, Renaud Moncelle. The same Renaud who’d spun lures about marrying her. Not only that, Violet overhears a derogatory comment by a gentleman about her displayed painting.  That gentleman was Alasdair Kerr, a neighbour near her home. All is enough to send Violet back to Warwickshire. An important female artist, Cristabel Bilbury, joins her to continue her instruction. Here Violet again meets Alasdair. He recognizes a fellow thinker in Violet but will that be enough?  There’s a history between the Kerr’s and the Richmond’s / Arden’s.  That history is going to play out in dangerous ways. A fascinating regency tale woven around ...

A Highly Courageous Adventure  (Flora Hyde-Clare Mysteries #2)   by Lynn Messina               ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Flora Hyde-Clare (cousin to the Bea, the Duchess of Kesgrave)  and her family have travelled to Sebastian’s (Holcroft the Holy) home in Bedfordshire to meet his family. Flora thinks that this is to be sure of his family’s  approval of her before proposing. To that end she’s learned all she can about the patriarch Holcroft’s latest passion—cabbages. As Flora so eloquently murmurs in a ramble to herself, hopefully Sebastian’s family will think she’s not just a piece a lovely piece of fluff after all, but a woman of substance. What she quickly learns is that the family are intolerant snobs who deliver cutting insults with glee. It turns out Sebastian’s arranged it all so that Flora can determine as to whether or not she still wants to marry him after meeting his family. It also turns out that Holcroft senior’s new agriculture love ...

Introducing Mrs. Collins : A Novel by Rachel Parris           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fascinating, hypothetical insight into Charlotte Lucas (Elizabeth Bennett’s friend) and Mr Colins (the heir to Elizabeth Bennett’s home)—their personalities, their formative interactions, and their marriage.  I’ve often wondered about Charlotte, her marriage to Mr. Collins, her relationship with her husband’s patron Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Parris has given us an alternative view of Charlottes life, the off the page life. They take center stage. I had thought her life would be no more than a constrained unhappy expanse marching towards finality. I’m so glad Parris has a richer insight than me. We see the painful awareness of each other of Catherine and Mr. Collins, the regulation of their lives, and the changes that come. Charlotte’s life takes some twists and turns, but always she returns to the status quo. Her future becomes remarkable, aided by a Mr. Collins none of us saw, includ...

Murder in Venice  (Armstrong and Oscar Cozy Mystery #13) by T A Williams          ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Dan Armstrong is living in Florence, happily engaged to his Italian fiancé Anna. In his previous life he’d been a  DCI, now he’s an author and private investigator. When his day is interrupted by a phone call asking him to call the famous movie diva Alice Graceland of course he complies.  The aging and still beautiful Miss Graceland lives on an island fort, the Island of the Swans, near the Lido.  She’s been restoring the fort, Swan’s Rest, and writing her memoirs.  Miss Graceland makes  an  appointment for Dan to catch the fast train to Venice the next day.  It seems she wants Dan to attend a house party on the island. She engages him to be part of a murder mystery dinner she’ll hold.  His role will be that of an investigator. Dan agrees but is unsure of what he’s in for.  It turns out all her guests are all powerful Holl...

Murder on the Prince Regent  (Tate and Bell Mystery #6) by Irina Shapiro          ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Gemma and Sebastian’s pleasant day’s outing is interrupted by a death that involves a foreign nation. Detective Inspector Sebastian Bell is called to investigate a murder that’s taken place on an American packet ship, the Prince Regent, currently anchored on the Thames near the Isle of Dogs, awaiting the police. Sebastian faces the possibility of political tensions. The murder victim is an english lord, Lord Anthony Blackstock, who’s being considered for a diplomatic post as Ambassador to the United States. Alarmingly, Lord Anthony’s wife has disappeared. Gemma Tate of cause becomes involved. They were enjoying some time together when Sebastian is recalled to duty. Sebastian had been about to ask Gemma to marry him, but once again his responsibilities get in the way. Gemma refuses to be left behind and accompanies Sebastian, along with a young, and very unhappy con...

The Essential Patricia A. McKillip  by Patricia A. McKillip         ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Patricia McKillip has been a magical writer whom I’ve enjoyed for more years than I care to count, starting with The Forgotten Beasts of Eld in 1974 and continuing down through the decades. This collection of short stories brings her craft forward for all to enjoy. An introduction by the fabulous Ellen Kushner adds acclamation and biographical interest. McKillop’s word smithing is brilliant, full of beautifully turned phrases imbued with riddles like, “ The Amaranth that never dies but only lives forever to watch men die.”  “  I have seen this tower before and I have seen in it the woman we all expected, the only woman some men ever know . . . And every time we come expecting her, the woman who lures us with what’s most precious to us and kills us with it, we build the tower around her again and again and again. . . .” Populated with peoples such as Ryd Yarrow, a Dragon Harr...