Tag: historical fiction

After a two-day train journey, peripatetic dressmaker Jemima Flowerday makes the final approach to her new job on foot, following the canal to Castle Gloaming, which stands in the rugged North Wales countryside overlooking the foaming River Dee.

Jemima has come to clothe Mrs Cornelia van Doorn, a wealthy South African widow who has leased the castle from its impoverished aristocratic owner, intending to launch herself and her young stepdaughter, Honor, into London society.

But on her arrival she’s told she’s actually been summoned to investigate the disappearance of the girl. Even in a place still haunted by mystery and magic, the seventeen-year-old can’t have melted into thin air…

Kay Blythe, who also writes as Natalie Meg Evans, is an award-winning historical author on both sides of the Atlantic, having reached the New York Times top 100 list with her debut novel, The Dress Thief. Writing crime as Kay Blythe fulfils a long-held ambition. Her dressmaker-sleuth, Jemima Flowerday, follows in the tradition of clever women set free by the social upheaval of the years after the First World War. Jemima combines her skills as a dressmaker and sleuth to solve crime in the crumbling stately homes of Britain.

My thoughts: Dragged out to the wilds of West Wales, Jemima thinks she’s there to design a wardrobe for a wealthy South African widow in a castle with a Scottish name (gloaming is an excellent word fyi).

On arrival, she’s told that she’s actually been hired to find the widows 17 year old stepdaughter, who appears to have vanished. Using her keen understanding of human nature, she soon figures out the truth, but that’s before things take a nasty turn. 

Stuck in the castle with a motley cast of residents and staff, Jemima must keep her wits about her, there’s a killer amongst them and plenty of secrets and lies too. 

I like Jemima, her unusual job allows her access to both upstairs and downstairs, by marriage she’s a Lady, but her parents ran a grocery shop so she’s actually just as at home in the kitchen with the help. 

She’s also very clever, a student of human behaviour and highly observant, even without a friendly sidekick (unless you count Mrs Beddoes the housekeeper/cook) she works through the clues and the strange occurrences in this rather depressing castle and then lays it all out for the police when they finally show up. They’ll take the credit, but she’s just happy to go home.    

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

BE YE HUNTER OR PREY?

Introducing Thomas Finbow – falconer to Sir Robert Vicary and Lady Margaret of Petbury, Berkshire. He keeps his mind sharp and his body primed as he goes about his duties with the diligent confidence of one who once served Queen and country.

When Nathaniel Pickering, Lady Margaret’s older brother is found murdered, Thomas takes her away to London, in search of gryfalcons. Lady Margaret being a keen lover of the sport of falconry herself, Thomas hopes it will help distract his mistress from her grief, however once they reach the city it becomes apparent that much bigger things are at play – and the murder of Master Pickering was just the beginning…

Thomas’s astute mind is unable to ignore the clues, and in uncovering some dark secrets, he places himself – and his mistress – in grave danger. Now a target himself, Thomas must face some of London’s most notorious criminals, in a battle of both brain and brawn.

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A writer for over forty years, John Pilkington was born in Lancashire and worked at many jobs. He has also written plays for radio and theatre, television scripts for a BBC soap, a short-lived children’s series and numerous works of historical fiction, concentrating now on the Tudor and Stuart eras. He now lives in a village on a tidal estuary in Devon with his long-term partner Elisabeth; they have a son who is a psychologist and musician. When not at the desk he walks, swims, listens to music and tinkers with d.i.y. projects, and is enjoying being a grandfather.

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My thoughts: Secrets are terrible things, it’s why I don’t have any. They can cause all sorts of trouble. 

In this case, a death or two, Thomas gets beaten up a few times and into fights, his Lady is upset and scared, some dodgy characters try to extort money and someone murders four beautiful gyrfalcons. Which makes Thomas, a falconer, very angry.

Visiting London to assist his master’s wife as she sorts out her murdered brother’s affairs, or tries to, and buy some hunting birds for his master, he’s soon drawn into a web of secrets and violence. Lady Margaret’s secrets have long worried her, and now they’re rearing their ugly heads again. The wrong sort of people know, or think they know, and want paying off to stay silent, but she can’t do that without bringing her husband into things and he has no idea.

So Thomas attempts to help her, but he’s not a detective or a constable, he has no authority and despite having been a soldier, he’s no fan of a fight. He just wants to do his job as a falconer and care for his daughter. However, he’s clever and determined and after the birds are killed, angry. He wants to understand why someone would do that, and who, so they can be stopped. In the alleyways and dank pubs of London are the answers but it won’t be easy to find them.

Clever, and well researched, this brings the old London, before fire and war demolished its grottier bits and rebuilding finished them off, when bear pits and theatres rubbed alongside each other and dark deeds were done quite easily without electric lights showing them and bodies slid quickly into the river. Looking forward to reading more.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

A fatal fall. A duchess determined to uncover the truth. And barely any time for tea.

Fenshire, 1891. It was meant to be a birthday celebration weekend in the country— cucumber sandwiches, polite conversation, and maybe a waltz or two.

But when the Duke of Stortford is found dead in a crumpled heap at the foot of the stairs everything goes dreadfully sideways. The police declare it a tragic accident. His wife, Alice, has her doubts.

After all, only hours before, the Duke had promised to give up his mistress and make a go of their marriage. Now he’s inconveniently deceased.

Driven by a need for answers, and helped by her fiercely loyal maid Maud, her observant footman George, and her childhood friend Lord Rushton, Alice sets about uncovering the truth. But as she navigates a house full of secrets, simmering tensions, and more than one
guest with murderously bad manners, her suspect pool grows to include those closest to her.

Can she piece together the truth? Or will her husband’s murderer get away with it after all?

The guests are leaving. The killer may be among them. Time is running out…

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Helen Golden spins mysteries that are charmingly British, delightfully deadly, and served with a twist of humour.

With quirky characters, clever red herrings, and plots that keep the pages turning, she’s the author of the much-loved A Right Royal Cozy Investigation series, following Lady Beatrice and her friends—
including one clever little dog—as they uncover secrets hidden in country houses and royal palaces.

Her new historical mystery series, The Duchess of Stortford Mysteries, is set in Victorian England and introduces an equally curious sleuth from Lady Beatrice’s own family tree—where murders are solved over cups of tea, whispered gossip, and overheard conversations in drawing rooms and grand estates.

Helen lives in a quintessential English village in Lincolnshire with her husband, stepdaughter, and a menagerie of pets—including a dog, several cats, a tortoise, and far too many fish.

If you love clever puzzles, charming settings, and sleuths with spark, her books are waiting for you.

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My thoughts: Alice, Duchess of Stortford, is visiting her parents’ estate for her father’s birthday, it’s also a reunion with her erstwhile husband, and a chance for them to give their marriage another go, after leading rather separate lives. Unfortunately Alice’s cousin, who also happens to be her husband’s mistress, is also there, as well as a rather determined widow looking for her next assignation.

And things seem to be going in Alice’s favour, when tragedy strikes and her husband, Vance, is found dead at the bottom of the stairs. But did he fall or was he pushed? Alice launches into investigation mode, perhaps to stave off her grief, but the things she uncovers could get someone the rope.

Everyone’s a suspect, even Alice’s family, until she can rule them out, or in. Either way, this is not quite the jolly weekend anyone was expecting.

With her signature humour and clever quips, once Alice gets a canine or feline chum, this will be classic Helen Golden crime, and all the more enjoyable for it!

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

The Secret Sauce, the third book in the Erdington Mysteries

Birmingham, England, November 1944.
Chief Inspector Mason of Erdington Police Station is summoned to a suspicious death at the BB Sauce factory in Aston on a wet Monday morning in late November 1944.

Greeted by his enthusiastic sergeant, O’Rourke, Sam Mason finds himself plunged into a challenging investigation to discover how Harry Armstrong met his death in a vat containing BB Sauce – a scene that threatens to put him off BB Sauce on his bacon sandwiches for the rest of his life.

Together with Sergeant O’Rourke, Mason follows a trail of seemingly unrelated events until something becomes very clear. The death of Harry Armstrong was certainly murder, and might well be connected to the tragedy unfolding at nearby RAF Fauld.

While the uncertainty of war continues, Mason and O’Rourke find themselves seeking answers from the War Office and the Admiralty, as they track down the person who murdered their victim in such an unlikely way.

Join Mason and O’Rourke for the third book in the quirky, historical mystery series, as they once more attempt to solve the impossible in 1940s Erdington.

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I’m an author of historical fiction and non-fiction (Early English (Saxon), Vikings and the British Isles as a whole before the Norman Conquest, as well as five twentieth-century mysteries), born in the old Mercian kingdom at some point since the end of 1066.

Historical mysteries allow me to use such modern inventions as the telephone and the car, which is very exciting when I spend so much of my time worrying about feeding the horses my warriors usually ride.

I was raised in the shadow of a strange little building and told from a very young age it housed the bones of long-dead kings of Mercia, it’s little wonder my curiosity in the early English ran riot. I can only blame my parents!
I like to write. You’ve been warned!

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A quick note for non-British readers; BB Sauce isn’t real but is inspired by HP Sauce, which is. As far as I know, no one has ever drowned in a vat of it. Sometimes referred to as brown sauce (as opposed to tomato ketchup aka red sauce), some people enjoy it on their bacon sandwiches, chips and other savoury dishes. I am not a fan.

My thoughts: A rather strange death, a man drowned in a vat in a sauce factory near Birmingham. He was the delivery driver for the factory and shouldn’t have been inside after they closed half day on Saturday, so why was he there and who killed him?

There don’t appear to be many clues, most of the workers had been heading off to the football after finishing up for the weekend. The few clerical staff had gone too, and the owner had locked up. There was no reason for Harry to even be inside that part of the factory, as the driver he only needed access to the yard and loading dock.

The police are stumped. But as they investigate the BB Sauce factory, its staff and Harry’s own history, it becomes clear that plenty of people have something to hide. There are secrets galore. 

There’s also a terrible explosion at the nearest RAF base, and as the case goes on, there’s a worry that it might be connected. Could someone working at the factory in fact be some sort of enemy agent? With the war still raging on, people are supposed to be on the lookout for anyone suspicious, and several of the employees certainly are. 

In the end this is a much more complex case than the accident it has been made to look like, Harry didn’t put himself in the vat, he certainly didn’t trip and fall from the gangway above, and the stench of vinegar is overwhelming. A bit like guilt.

Clever, complex and occasionally quite funny, this was a very enjoyable outing for Mason and the excellent O’Rourke (who will probably end up running the place one day!)

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.