The Mystery of Albert E. Finch by Callie Hutton (Tuesday Intros & Teaser Tuesday)

 

Title: The Mystery of Albert E. Finch

Author: Callie Hutton

Publication: 11 January 2022

Format: Kindle eBook

Amazon Description

Bath, England, 1892. Celebrated mystery author Lady Amy Lovell is set to tie the knot with Lord William Wethington, a fellow member of the Mystery Book Club of Bath. Amy's great-aunt, Lady Priscilla Granville, has offered to host their wedding at her stately Derby Manor House. But on the eve of the ceremony, the festive air in the drawing room is marred by Mrs. Alice Finch's argument with her husband, Albert, in another room. The next morning at the wedding breakfast, Alice falls face-first into her breakfast—dead.

When Amy and William's favorite detectives are summoned to the house, they see two champagne glasses in front of Mrs. Finch and none in front of her husband. Did Albert give his wife a poisoned drink? Always looking for the easiest solution, the detectives charge Albert with the murder.

But Lady Amy is not convinced that Albert is guilty. There are too many things that don't add up. In the hopes of being able to leave Bath and begin their honeymoon, Amy and William once again take things into their own hands.  Suspects begin to pop up, but nothing takes them more by surprise than the discovery of a second body.  

 

Stuck in Bath until the whole poisonous predicament is solved, Amy and William are anxious to collar the perfidious poisoner and be on their way to their honeymoon. If they can't catch the killer, not only is their newlywed bliss under threat, but they may not live to see happily-ever-after at all.

Ramble-y Teaserish Stuff

I have been holding on to this one since September just waiting for it to be closer to publication date to dive in. 

I didn't only dive, I devoured. 

It was just over 24 hours from beginning to end ... including sleep, work, working out and life. 

The good news is that Amy and Michael are married!!!

The bad news is that Amy's cousin is killed at the post-ceremony wedding breakfast and her husband, Albert E Finch, is the only real suspect in the eyes of our least favorite detective duo from the first two books.

Yes, again, I beg of you .... read these in order.

And thank me later.

Finch ends up being placed at Amy and Michael's house .... along with her father, brother, aunt, various pets, and an onslaught of temporary staff thanks to water damage at their townhouse. As if that wasn't chaos enough, another death occurs just as Amy and Michael are busy trying to work out what happened to her cousin .... without the aforementioned detective duo getting in their way.

Twists and turns and herrings of all sorts of colors besides the usual red made this most definitely NOT the honeymoon that the two had been dreaming of, but it did make for a wonderful read.

Yet again I'm left hoping that Callie Hutton is a fast writer.

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"First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros" is from the first paragraph or two of a book being read now (or in the future) and is hosted by Socrates' Book Reviews. 

"Teaser Tuesday" at The Purple Booker asks for a random line or two from anywhere in the book currently being read.

I'll Sleep When I've Read... If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O by Sharyn McCrumb

I decided that 2022 was going to be the year that I finally made it through Sharyn McCrumb's entire Ballad series. There are twelve novels plus a Christmas novella and I already have them all on my forever shelves, but somehow half have been unread ... and those that I have read are well-worthy of being reread.

This weekend I've read If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O. It introduces us to Hamelin, Tennessee, and the residents and many of the ballads so popular in Appalachia. There is a mystery or three involved, but my favorite part has always been getting to know the people and the area. I believe this is the third or fourth time I've read it since I fell for McCrumb's writing in the early 1990s.

I  remembered fairly early on in my reread whodunit... but it was nice to rekindle my love of Joe LeDonne... and to remember just why Spencer Arrowood makes me a bit uneasy... and I'm already looking forward to April when I reread The Rosewood Casket and see one of my favorite ancestors on the pages.

If you want to share whatever has kept you up past your bedtime because you just needed one more chapter ... or the entire book ... please comment! My TBR pile is already toppling, but I can always add more.

The Orphan of Cemetery Hill by Hester Fox (Book Beginnings & Friday 56)

 

Title: The Orphan of Cemetery Hill

Author: Hester Fox

Publication: 15 September 2020

Format: paperback

Amazon Description

The dead won’t bother you if you don’t give them permission.

Boston, 1844.

Tabby has a peculiar gift: she can communicate with the recently departed. It makes her special, but it also makes her dangerous.

As an orphaned child, she fled with her sister, Alice, from their charlatan aunt Bellefonte, who wanted only to exploit Tabby’s gift so she could profit from the recent craze for seances.

Now a young woman and tragically separated from Alice, Tabby works with her adopted father, Eli, the kind caretaker of a large Boston cemetery. When a series of macabre grave robberies begins to plague the city, Tabby is ensnared in a deadly plot by the perpetrators, known only as the “Resurrection Men.”

In the end, Tabby’s gift will either save both her and the cemetery—or bring about her own destruction.

Ramble-y Teaserish Stuff

This was supposed to get me through at least a big chunk of the weekend.

I started reading at the beginning of my work shift Thursday night. I even tried to stagger it by watching a couple of episodes of The Great, doing some Amazon shopping for the next mini-vacay, and then actually sleeping some and working out when I got home. 

By the time I returned to work Thursday night I only had forty pages of the book left to read, pages of notes and quotes written in my "official" blog notebook, and the realization that there was no way I would be able to choose only two (one, of course, being the beginning) for today's post. 

Of course, this wasn't even supposed to be today's post. That one has been tweaked and will now be the upcoming Tuesday Intros/Teaser Tuesday. I couldn't help it, though ... Tabby stole my heart and there just happened to be perfectly shareable blips on page 56 ... and page 156 ... and page 256 ... and more. As I said, I've got pages of notes and quotes.

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As always, Friday 56 (share a blurb from the 56th page or 56% mark) is hosted at Freda's Voice 

& Book Beginnings (share the first few sentences) is at Rose City Reader

The Fiona Figg Mysteries by Kelly Oliver (Tuesday Intros & Teaser Tuesday)

It's a little different this week for me since I'm doing three-in-one ... but since they all go together and I've been reading them back to back (to back), it works for my brain. I started the first book, Betrayal at Ravenswick, on New Year's Eve. 

We're introduced to newly divorced Fiona who works as a filing clerk for the British Intelligence War Office's Room 40 (which later becomes MI-5 ... and then MI-6). She's amongst code-breakers and espionage planners and when one of the men undercover gets injured, she volunteers to step in ... disguised as a man. She had always wanted to be an actress growing up but was told by a drama teacher that "with that face, you'll never make it as an actress. You'd be better off putting on trousers and passing yourself off as a man." 

So she does.

She travels to to Ravenswick disguised as a male doctor (and occasionally a maid) to find out whatever she can about a Fredrick Fredricks -- huntsman, journalist, possible spy and possible murderer. Of course, she also gets involved in a murder investigation and more than one tricky situation that she is absolutely unprepared for. She does well enough, though, that they let her continue to trail Fredricks to Paris .... and the second book, High Treason at the Grand Hotel.

In the second book we get to see Paris in 1917, more of Fiona's disguises (which she isn't supposed to be using), and further witness Fiona's knack for sticking her nose in to mysteries unrelated to her mission. We do see quite a bit of Fredricks and even Mata Hari. And then the chase continues to Villainy in Vienna. 

Right now I'm only just past the half-way point of the book but we've already met Emperor Charles and Empress Zita, Albert Einstein's first wife, and Anna Sacher of the famed Hotel Sacher (and daughter-in-law of the creator of the amazing Sacher Torte). Fiona has actually been invited to Vienna by Fredricks for the Emperor's birthday ball. The War Office sends her with Clifford Douglas as a bodyguard/fake husband/sidekick/nuisance. He has appeared in each book and is actually old friends with Fredricks which makes things a bit awkward.

And someone was just killed at the ball so I'm going to hit publish and continue reading and I highly recommend that you do the same. It's a fun series full of history and intrigue and my beloved snark. I do so love some added snark.

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"First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros" is from the first paragraph or two of a book being read now (or in the future) and is hosted by Socrates' Book Reviews. 

"Teaser Tuesday" at The Purple Booker asks for a random line or two from anywhere in the book currently being read.

To Love and To Loathe by Martha Waters (Book Beginnings & Friday 56)

 

Title: To Love and To Loathe

Author: Martha Waters

Publication: 6 April 2021

Format: Kindle eBook

Amazon Description

The widowed Diana, Lady Templeton and Jeremy, Marquess of Willingham are infamous among English high society as much for their sharp-tongued bickering as their flirtation. One evening, an argument at a ball turns into a serious wager: Jeremy will marry within the year or Diana will forfeit one hundred pounds. So shortly after, just before a fortnight-long house party at Elderwild, Jeremy’s country estate, Diana is shocked when Jeremy appears at her home with a very different kind of proposition.

After his latest mistress unfavorably criticized his skills in the bedroom, Jeremy is looking for reassurance, so he has gone to the only woman he trusts to be totally truthful. He suggests that they embark on a brief affair while at the house party—Jeremy can receive an honest critique of his bedroom skills and widowed Diana can use the gossip to signal to other gentlemen that she is interested in taking a lover.

Diana thinks taking him up on his counter-proposal can only help her win her wager. With her in the bedroom and Jeremy’s marriage-minded grandmother, the formidable Dowager Marchioness of Willingham, helping to find suitable matches among the eligible ladies at Elderwild, Diana is confident her victory is assured. But while they’re focused on winning wagers, they stand to lose their own hearts.

Ramble-y Teaserish Stuff

Back in September I read the first of Martha Waters' Regency Vows series -- To Have and To Hoax.  My favorite part of it was the secondary characters like Diana and Emily. I just requested a preview copy of Emily's story and realized that I still had not gotten my grubby little hands on Diana's. Amazon gift card to the rescue!

The Amazon description tells pretty much the entire gist of the story so there's really no reason to recap any of that. I was so excited when I started this book as I've enjoyed the snarkiness from both Diana and Jeremy ... but especially from Jeremy's grandmother. She's like a combination of Downton Abbey's Violet Crawley and Bridgerton's Lady Danbury and I adore her.

HOWEVER ...

Remember how I said that I didn't think that I could dislike a heroine more than Violet from the first book?

I was so very disturbingly and disappointingly wrong.

Diana is horribly on so many levels to so many people. I believed at first that she was just shielding herself with her snark. About three quarters of the way through she betrays another character by telling a secret that could, potentially, get them imprisoned or even killed and she's just .... so .... just .... ugh. I had a difficult time trying to find any humor or lightheartedness in anything she said or did from that point on. I kept reading her as a mean and vile bit..... bit too much to take.

I finished it, of course, and I was still rooting for a great big Happily Ever After for Jeremy.....

....with just about anyone else in the world.

I have already requested the third from Atria via NetGalley and I'll read it if I get approved for it. If I don't? I may not bother. I'm more than a little terrified of what is going to be done to destroy my other favorite secondary characters when they become the leads.

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As always, Friday 56 (share a blurb from the 56th page or 56% mark) is hosted at Freda's Voice 

& Book Beginnings (share the first few sentences) is at Rose City Reader