❤ Friends to enemies to lovers
❤ Childhood best friend
❤ Amateur sleuth
❤ Small-town setting
❤ Slow burn
❤ Second chance romance
Welcome to Nether Dene — the cosy English village where a crumbling manor, a long-buried secret and a second chance at first love are about to collide . . .
After thirteen years away, Oriana Foster has come home to the village that broke her heart — and bought the one house nobody thought she’d dare to touch: the Manor House, ancestral home of the very family who once helped send her away.
With a fortune from an anonymous benefactor and a heart full of unanswered questions, her plan is simple. Move in quietly, clear her name and finally uncover the truth about the night Rollo Seton died. Because she didnʼt kill him, but somebody knows who did.
What she didnʼt count on was Lowell Seton. Rolloʼs infuriating but handsome younger brother is convinced Oriana is guilty — and heʼll do anything to win his family’s houseback.
But he canʼt deny that the spark that flared between them when they were sixteen has never quite gone out . . .
With her first love convinced of her guilt, can Oriana uncover the truth before the killer strikes again?
Faith Martin was born in Oxford, and has spent all her life within twenty miles of the university city, even working at Somerville College for six years before turning to writing full-time.
Faith has been writing for nearly 30 years under four different pen names and has had nearly 50 books published so far. She began writing romantic thrillers as Maxine Barry, which Joffe Books are in the process of re-releasing as brand new eBooks.
Then she turned to crime, and as Joyce Cato wrote classic-style whodunits, since sheʼs always admired the golden-age crime novelists. But it was when she created her fictional DI Hillary Greene, and began writing under the name of Faith Martin, that she finally began to become more widely known.
Her latest literary characters WPC Trudy Loveday, and city coroner, Dr Clement Ryder, take readers back to the 1960ʼs and the city of Oxford. Having lived within a few miles of the city of dreaming spires for all her life, both the city and the countryside/wildlife often feature in her novels.
Although she has never lived on a narrow boat (unlike DI Hillary Greene!) the Oxford canal, the river Cherwell, and the flora and fauna of a farming landscape have always played a big part in her life – and often sneak their way onto the pages of her books.
Her hobbies include walking her now ageing dog, wildlife-watching, reading and (reluctantly) gardening.
My thoughts: This was really good, and when I discovered it was written by the very excellent Faith Martin under one of her pen names, it became clear why!
Oriana Foster hasn’t had an easy life, her parents died in a car crash when she was a child, and then she was framed for the murder of her boyfriend, and sent to prison at only 16. Now she’s out and determined to find the truth.
Armed with a sharp intellect, several million pounds from an anonymous benefactor, and an incredible amount of courage, her first move is to buy the slowly crumbling old Manor House her childhood friends lived in, aka the scene of the crime, hire a team of PIs and a bodyguard called Connor. She doesn’t know who the real killer is yet, but she’s sure they’ll be coming for her when they realise where she is.
It does also mean dealing with the people who think she’s guilty – her best friend Mercy and her brother Lowell. Who also happen to be the younger siblings of the boyfriend, Rollo, she was convicted of killing. And they now live next door.
Lowell has always felt guilty about his feelings for Oriana, she was his brother’s girlfriend and killer, but he couldn’t help fall for her. His girlfriend Margaret is the jealous kind, and his mixed up feelings for Oriana aren’t very well hidden.
With all the emotions – guilt, jealousy, love, you name it, in the air, things are bound to get fired up! And as Oriana starts to put the pieces together about the real killer and their reasons, she’s in danger. And not just her.
Absolutely cracking stuff, and bit by bit we’re given the reasons and the killer, all while Connor and Mercy and Lowell and Oriana fall in love and connect 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶.
Really enjoyed this and can’t wait for the next Maxine Barry book as the marvellous Joffe Books are re-publishing them all.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 