Review: Lighting Strikes the Silence

Gather around, my friends. It's the time of year when I write, in length, about how amazing the Lane Winslow mystery series is. Iona Whishaw has created a heroine and a series I absolutely cannot get enough of. Lightning Strikes the Silence is the latest installment (the eleventh!) and it was everything I needed it to be!

Here’s the book’s description:

A warm June afternoon in King’s Cove is interrupted by an explosion. Following the sound, Lane goes to investigate. Up a steep path she discovers a secluded cabin and, hiding nearby, a young Japanese girl injured and mute, but very much alive.
At the Nelson Police Station, Inspector Darling and Sergeant Ames, following up on a report of a nighttime heist at the local jeweller’s, discover the jeweller himself dead in his office, apparently bludgeoned, and a live wire hanging off the back of the building.
As Lane attempts to speed the search for the girl’s family with her own lines of inquiry, Darling and his team dig deeper into a local connection between the jeweller and a fellow businessman that leads across the pond to Cornwall and north to a mining interest on the McKenzie River.
Offices are being ransacked and someone is following Lane. Through the alleyways of Nelson onto the country roads and woods trails of King’s Cove, the latest Winslow mystery is a study in bygone promises and lingering prejudice.

I love Whishaw’s novels for a number of reasons so I’ll go through them all and how I felt about them while reading this latest book. The first is the mystery element. I’m almost always surprised with how things turn out but not in a jaw-dropping, I-never-saw-this-coming kind of way. Part of the surprise, for me, could be because there are usually two cases happening simultaneously, sometimes connected, sometimes not. There’s always something Lane finds herself caught up in (much to Darling’s dismay!) as well as a case the police in Nelson are working on solving. I find the two mysteries allow me to just go along for the ride, trusting that all will be revealed at the right moment. In this book, I had a feeling I knew who the murderer was a little earlier than usual but the reasoning and how it all unfolded was still enough of a surprise to satisfy me.

Speaking of the mystery, I was lucky enough to see Whishaw at an event the week before publication day. She was interesting, delightful, and so much fun. I’m really glad I made the trek to the event! Given the multiple mysteries in her books, I was surprised to learn that Whishaw is an absolute pantser. She doesn’t plot out her stories and sometimes doesn’t even know who the murderer may be. She also said (and I love this) that when a dead body comes along as she’s writing, she has a personal rule that the body must stay and she just has to figure out what to do about it. Fascinating!

I also adore the historical aspect of these novels. I’m always learning a little nugget (or two…or three…) when I read Whishaw’s books, which I love. Recorded Canadian history may be a little more recent than history from other countries, but it is vast and so much is unknown or not talked about nearly enough. In this novel, Whishaw shines a light on the expulsion and internment of Japanese folks during World War II. This was yet another moment in history when white settlers thought they knew best and banished a group from a particular area. And for those who say that at least Canada wasn’t as bad as the US? Not in this case. It took far longer for Japanese individuals to be allowed to move back to the coastal areas of British Columbia than it did their counterparts in the United States. It took until 1949 until those of Japanese descent (even those born in Canada) were allowed to move freely throughout the country.

Finally, I love the characters Whishaw has created. Lane is based on her mother (she said during the event that people always ask why she “had” to make Lane so beautiful. She says it’s because Lane is based on her mom and her mom was beautiful, therefore Lane must be beautiful, too!) but even with Whishaw’s mom as the inspiration, Lane is very much her own woman and I love her so very much. There are many, many characters in King’s Cove (based on the real town of Queen’s Bay, as I learned) and Nelson but every single one of them has a purpose and a history. The novels just wouldn’t be the same without the extremely strong cast of secondary characters. I particularly liked getting to see another side of one King’s Cove character in this story!

Lighting Strikes the Silence was an absolute joy to read. Iona Whishaw has written another winner in her Lane Winslow mystery series and I cannot wait for everyone to read it. And if you haven’t started the series yet, well, what are you waiting for? Get reading!

*An egalley was provided by the publisher, Touchwood Editions, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: Disturbing the Dead

Presenting: the book that caused a major reading slump! I loved every second I spent reading Disturbing the Dead by Kelley Armstrong and had no idea what to do with myself when it was over. It’s the third book in her Rip Through Time series and it’s by far my favourite - they just keep getting stronger!

Here’s the book’s description:

Victorian Scotland is becoming less strange to modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson. Though inhabiting someone else’s body will always be unsettling, even if her employers know that she’s not actually housemaid Catriona Mitchell, ever since the night both of them were attacked in the same dark alley 150 years apart. Mallory likes her job as assistant to undertaker/medical examiner Dr. Duncan Gray, and is developing true friends―and feelings―in this century.
So, understanding the Victorian fascination with death, Mallory isn't that surprised when she and her friends are invited to a mummy unwrapping at the home of Sir Alastair Christie. When their host is missing when it comes time to unwrap the mummy, Gray and Mallory are asked to step in. And upon closer inspection, it’s not a mummy they’ve unwrapped, but a much more modern body.

A friend mentioned that she got a little bit bored with the mystery and I can kind of see what she means. While I was invested in finding out what happened to the “modern” mummy, the other bits of the story were slightly more compelling. I wasn’t bored by it though and enjoyed the other characters I got to “meet” while Mallory and Gray tried to help solve the murder (except for, you know, the murderer - not a fan of them!).

I very much enjoyed getting back to Victorian Scotland, especially since I was just in Edinburgh (again) over Christmas. I found myself constantly Googling areas and checking my photos to see if we had ended up in some of the same places Mallory had been describing. The city, even now, is full of history that is almost impossible to fathom, especially for a tourist who’s only there for a week or so. (As busy as it was over Christmas, something I wasn’t quite expecting for some reason, it was still a remarkable place to spend the holidays.)

At the risk of being too spoilery, we get a bit more information about the time travel aspect of the story in this book. Which is kind of why the mystery took a bit of a backseat. I think my jaw was hanging open for a good portion of the story because I really wasn’t sure how it was all going to turn out!

This series may frustrate history buffs but for those of us who enjoy history but don’t actually study the Victorian era? Oh, it’s perfect. I love the time period, the location, the characters, the time travel, and the mysteries. It’s everything I love wrapped up in one hell of a compelling series. One that I really hope continues!

Historical fiction and mystery lovers will thoroughly enjoy Kelley Armstrong’s latest book, Disturbing the Dead. The Rip Through Time series is incredibly entertaining and is well worth a read. (Even if it did give me a huge book hangover!)

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Minotaur/St. Martin’s Press, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: Death on the Lusitania

For all the historical fiction I read, I didn’t know much about the RMS Lusitania. I vaguely recalled something from history class telling me it sank but that was about it - I didn’t know when, how, or why. Enter Death on the Lusitania by R.L. Graham, a husband and wife author team. (Sadly, Marilyn Livingstone was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed away while the book was being written.) This novel is the first in a historical mystery series and I was interested because the authors were born in Canada, I didn’t know much about the ship, I like historical mysteries, and, well, that cover! Isn’t it stunning? The story held between the gorgeous covers kept me interested and I really wasn’t sure whodunit until all was revealed!

Here’s the book’s description:

Welcome on board the Lusitania’s final voyage . . .
New York, 1915. RMS Lusitania, one of the world’s most luxurious trans-Atlantic liners, departs for Liverpool and war-torn Europe. Among those on board is Patrick Gallagher, a civil servant in Her Majesty’s government tasked with discreetly escorting a British diplomat back to England in relation to charges of suspected treason.
When a fellow passenger, Jimmy Dowrich, is found shot to death in his cabin, the captain asks Gallagher to investigate. Knowing something of the man’s past, Gallagher realizes that the problem will not be simple; and also, the body was discovered in a locked cabin with the key inside and no gun to be found.
Gallagher believes that one of his fellow passengers is a deadly killer. But many of those on board are harbouring secrets of their own, and his questioning reveals that several had a motive for ending Dowrich’s life. He fears that the killer could strike again to protect their true reasons for being on board and all the while, the ship sails on towards Europe, where deadly submarines patrol the war zone . . .

I liked that Graham chose to have a countdown to the sinking of the ship at the start of each chapter. A bit morbid, yes, but it amped up the tension that was already present in the novel in a really good way. You know the ship is doomed but, oh by the way, people are being murdered on board, too! As if the guests didn’t have enough to worry about, sailing into a warzone and all. That part did make me think about what I would have done in the guests’ position. Would I have still chosen to sail, knowing there was a very real chance a U-boat would torpedo the ship?

Since I didn’t remember much about the Lusitania other than it had sank at some point in history, I definitely didn’t know that there was a second explosion after the torpedo hit the ship and the reason for that second explosion has never been determined, at least not definitively. She was carrying ammunition, though she was not armed, so it’s possible that some of her cargo was the cause of the second explosion. Graham took that possibility and wondered, “what if this happened?” And this became Death on the Lusitania. They were clear from the outset that they were reimagining history, to an extent, and I appreciated both the note and their creativity.

The historical aspect may have charmed me ever so slightly more than the mystery in this novel, but that’s not to say I was unimpressed with the case. This is the set up to the start of a series starring Patrick Gallagher, who is, ostensibly, a civil servant for His Majesty’s government (something I realized while writing this review - the book's description says “Her” Majesty but there was a King on the throne in 1915, George V - grandson of Queen Victoria and grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II). With the Captain (the only real character in the book) slightly occupied with getting his ship through the war zone in one piece, he tasks Gallagher with figuring out who decided Dowrich wouldn’t live to see the ship’s destination. While I questioned some of Gallagher’s methods (sometimes it seemed like he was giving away too much, like, “Was it so-and-so who told you such-and-such?” and the suspect says, “Why, yes!” but…was it or did they just grab hold of a piece of information that’ll help them?), I still couldn’t put together who the murderer was. Part of me wonders if I couldn’t figure it out because it just wasn’t well done and was far too confusing. But I’m choosing to give Graham the benefit of the doubt since everything else was so well written.

Death on the Lusitania was a really solid start to a new historical mystery series. I don’t know if R.L. Graham will continue with the series now but I do hope to see another Patrick Gallagher mystery in the future.

*A copy of this novel was provided by the Canadian distributor, PGC Books, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: The Cat Who Caught a Killer

Being a mystery fan, and one who enjoys some that are on the cozier side, how could I not be intrigued by a book that features a former cop and a TALKING CAT!? I heard about the Conrad the Cat Detective series when book two was released last year and since I was interested, PGC Books sent me the first book, The Cat Who Caught a Killer, to check out. L.T. Shearer’s first offering in the series should have been a winner but there was a lot that just didn’t land well enough to make me love it.

Here’s the book’s description:

Meet Conrad the cat. You’ve never met a detective like him before.
Neither has Lulu Lewis when he walks into her life one summer’s day. Mourning the recent death of her husband, the former police detective had expected a gentle retirement, quietly enjoying life on her new canal boat, The Lark, and visiting her mother-in-law Emily in a nearby care home.
But when Emily dies suddenly in suspicious circumstances, Lulu senses foul play and resolves to find out what really happened. And a remarkable cat named Conrad will be with her every step of the way...

The writing in this book…well, it left a lot to be desired. I found it to be repetitive in a lot of places. There were words that were overused but also plot points. We learned about a lot of things that are toxic to cats. We were also told about people’s auras (something cats can see, apparently) all…the…time. And if I had to hear Lulu’s former colleague complain about how he couldn’t say things like he used to be able to (you know, in the “good old days”) and that the force thought he was a “dinosaur”, I was going to throw the book out the window. Poor, middle-aged white man, thinking the world is out to get him these days. Oh and we can’t forget that Lulu has a lot of money and doesn’t have any financial worries.

I don’t always mind when I can figure out where the mystery is going but I saw the end of this one coming from a mile away. And it (the mystery, not me figuring it out) made me so mad. I wasn’t particularly enamoured with Lulu but I didn’t dislike her and I hated that she was dealing with such terrible circumstances and news. I wasn’t satisfied at the end when everything was revealed because I hated the pain that was caused and I wasn’t surprised.

I don’t know if it’s because the audiobook narrator didn’t sound old enough but I was constantly forgetting that Lulu was probably in her late fifties, early sixties. Or maybe older. I’m really not sure. Should that have mattered? Nope, not at all. I didn’t mind that she was an older main character. I minded that it didn’t really seem like she was older.

The other thing that really shouldn’t matter but does - there is zero information on L.T. Shearer so it’s clearly a pseudonym. Which is fine. But the little biography that is available is extremely careful about avoiding all gendered language. And not in the way that we should all be careful by not assuming gender or using harmful language. It makes me wonder if it’s a male author which would kind of make sense based on Lulu’s colleague’s attitude and how Lulu didn’t really seem like a fully formed character.

So, no, The Cat Who Caught a Killer was not a winner for me. I kept listening to the book in part because the narrator, Imogen Church, was delightful. There was just enough of a hook in L.T. Shearer’s novel to keep me reading it but I don’t feel the urge to pick up the next book in the series. Not even a talking cat will entice me!

*A copy of this novel was provided by the Canadian distributors, PGC Books, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: Bury the Lead

I’ve been on a real mystery kick the last few years so was thrilled when two Canadian authors I love teamed up to write Bury the Lead, the start of a mystery series that features a small-town journalist. This novel, written by Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti, was one of my most anticipated of the year and I’m so thrilled to say it absolutely lived up to my expectations.

Here’s the book’s description:

A big-city journalist joins the staff of a small-town paper in cottage country and finds a community full of secrets … and murder. Cat Conway has recently returned to Port Ellis to work as a reporter at the Quill & Packet . She’s fled the tattered remains of her high-profile career and bad divorce for the holiday town of her childhood, famous for its butter tarts, theatre, and a century-old feud. One of Cat’s first assignments is to interview legendary actor Eliot Fraser, the lead in the theatre’s season opener of Inherit the Wind. When Eliot ends up dead onstage on opening night, the curtain rises on the sleepy town’s secrets. The suspects include the actor whose career Eliot ruined, the ex-wife he betrayed, the women he abused, and even the baker he wronged. With the attention of the world on Port Ellis, this story could be Cat’s chance to restore her reputation. But the police think she’s a suspect, and the murderer wants to kill the story―and her too. Can Cat solve the mystery before she loses her job or becomes the next victim of a killer with a theatrical bent for vengeance?

I did not see the end of this mystery coming at all! Hilton and Renzetti left cookie crumbs which I, personally, only realized were there after the story was tied up. Which I loved! There are times when I’m thrilled to have figured out whodunit and there are times I’m thrilled to be completely in the dark and have the author(s) deliver the resolution in a tidy little package. I probably would have been happy with either in this case, honestly, because I loved the book and the writing so much, but I did like that it wasn’t easy to spot who the murderer was. I had fun tracking down the clues for the story with Cat and really enjoyed the resolution (as much as one can enjoy reading about murder and finding out someone in town is guilty of killing someone else…).

I’m not always a fan of the amateur sleuth so I wondered how I would feel about Cat, who is not a law professional, working to solve a mystery. Turns out, it was perfection. She didn’t get in the way of the investigation the cops were running. She just stayed in her own lane and chipped away at the many layers covering up the story she wanted to expose. It was well-balanced, not something every mystery writer can do, so I applaud Hilton and Renzetti for giving me a non-police officer mystery protagonist I can root for!

Which brings me to the journalism side of things. I adored it. I admit that might be because I’m a tad biased as my partner is a journalist. It was a weird thing to read about now, I will admit, because there were massive layoffs at the paper he worked for and it’s a strange and kind of scary time for community news. I don’t think people realize how much we need those journalists and newspapers and they just keep disappearing. That terrifying and sad feeling aside, the authors nailed what it’s like to work in news, especially in a small town. Which didn’t surprise me at all as Renzetti is a former (fantastic) journalist herself who still provides pieces to news outlets today. There was one line where Cat’s talking about waiting for the police press conference regarding the murder and she says it will be held sometime “between now and the end of time” and, oof, isn’t that the truth! But even though the journalist angle had a special place in my heart, I think it’s a fresh take on the mystery genre with the bonus of showcasing how community journalism works. Take notes, friends, and pay attention to what’s happening to the news outlets in your area.

I loved that this story also had some commentary on the world today. Eliot was an absolute garbage human being (not that he deserved to die) and his past (and present) brought up the #MeToo movement and how women have been treated for decades. The reason Cat got fired from her TV job is infuriating (and I definitely guessed it before it was revealed which is a bit sad as I hate that female reporters are still being targeted by idiot males). And having multiple generations commenting on what was happening in town (and had happened in the past) was genius. Things aren’t as black and white as we’d like but it should still be easy to determine what is good and bad behaviour.

Finally, I loved the small town setting. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating here: I’m a small town girl and I really love when stories are set outside cities and I love it even more when the author(s) really “get” what it’s like to live in a small town. I figure Port Ellis is supposed to be somewhere in Muskoka and I grew up just south of the traditional Muskoka area but still in an area where cottagers flocked to in the summer. And reading this book felt right and made me miss summers at my grandparents’ house on the shores of Georgian Bay.

Bury the Lead was an amazing novel and it’s definitely in the running to be a favourite read of 2024. Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti have written a thoroughly enjoyable murder mystery with a heroine who is as intriguing as she is intelligent and I cannot wait to read more in the Quill & Packet series. If you’re a mystery fan, you absolutely must pick up this novel.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, House of Anansi, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: The Boy Who Cried Bear

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it lately, but I sure am glad I came across Kelley Armstrong’s Rockton series and I’m doubly glad she’s kept the characters around for Haven’s Rock, a spin-off series that’s not really a spin-off just kinda a continuation of a series but with a different location. Or something. However you want to look at it, I was thrilled to have the chance to hang out with Casey and Dalton in The Boy Who Cried Bear, the second book in Armstrong’s Haven’s Rock series.

Here’s the book’s description:

Haven’s Rock is a well-hidden town surrounded by forest. And it’s supposed to be, being that it’s a refuge for those who need to disappear. Detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton already feel at home in their new town, which reminds them of where they first met in Rockton. And while they know how to navigate the woods and its various dangers, other residents don’t. Which is why people aren't allowed to wander off alone.
When Max, the town’s youngest resident—taught to track animals by Eric—fears a bear is stalking a hiking party, alarms are raised. Even stranger, the ten-year-old swears the bear had human eyes. Casey and Eric know the dangers a bear can present, so they’re taking it seriously. But odd occurrences are happening all around them, and when a dead body turns up, they’re not sure what they’re up against.

Since this is only the second book in the Haven’s Rock series, there’s still a lot to learn about the new hidden town. Casey and Dalton are figuring out how to run the town, who on their staff they can trust implicitly, and, you know, why dead bodies keep turning up. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in charge of protecting folks who have escaped really crappy circumstances, only to have some people disappear and others wind up dead. Turns out living in the middle of nowhere doesn’t mean you’re safe from murder. Who knew?!

The book’s description is vague about the mystery in this one so I won't go into any specific details either. I want you to be as surprised as I was with the twists and turns. I will say that I’m really curious to see what book three will bring (even though I literally just finished book two before I started writing this…the dangers of anticipated books, eh? That you’re so excited about them and then rush through reading it because you just can’t help yourself and now you have to wait for the next one) because, well, there’s a bit of a cliffhanger at the end. Or…maybe not “cliffhanger” but…the bow isn’t as neat as you might want from a mystery. As a mystery reader, I’m a little annoyed but as a reader of this particular series? I totally get it. And I trust that Armstrong has a plan and all will, eventually, be revealed. (But seriously…why do we love book series so much? I think we’re all masochists.)

I love the characters in this series so much. There are a lot of them but they really do all have a purpose. It’s like Haven’s Rock itself. You wouldn’t be there - and definitely wouldn’t be staff - if you didn’t have a particular reason for being there. I loved being able to get more of a glimpse into Casey and Dalton’s married life (they have such a great, and unique, partnership) and see how some of the other former Rockton residents were faring. I will say there’s a side, more personal, storyline, in this one that is one I personally dislike but it’s very much a Me Thing, as much as I wish it hadn’t been brought into the series.

There are a number of times biases, especially around race, come up in this particular story. Armstrong is White (or at least very much White presenting) but Casey is Asian Canadian (I think Chinese but admit I cannot recall exactly) and there are a few other characters who are not White. In this story, Anders and Yolanda talk about being one of the only Black people in their towns. And another resident spews some ridiculous (and harmful) BS right to Casey’s face about “you people” being smart. Ugh, just reading it makes me rage because I know there are real people out there making those same assumptions based solely on racial stereotypes.

I really enjoyed The Boy Who Cried Bear and am so glad I saved it for a long weekend “treat” for myself. Kelley Armstrong has created a great series that’s so enjoyable (if you could call a series that features murders etc. “enjoyable”...) and I already cannot wait for the third installment.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Minotaur, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: Dream Chasers

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve learned in the last few years that I’m not into thrillers but I am into crime/detective mysteries. And, boy, does knowing your own reading tastes improve your reading life or what! After going down the Louise Penny rabbit hole with a friend, I’ve been on a hunt for another Canadian mystery writer to read while waiting for the next Gamache novel (which will be this fall! Yay!). When I saw that Dundurn Press was repackaging Barbara Fradkin’s Inspector Green series, I thought, why not give this a whirl? I enjoyed the writing in Dream Chasers, book six in the series, but struggled with the content of the mystery. I’m still intrigued enough to carry on with the series though.

Here’s the book’s description:

A seventeen-year-old sets out to meet her secret lover by Ottawa’s Hog’s Back Falls. Three days later, her body washes up in the shallows. The public fears a sexual predator is on the loose, but Inspector Green suspects a more personal connection.
His search for answers draws him into the world of elite young athletes, drugs, and teenage sexuality. Then a social worker who knows too much disappears, and blood is found in the house of a star with NHL prospects. Unless Green can unravel the truth, how many others will pay the ultimate price for a young man's dreams?

What drew me into this story was the fact that it was a Canadian writer, setting her crime fiction in Canada. I loved that aspect of it. My best friend used to live in Ottawa so I recognized a lot of the place names and actually think I’ve been near where the murder occurred. It’s just always nice to read books set in Canada and I appreciated it a lot.

Since I knew this was the sixth book in the series, I anticipated feeling a bit behind when it came to the characters - which was fine and didn’t bother me all that much. But, for some reason, my brain assumed some things might be updated with the republished version. This novel was originally published in 2007 and, news flash, that was a long time ago which becomes super apparent in genre fiction. I found it a bit jarring when I was reminded that this book took place so many years ago (asking if cell phones had video and photo capability, for example) and I couldn’t get my head around why a book was republished and not updated. (I am aware my head is the problem and my assumption that it should have been updated is probably wrong.)

What made me both sad and mad was that the whole “his future will be ruined” thing with hockey players (and all athletes). Yeah, it’s still very much a thing in 2024. And that makes me rage. We know that this kind of garbage takes place in the world of sports (I love sports but you can love a thing and still recognize how toxic it is.) but we’re still not doing enough about it. I don’t know what we can do but there’s gotta be something. And maybe that was part of my frustration with the story.

Setting aside the toxicity of the hockey world and how it hasn’t changed much, if at all, since 2007, there were a few other suuuper cringey moments in this book that I just could not let go of - whether that’s fair to the story or not. Green goes to visit the alternative high school his daughter attends to try to find her and encounters the guidance counselor. For some reason, Fradkin felt the need to focus on the fact that the woman was braless and it was very much implied that she was a hippie and therefore below Green’s police officer status. It was subtle, but it was there. Speaking of breasts, (yep, there’s more), back at the high school the murdered girl attended, the female guidance counselor there notices the D cups on one of the students, in part because that counselor is also well-endowed. Why. Why is the reader being told how large a teenager’s cup size is?

Now, even with all the above issues, I am still interested in reading more of Fradkin’s novels, including continuing with this series. I had a few of the same problems with Penny’s Gamache series when I read some of the earlier ones so I’m well aware this is just a product of its time and I’m willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt.

Even though the crime itself and how it was connected to hockey made me deeply uncomfortable, I was still invested in finding the murderer. Fradkin kept me guessing right up until the end and I appreciated that.

While Dream Chasers left a lot to be desired for me personally, I’m still interested enough in Barbara Fradkin’s Inspector Green series to keep checking out the next books. I liked how she wrote the mystery, if not the social commentary inherent in the story, so I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next in the series.

*A copy of this novel was provided by the publisher, Dundurn Press, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: The Mystery Guest

The Maid was one of my favourite books in 2022. Nita Prose wrote an entertaining mystery novel that delighted me, because of both the story and unique heroine she created. I was, therefore, really excited to read The Mystery Guest to see what Molly was up to next. It was a fine novel but really only that - fine. I was never super eager to pick it up and that left me disappointed. Were my expectations too high? Oh, very likely. The mystery had enough of a twist to keep me interested enough but it wasn’t as amazing as I expected.

Here’s the book’s description:

Molly Gray is not like anyone else. With her flair for cleaning and proper etiquette, she has risen through the ranks of the glorious five-star Regency Grand Hotel to become the esteemed Head Maid. But just as her life reaches a pinnacle state of perfection, her world is turned upside down when J.D. Grimthorpe, the world-renowned mystery author, drops dead—very dead—on the hotel’s tea room floor.
When Detective Stark, Molly's old foe, investigates the author’s unexpected demise, it becomes clear that this death was murder most foul. Suspects abound, and everyone wants to who killed J.D. Grimthorpe? Was it Lily, the new Maid-in-Training? Or was it Serena, the author’s secretary? Could Mr. Preston, the hotel’s beloved doorman, be hiding something? And is Molly really as innocent as she seems?
As the case threatens the hotel’s pristine reputation, Molly knows she alone holds the key to unlocking the killer's identity. But that key is buried deep in her past—because long ago, she knew J.D. Grimthorpe. Molly begins to comb her memory for clues, revisiting her childhood and the mysterious Grimthorpe mansion where she and her dearly departed Gran once worked side by side. With the entire hotel under investigation, Molly must solve the mystery post-haste. If there's one thing Molly knows for sure, it's that dirty secrets don't stay buried forever...

I wonder if part of my issue was that Molly was an entertaining and lovely enough character for one book but I don’t know if her quirky personality was something I really needed to read about for another book. And I just didn’t know that until reading the second book. And I use the word quirky intentionally. Many of us speculated - perhaps wrongly - when The Maid was released about whether or not Molly was on the spectrum. Naturally reading a neurodivergent character doesn’t matter to most of us, but I think what was bothersome, to me anyway, was that we seemed to be jumping to conclusions. And we probably shouldn’t have been.

One weird thing that nagged at me was that at the end of The Maid (this isn’t a major spoiler but look away if you hate all spoilers of all kinds), Molly ends up with a boyfriend. (This is not the weird thing! Yay finding happiness in a romantic relationship!) But Prose had him visiting family for the entirety of the second novel. What was the point of having Molly date someone if he wasn’t going to be present in the story? It shouldn’t have mattered but for some reason it really did.

This story flashes back and forth from present day back to when Molly was a young girl and going to work with her grandmother, who had also been a maid, at a fancy house. While this backstory did have an impact on the present day story, I felt it took a little too much time to get to the point. It just seemed, to start, that Prose was making sure we knew how hard Molly’s time at school was (it was brutal and left me feeling uncomfortable and really sad for young Molly). But so what? We already could have assumed that. But eventually I could see what Prose was setting up and I was kept guessing right until the very end.

The mystery, which did keep me guessing, wasn’t the most intricate. I was still entertained and a little surprised by the ending so I consider that a win when it comes to mysteries. (The reveal at the end about the connection between Molly and another character, though? That was not at all a surprise.) With the main mystery, I did like that just when I thought I had it figured out, there was another little nugget thrown in.

All in all, The Mystery Guest wasn’t a winner for me but Nita Prose’s latest novel was still a good enough read. My expectations were probably a little too high, since I loved The Maid SO much and that impacted my enjoyment. I still think it’s worth a read if you really liked The Maid but just maybe keep your own expectations a little lower than mine were. I hope others like it more than I did!

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Penguin Random House Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord

I was so very intrigued by Celeste Connally’s novel Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord. This new mystery series is set during the Regency-era and I’ve been enjoying these fun, historical mystery series featuring female amateur sleuths. This one, though? Meh. I finished it but I was only mildly invested and if it had been a library book? I probably would have DNF-ed it.

Here’s the book’s description:

When Lady Petra Forsyth’s fiancé and soulmate dies just weeks ahead of their wedding, she makes the shocking proclamation—in front of London’s loosest lips—that she will never remarry. A woman of independent means, Petra sees no reason to cede her wealth and freedom to any man now that the love of her life has passed, nor does she intend to become confined to her country home. Instead, she uses her title to gain access to elite spaces and enjoy the best of society without expectations.
But when ballroom gossip suggests that a longtime friend has died of “melancholia” while in the care of a questionable physician, Petra vows to use her status to dig deeper—uncovering a private asylum where men pay to have their wives and daughters locked away, or worse. Just as Lady Petra has reason to believe her friend is not dead, but a prisoner, her own headstrong actions and thirst for independence are used to put her own freedom in jeopardy.

This was the first book in the new Lady Petra Inquires series and also Connally’s first novel. Knowing it was the first in the series made it a little confusing when Petra referenced a number of past escapades on a number of occasions. As it was, I actually had to check a few times to make sure I was right and it WAS the first in a series. It was just so strange that she was mentioning these things that there was no way the reader would have experienced and it was weirdly difficult to let go of the annoyance.

I know historical fiction, romances especially, have a tendency to put our modern sensibilities onto characters who are living in the past. I can normally look past it and enjoy the story for the entertaining romp that it’s supposed to be. But with this one, I wasn’t really sure how I was supposed to be feeling about how progressive Petra was. Was I supposed to be impressed that Petra hated that women were treated like property? Shocked that she had no problem with her best friend’s husband being gay (don’t worry - both her friend and her husband took lovers and their marriage was an amiable, if not a sexual, one)? I was neither impressed nor shocked and maybe that was just because of how the story was written. Maybe it was I found Connally was trying to beat the reader over the head with how open-minded Petra was and I really don’t think that was necessary.

I really only kept reading to find out what had happened to Petra’s friend, Lady Milford, and to see if they could stop whoever it was from harming the women of the ton. And honestly? I think I was disappointed. The mystery had a lot of potential that I just don’t think it lived up to. That could potentially be because I was so deeply uncomfortable with the ultimate villain and the extreme gaslighting (and physical and other emotional abuse) happening. I just wanted it to be over and couldn’t relish Petra solving the case.

Finally, the relationship between Petra and Duncan was so…weird. I’m a big fan of friends to lovers so obviously I wanted them to get over whatever had pushed them apart three years prior and get together romantically. But...I couldn’t really figure out what on earth that incident was. And why they were both so stubborn about it and wanted to stay mad at each other instead of getting over it. The hostility of Petra especially was so confusing. Another thing I couldn't quite let go.

So, all in all, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord was not a winner for me. I don’t think I’ll read the next Lady Petra Inquires book but I think I’d still be interested in reading another of Celeste Connally’s novels in the future.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Minotaur, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: What Wild Women Do

I’ve been reading Karma Brown’s novels for a long time. I’ve met her on numerous occasions and have four of her novels on my signed books bookshelf. (With another that was supposed to be signed at an event in spring 2020 - ha!) What Wild Women Do is her latest and it was phenomenal. I was completely riveted in the novel and devoured it because I just had to know the answers. It’s a must read!

Here’s the book’s description:

A 1970s feminist facing the costs of loss and autonomy strives to create a better future for women at her Adirondack camp; meanwhile, an aspiring screenwriter makes a shocking discovery in the present that sets her on a course of rewriting her own story.
Rowan is stuck. Her dreams of becoming a screenwriter are stalled, along with her bank account, as she and her fiancé Seth try to make sense of what’s next for them after leaving LA. But when the couple takes a trip to a cabin in the Adirondacks, hoping the change will provide inspiration for Seth’s novel-in-progress, Rowan finds herself drawn into a story greater than her own—that of socialite-turned-feminist-crusader Eddie Calloway, who vanished one day in 1975 and was never found or heard from again. In a handbook left behind in the abandoned ruins of a once great camp, Rowan starts to discover clues to what happened to Eddie.
As Rowan delves deeper into the mystery, we meet Eddie herself, a fierce and loving woman whose greatest wish was to host women at her camp and unlock their “wildness.” However, Eddie’s wild ways aren’t welcomed by everyone, and rifts between camp owners threaten her mission. When Rowan gets closer to the truth of Eddie’s disappearance, she realizes that it may hold the key to unlocking her own ambition and future.

Because I’m such a fan of Brown’s books, I didn’t really read too much about this book before starting it. That meant I wasn’t really aware of how much of a mystery this story was going to be. Which I liked! The tension was high without being overwhelming or too “thrillery”, which is not my jam. Clues were dropped but nothing was obvious and it only really made sense at the end - when it was extremely satisfying to know why and how everything happened so many years prior.

Speaking of years prior, this is a dual timeline novel. We follow Rowan in present day (2021, technically) as she and her fiancé escape to the Adirondacks and stumble upon Eddie Calloway’s former camp which, in turn, leads them to learn more about the woman and her disappearance. But we also get chapters from Eddie in the 70s. The alternating was done well and I never felt like either story was being overshadowed. I liked getting to know Eddie and her friends and colleagues in the past and each time we hopped back in time, we learned a little more about her and what could have happened. Rowan and her story is the star but she’s able to shine so brightly thanks to the support provided by Eddie’s storyline.

Rowan’s hunt for answers had a strong journalistic approach to it, which makes sense as Brown used to be a journalist herself. Rowan was intrigued by the story of Eddie and how she disappeared, who wouldn’t be, but she was also deeply concerned with finding out what actually happened and trying to seek justice for Eddie, a woman she never met.

While the mystery in this story is what makes it such a compelling novel, it wouldn’t be as amazing if it weren’t for Brown’s impressive skills in writing emotional stories. I felt everything deeply, right alongside the characters. I was invested and concerned and hoped for the best for everyone, even when I knew that might be difficult. And I had those feelings because Brown is such a damn good author.

What Wild Women Do is another fantastic novel from the incredibly talented Karma Brown. If you haven’t yet read books from this (Canadian!) author, you must change that and I highly recommend starting with her latest. I think you’ll love it too!

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Penguin Random House Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: A Traitor in Whitehall

I’ve been happily reading Julia Kelly’s historical fiction novels since the publication of The Whispers of War in 2020 - which I LOVED (review here). I’m always excited when she has something new being published but I was especially excited when I learned her 2023 release would be a historical mystery. A Traitor in Whitehall is the first in a new series and I absolutely devoured it. It was so good!

Here’s the book’s description:

1940, England: Evelyne Redfern, known as “The Parisian Orphan” as a child, is working on the line at a munitions factory in wartime London. When Mr. Fletcher, one of her father’s old friends, spots Evelyne on a night out, Evelyne finds herself plunged into the world of Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s cabinet war rooms.
However, shortly after she settles into her new role as a secretary, one of the girls at work is murdered, and Evelyne must use all of her amateur sleuthing expertise to find the killer. But doing so puts her right in the path of David Poole, a cagey minister’s aide who seems determined to thwart her investigations. That is, until Evelyne finds out David’s real mission is to root out a mole selling government secrets to Britain’s enemies, and the pair begrudgingly team up.
With her quick wit, sharp eyes, and determination, will Evelyne be able to find out who’s been selling England’s secrets and catch a killer, all while battling her growing attraction to David?

I’ve been learning more about what kinds of mysteries I enjoy as I’ve been reading more and more of them. I don’t always love amateur sleuths but this one worked for me. I think because I could tell Evelyne was being groomed for working as a spy for the government during the war. Truthfully, that’s one of my catnip stories - show me a book about a female spy during World War II and I’ll grab it right out of your hands. The mystery itself was, I felt, well-written. I was always a step behind Evelyne and David and had no idea how it was going to all wrap up and that’s the way I like it. I was invested and intrigued the whole way through.

The description hints at a romance between Evelyne and David but don’t let that detract you if you’re not a lover of love stories. A frisson of attraction is there but it is so not the point of this story. I have a feeling they tucked that in there to appease the (mostly female) readers of the current historical fiction fad (you know, the types of books I love!). I liked the inclusion of the will-they-won’t-they because, for most people, love is a part of life and it made the story feel more authentic. Am I hoping they get together romantically in a future book? Absolutely. Will I be mad if it doesn’t happen in the next one? Definitely not. I’m here for the history and the mystery, not the romance!

Evelyne was a great character to spend time with. She had a past that was intriguing but she didn’t let it bother her or get in her way. She was smart and had a wonderful and loyal best friend. She was thrust into a wild situation and handled it well - and when she struggled, she learned from her mistakes. I cared about her so much by the end of the novel and I’m so glad this book is just the first in a series. I cannot wait to read more about Evelyne and see what she gets into next.

If you’ve read Kelly before, you know she’s a great writer of history. She never falls into the dreaded info dump trap and always manages to make you feel like you’re right there in the story with the characters. The novel starts near the beginning of WWII and I found it weirdly difficult to know that the bombing that’s begun during this story is only going to get worse for the characters. I also enjoyed the peek into Churchill’s War Rooms because I’m planning on visiting when I’m in London later this year.

As I’ve been writing this review, I’ve realized something: this book reminded me a little of Iona Whishaw’s Lane Winslow mystery series, which I absolutely ADORE. It’s well-written with a focus on history and a well-crafted mystery. The main character isn’t actually an investigator but she has a background/future in spying and other types of sleuthing. And she’s smart and someone who you love to read about. So, if you’ve enjoyed Whishaw’s novels, you might want to consider Kelly’s latest.

I loved A Traitor in Whitehall so much and am really glad Julia Kelly decided to try her (talented) hand at historical mysteries. I can’t wait for the next book in the series. Fans of mysteries will enjoy this novel just as much as historical fiction fans will. Pick it up - you won’t regret it!

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Minotaur, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: The Raging Storm

Having recently-ish realized how much I enjoy reading mysteries, particularly of the crime variety, I jumped at the chance to start reading Ann Cleeves’ Two Rivers series when it started with The Long Call. I enjoyed the first book (review here), the second a little less so (review here), but I was still interested in reading The Raging Storm, book three and published in early September. It didn’t quite live up to my expectations and, sadly, I don’t know if I’ll continue with the series.

Here’s the book’s description:

When Jem Rosco - sailor, adventurer and legend - blows in to the local pub, The Maiden's Prayer, in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone are delighted.
The whole place has a strange, unreal quality, the village that time forgot. Backed by a worked-out quarry, with a shingle beach and a north-facing quay, there's little to recommend it to tourists.
When Rosco disappears again, they think nothing of it; that's the sort of man he is. Until the lifeboat is launched to a hoax call-out and his body is found in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own.
This is an uncomfortable case for Venn. Greystone is a stronghold of the Barum Brethren and he came here as a child. Faith and superstition mix as another body is found in Scully, and Matthew finds his judgement clouded.
The wind continues to howl, and he realizes that his own life is in danger.

The mystery - paired with the descriptions of the town where the murder took place - was what kept me reading The Raging Storm. I was intrigued and wanted to know how Rosco ended up dead and Cleeves was spinning a tale that kept me guessing. There was just enough tension to keep me on my toes without being too intense (I read mysteries, not thrillers, for a reason!).

Even though I read mysteries for the, well, mystery, I still like to feel invested in the characters. With this one, it honestly could have been any nameless, faceless cops who were solving the case. The three officers who were investigating could have been anyone and felt so incredibly two-dimensional, and that includes Matthew Venn, who’s the anchor of this series. It’s hard to criticize Venn sometimes since he seems to have some well-hidden and well-managed anxiety, past trauma, or something similar that keeps him from connecting with people. Unfortunately, in writing, he comes across as standoffish and it’s hard to care about a character like that. Not that we need to care about the characters but I think that’s a hope of Cleeves, that we’ll be so invested in Venn and the mysteries he solves that we’ll keep coming back for more.

Honestly, I don’t have much more to say about The Raging Storm. I wanted to like the latest novel from Ann Cleeves but it came up short in many ways. Maybe someday I’ll try another of her books but, for now, I’ll take a pass on any further Matthew Venn novels.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the Canadian distributor of this novel, Publishers Group Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own*

Review: Speak for the Dead

Amy Tector’s The Honeybee Emeralds was one of my favourite books of 2022 (review here). I was thrilled to start her new mystery series, The Dominion Archives, later in the year with The Foulest Things (review here) but it left me feeling…unsatisfied. Speak for the Dead is the next book in the mystery series and it jumps ahead in time to present day but…it still didn’t thrill me - which is such a disappointment.

Here’s the book’s description:

It's a steamy summer Ottawa day when Dr Cate Spencer is called out to the nitrate facility to investigate an apparent suicide. The eerie building is filled with deteriorating nitrate film that could literally spontaneously combust. When Cate's life is threatened by a stray spark, she suspects the suicide might be murder. Despite pressure from the police to pronounce a cause quickly, Cate is bloody-minded enough to keep investigating. Whether she's looking for answers because of her dedication to justice, or as a distraction from the grief she feels over her brother's recent death, her inquiries plunge her into a world of military secrets, contentious Indigenous protests and a seventy-year-old mystery with deadly implications.

Now, I’ll be honest, I read this book months ago (it was published in March and I read it right around pub day) but I’ve put off writing the review. I wanted to love the book, probably more than I want to love most, because I knew it had a lot of heavy lifting to do if it wanted to make me love the series. It had promise, you see, but ultimately, I couldn’t get into the story.

Part of the reason I wasn’t really invested was because I didn’t like the main character. I KNOW that I don’t have to like them. Trust me. But if I don’t like them, I need to at least be intrigued by them and with Cate? I didn’t care. I think I was mad at her for her drinking - which absolutely was not fair of me. Addictions can’t be helped and she wasn’t getting the medical help she needed. I was sad for her too. Her grief was so palpable, and hadn't been dealt with appropriately, and I desperately wanted her to be OK.

I was also initially thrown by the fact that this book took place so long after the first in the series and didn’t feature a museum worker but instead a coroner. I don’t know why that stuck out for me so much but here we are. I liked that Cate was a coroner (why, yes, I did  watch CSI back in the day) as it provided a different look at the mystery. But I think I missed the museum connection just a little bit.

Speak for the Dead should have been a book I liked. I know Amy Tector has talent but something about these mysteries that are a part of her Dominion Archives series has been leaving me feeling flat. I’m still hopeful her next book will wow me because I know she can and the idea behind this series does intrigue me.

*An ARC of this novel was provided by the author in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: A Spinster’s Guide to Danger and Dukes

Historical rom coms with a dash of mystery and intrigue was not a genre mashup I thought I needed but here we are, loving every one I read. Manda Collins’ series (Ladies Most Scandalous) has been so damn enjoyable to read and A Spinster’s Guide to Danger and Dukes, released back in March, was no exception. It was a delight!

Here’s the book’s description:

England, 1867: Miss Poppy Delamare is living a lie. To escape an odious betrothal, she fled to London where she’s been hiding as the unassuming secretary Flora Deaver. However, when her beloved sister is accused of murder, Poppy cannot leave her to the wolves. Only a most unexpected—and unwelcome—collision interrupts her journey home . . .
Despite a rather dismal first meeting, Joshua Fielding, the Duke of Langham, has no intention of abandoning a lady in need. But he’s not above asking a favor. A fake betrothal will give Poppy and her sister the power of the dukedom and protect Langham from the society misses intent on becoming his duchess.
Yet the longer the ruse goes on, the more Poppy and Langham realize how false their first impressions were—and the less pretend their engagement feels. But before Langham can propose in truth, their search reveals a tangled web of lies and betrayals. With time running out, can Poppy and Langham find the real culprit—before Poppy becomes the next victim?

You could tell in the first two books (and especially the second) in this series that Poppy (known as Flora) was hiding something. I don’t think I would have guessed what it was though so that was a, well, I don’t want to say it was a nice surprise because the life she was running from did not sound like a nice one. But I liked that Collins was able to surprise me with the information about Poppy’s past.

The fake engagement trope can be a lot of fun to read - or extremely vexing. Thankfully, Collins’ story is the former. Granted, I couldn’t quite see how pretending to be betrothed to the duke would benefit Poppy but I was happy to go along for what was sure to be an entertaining and very bumpy ride. Langham, a man (and a duke at that), would naturally emerge from a broken engagement with his honour still intact. My concern was for Poppy. Even though the duke’s powers should help her sister, I knew that if the engagement was called off or even called into question, she would be judged by the ton and would definitely be found wanting. But she was a smart lady so if she thought a fake engagement could help, well who was I to stop her? (Not that I could, of course. She’s, you know, a fictional character.)

The mystery and hijinks in this story kept me guessing the whole way through and I definitely couldn’t have predicted the ending. I love that Collins can not only combine a frothy historical romance with a cleverly laid out mystery but combine it so well. Of all the recent historical mystery rom coms I’ve read, this was probably the one with the most sinister of mysteries. It was almost over the top but somehow, it worked! (And yes, I’m sure all that seems incredibly vague but I’m not about to give out any spoilers!)

I’m not sure if A Spinster's Guide to Danger and Dukes will be the last in this series - I hope it won’t be. But if Manda Collins has decided this is it for her Ladies Most Scandalous series, well, I guess I’ll just have to read whatever she writes next! I might even dive into her backlist sometime soon. This series is a fun one and you should pick it up if you’re looking for rom coms that are a little different than you’re used to - I think you’ll really like them too!

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Forever, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*  

Review: The Late Mrs. Willoughby

Claudia Gray’s The Murder of Mr. Wickham was one of my absolute favourite books of 2022 (review here). All of Jane Austen’s characters together at a house party and a murder has to be solved? Oh, I was in. All in! I wasn’t sure how the second book in Gray’s series would be like but I’m thrilled to report that I absolutely adored The Late Mrs. Willoughby.

Here’s the book’s description:

Catherine and Henry Tilney of Northanger Abbey are not entirely pleased to be sending their eligible young daughter Juliet out into the world again: the last house party she attended, at the home of the Knightleys, involved a murder—which Juliet helped solve. Particularly concerning is that she intends to visit her new friend Marianne Brandon, who's returned home to Devonshire shrouded in fresh scandal—made more potent by the news that her former suitor, the rakish Mr. Willoughby, intends to take up residence at his local estate with his new bride.
Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley are thrilled that their eldest son, Jonathan—who, like his father, has not always been the most socially adept—has been invited to stay with his former schoolmate, John Willoughby. Jonathan himself is decidedly less taken with the notion of having to spend extended time under the roof of his old bully, but that all changes when he finds himself reunited with his fellow amateur sleuth, the radiant Miss Tilney. And when shortly thereafter, Willoughby's new wife—whom he married for her fortune—dies horribly at the party meant to welcome her to town.
With rumors flying and Marianne—known to be both unstable and previously jilted by the dead woman's newly made widower—under increased suspicion, Jonathan and Juliet must team up once more to uncover the murderer. But as they collect clues and close in on suspects, eerie incidents suggest that the killer may strike again, and that the pair are in far graver danger than they or their families could imagine.

Normally I get kind of annoyed by amateur sleuths. There may be problems with police all over the place but they’re the ones who should, technically be investigating crimes. That’s probably why I don’t read a whole lot of cozy mysteries anymore - those “detectives” just get in the way of the professionals and I’m always worried about the consequences of their meddling. For some reason, though, that didn’t bother me with this book. Perhaps because it’s historical and today’s rigorous rules and laws don’t apply. I wasn’t as worried that Jonathan and Juliet were going to completely screw up the case. In fact, I had more faith in them than the local constabulary!

At times it seems like Gray was trying too hard to sound like Jane Austen and it came across as if someone had time travelled and was attempting to speak like the characters they’ve watched in movies. But it was a very minimal annoyance. I only mention it because I did notice it and think others would appreciate the heads up that the historical language may not be up to their standards.

Speaking of Austen, there weren’t as many of her characters in this novel, which was probably wise. There was no logical way for Gray to get them all together again so I was happy with how she managed to bring some characters together again. Austenites will appreciate hanging out with the whole crew from Sense and Sensibility but non-Austen readers shouldn’t be put off by reading about characters they’ve never met before.

Back to the mystery - I really wasn’t sure who the murderer was going to be and I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped when they were revealed. Gray had a number of red herrings that I totally fell for and I kind of appreciate that. I’m often more annoyed than proud of myself when I can see how a murder investigation is going to be solved. I like being led down winding paths of confusion so I’m shocked at the end when all is revealed!

I loved The Late Mrs. Willoughby and I already cannot wait for the next book in this series from Claudia Gray. Her mysteries are clever and I love being able to spend time with Jane Austen’s characters as Gray imagines them. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Jonathan and Juliet end up at Pemberley together next!

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Penguin Random House Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.* 

Review: To Track a Traitor

I’ve talked (at length) about how I was very late to the Lane Winslow mysteries and how glad I was to finally pick up the first book in the series, A Killer in King’s Cove, back in 2021. Just, you know, 6 years after it had been published. I’ve caught up on Iona Whishaw’s amazing historical mysteries and was, like many readers, eagerly awaiting the publication of book 10 (!!), To Track a Traitor, which was finally published in April. Was it worth the wait? You bet!

Here’s the book’s description:

It’s an early morning in May when Lane is pulled from a deep sleep by a concerning phone call from Scotland—her grandfather has had a heart attack. Lane hastily makes plans to fly overseas, and a dejected Inspector Darling prepares himself for a stint of bachelorhood. But before he can begin to dwell on it the Nelson Police learn that Ben Arden, a local cad, has gone out for a late-night boat ride and not returned, which immediately sets the town rumour mill churning.
In Scotland Lane finds her grandfather on the mend but her estranged sister Diana caught up in stressful—and mysterious—circumstances of her own. As Lane follows the thread leading from South Africa to Aberdeen to the War Office in London it becomes apparent that her sister is on the run, and that keeping secrets seems to be a Winslow family trait.
Back at the Nelson Police station a strange assemblage of clues begins to amass around the Arden case, stretching from the local printshop all the way back to the Great War. But progress is interrupted when the mayor himself issues a demand that Darling travel to England to tie up a decades-old mystery with local connections. True to form, upon Darling’s arrival in London he is quickly swept up in Lane’s mission, which threatens to endanger the entire family.

Lane’s sister has been a bit of a mystery for the entire series. Lane and Diana clearly don’t have much of a relationship but there were only allusions to why that might be. I really enjoyed getting to know Lane’s family even more in this book, especially as it gave a little more insight into why Lane is the way she is. And, interestingly enough, how some traits clearly run in the family.

I don’t think I particularly liked the stress put on Lane and Darling’s relationship (er, spoiler alert) but I also understand why Whishaw would have included it in the story. They’re still newlyweds and learning how to live with, not only their spouse, but with another person for the first time in many, many years. Both Lane and Darling are older (for the time…I’m pretty sure Lane is only in her late 20s, possibly early 30s) and never really pictured married life for themselves. It’s a huge adjustment. So, while I was sad that one of my favourite fictional couples was facing some relationship problems, it made a lot of sense.

As always, the history and the mystery play equally important roles in the story. It’s part of why I love this series so much, honestly. There are always a few mysteries that require solving and I can never make sense of the clues before Lane and Darling (or Darling’s right-hand man, Ames) have figured out the whole case. I like that I’m kept guessing through the whole book. And I like that I’m learning more about Canadian history while waiting to find out whodunit. This time, Whishaw shared details about both world wars and what it would have been like for various people during that time. Interesting, as always!

As eagerly as I was awaiting To Track a Traitor, I’m now sad that I’ve finished Iona Whishaw’s latest book! I’m going to have to wait so long for the next story in Lane Winslow’s series and waiting is so hard! If you like historical fiction and mysteries, you really must read this series. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

*An ARC of this novel was provided by the publisher, Touchwood Editions, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: The Poisoner’s Ring

I was very late to the Kelley Armstrong game, having only read my first book by her in 2020 - a whopping 19 years after her first published book. Since then, I’ve devoured her Rockton series and have been thoroughly enjoying her latest series which began with A Rip Through Time, published last year. (Review here.) The Poisoner’s Ring is the next book in that series and just published this week. I was so glad to be back with Mallory, Gray, Isla, and McCreadie and, dare I say it, I think I liked this one more than the first!

Here’s the book’s description:

Edinburgh, 1869: Modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson is adjusting to her new life in Victorian Scotland. Her employers know she’s not housemaid Catriona Mitchell―even though Mallory is in Catriona’s body―and Mallory is now officially an undertaker’s assistant. Dr. Duncan Gray moonlights as a medical examiner, and their latest case hits close to home. Men are dropping dead from a powerful poison, and all signs point to the grieving widows… the latest of which is Gray’s oldest sister.
Poison is said to be a woman’s weapon, though Mallory has to wonder if it’s as simple as that. But she must tread carefully. Every move the household makes is being watched, and who knows where the investigation will lead.

This is a mystery novel first, historical novel second. I think Armstrong recognized some of her missteps in book one and took pains to do more research to make the setting more believable and accurate. As a huge historical fiction reader, I appreciated that. But as a mystery reader, I cared a wee bit more about the whodunit. And by cared I mean I was totally addicted and had no idea how the case would be resolved. Armstrong had me guessing right to the end and I loved it.

I think I liked this one more than the first because Mallory was already in the past and wasn’t actively trying to get back to the present. Oh, she wants to return home, of course. But she does enjoy her new life, even with all the weirdness. I was able to get to know the characters and the setting more in this book, rather than focusing on said weirdness that was how Mallory ended up in the past.

The novel was really fast-paced, as you’d expect from a mystery. I love how smart all the main characters are and yet never felt like an idiot for not picking up on the clues they were seeing. I am but a mere library staffer, not a homicide detective. Shouting about how great the library is is more up my alley than sniffing out clues to find out who murdered someone. But the point is, the clues are there and I was perfectly happy not understanding how they all worked together until the big reveal at the end. The resolution of the case was satisfying - though I wish the court of public opinion was kinder.

Kelley Armstrong’s latest book, The Poisoner’s Ring, was an entertaining read that kept me engaged from start to finish. It’s not perfect but it’s incredibly enjoyable and that makes it a win in my books. I’m really loving this series and cannot wait until the next book!

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Minotaur Books, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: The Foulest Things

Amy Tector’s The Honeybee Emeralds was one of my favourite books of 2022 (review here). So, it was with high expectations that I dove into The Foulest Things, the first book in a new series from Tector that featured a heroine working at the Dominion Archives. Mystery? Archives? I was super intrigued! Unfortunately, the book as a whole left me underwhelmed BUT I’m still really excited about book two, Speak for the Dead, which releases in March.

Here’s the book’s description:

Ottawa, January 2010. Canada’s historic Dominion Archives.
Junior archivist Jess Kendall is struggling to find her footing in her new role. Her colleagues undermine her, her boss hates her, and her only romantic prospect hides a whiskey bottle in his desk. Desperate to make a good impression, Jess’s prospects begin to change when she discovers a series of mysterious letters chronicling life in Paris at the start of the Great War. Thinking she has landed her ticket to career advancement, Jess dives into research in Dominion’s art vault, where she stumbles upon the body of one of her colleagues.
As if finding a corpse isn’t frightening enough, Jess soon notices she is being stalked by a menacing figure. It’s only when Jess makes the connection between the letters, the murder, and a priceless Rembrandt that she realizes just how high the stakes are. Can Jess salvage her career, unravel a World War I–era mystery, shake off her ominous stalker, solve a murder, and—oh yeah—save her own life before it’s too late?

One of my big issues was with Jess herself. I liked her, I really did. But I also thought she was an idiot. And idiots who go around trying to solve mysteries like Nancy Drew don’t sit well with me. She was young, I get that. But here’s the thing - I was close to, if not exactly, the same age she was in 2010 and some of her behaviour just didn’t make much sense. Your first grown up job out of university is a big deal. You don’t know how to act and you’re constantly trying to prove that you’re not a child and you do know your stuff. That, I understood. But some of the other things, which seem so small and minor that I can’t even remember specifics, left me wanting to shake Jess and tell her to use her big, beautiful brain because I knew she had one.

There were some storyline threads that only added to the clunky story (I glazed over any time the story mentioned her mom) and I really, really did not like the epilogue. I found myself getting confused sometimes - either by the storyline or the way the characters were acting. I could just see the glimmering nugget of the heart of the story, waiting to be let free, and I was sad it never really got to shine the way I thought it could.

The actual idea of this book? Oh, I was so in. I worked at a museum for a year and museums and archives have always been fascinating to me so I was really drawn to the fact that this book was set at the Dominion Archives in Ottawa. I liked that Jess was trying to track down items and find the truth of what really happened. I liked the history and mystery weaving together. That’s why I kept reading and why I’m still hopeful that book two will be better.

Clearly, The Foulest Things was not a winner from me. But I still plan to read Amy Tector’s next book in the Dominion Archives mystery series because I am still holding out hope that the brilliant idea she had will come through as an equally brilliant novel. Let’s keep those fingers crossed!

*An ARC of this novel was provided by the author in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: The Enigma of Room 622

Every once and awhile I think to myself, “Let’s spread our book reading wings a little bit, Kaley, and try something a little different.” Sometimes it works and I find a book I love. And sometimes…well…sometimes it leads me to hate reading a mystery that seemed like it should be a good fit for me and is just really, really not. That happened with The Enigma of Room 622 by Joël Dicker. I don’t even really know what I read, to be honest.

Here's the book’s description:

A writer named Joël, Switzerland’s most prominent novelist, flees to the Hôtel de Verbier, a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. Disheartened over a recent breakup and his longtime publisher’s death, Joël hopes to rest. However, his plans quickly go awry. It all starts with a seemingly innocuous detail: at the Verbier, there is no room 622.
Before long, Joël and fellow guest Scarlett uncover a long-unsolved murder that transpired in the hotel's room 622. The attendant circumstances: the succession of Switzerland’s largest private bank, a mysterious counterintelligence operation called P-30, and a most disreputable sabotage of hotel hospitality. A European phenomenon, The Enigma of Room 622 is a matryoshka doll of intrigue–as precise as a Swiss watch–and Dicker’s most diabolically addictive thriller yet.

The book hit my radar at a HarperCollins Canada influencer event. I thought it sounded a little different and like a mystery I could really sink my teeth into. What I ended up getting was a convoluted mystery that the author inserted himself into. I think? Or maybe he was just writing the mystery and turning it into a novel? Or maybe he just made the whole thing up? Smarter readers than I may have it all figured out, but I still don’t know what was real and what was a novel within the novel. And that kind of drove me bananas.

I also didn’t like how the story was written. I don’t know if it was because it was a translation (from French and translated by Robert Bononno) but it felt so choppy and I couldn’t find a good rhythm. And it wasn’t just how the sentences were constructed that I had an issue with. I just didn’t find that the flow of it made any sense whatsoever. It jumped around in time and I couldn’t keep track of much of anything. Then there were a million reveals at the end of the book so I didn’t even get a satisfying conclusion.

I didn’t particularly care about the characters either. I doubt I was supposed to like them but I’m a reader who likes to at least find the characters intriguing even if I don’t particular like them. I don’t think I would have cared if any of them had gone to jail for the murder. As it is, I’ve totally forgotten who committed the crime.

No, The Enigma of Room 622 was not a winner for me. I’m sure there’s an audience for Joël Dicker’s novel but I, unfortunately, was not it.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, HarperCollins Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: The Ghosts of Paris

I had heard of Tara Moss’s novel The War Widow when it first came out but never got around to reading it. When I saw that book two, The Ghosts of Paris, was being released, I thought maybe I should check them out. I listened to The War Widow and it was a fine story but didn’t totally blow me away. I was intrigued, though, and wanted to read The Ghosts of Paris anyway. I’m glad I did because I liked it more than the first!

Here’s the book’s description:

It's 1947. The world continues to grapple with the fallout of the Second World War, and former war reporter Billie Walker is finding her feet as an investigator. When a wealthy client hires Billie and her assistant Sam to track down her missing husband, the trail leads Billie back to London and Paris, where Billie's own painful memories also lurk. Jack Rake, Billie's wartime lover and, briefly, husband, is just one of the millions of people who went missing in Europe during the war. What was his fate after they left Paris together?
As Billie's search for her client's husband takes her to both the swanky bars at Paris's famous Ritz hotel and to the dank basements of the infamous Paris morgue, she'll need to keep her gun at the ready, because something even more terrible than a few painful memories might be following her around the city of lights . . .

I can’t put my finger on what it was about book one that didn’t thrill me. The story was interesting - I’m all for Nazis getting their comeuppance - but Billie still felt…unknown to me. Which, I suppose, did make some sense. She has a good reason for being super guarded. She had her heart broken after the war, not to mention all the trauma of living through the war as a reporter (and, just, you know, a human). Maybe it's because I already had a basic understanding of her, but book two just worked better for me, even if the mystery itself wasn’t as impactful as the one in the first.

I do really love Billie. She’s what I hope I would have been like after the war, I think. She worked throughout and did not accept that she had to go back to her little corner with the rest of the women and not make noise. No, sir. That’s not happening. She’s smart and talented, but she’s broken. This book shows the cracks and rips her open even more. It’s an emotional ride, let me tell you.

This may be a historical fiction, with a hefty dose of mystery and intrigue, but there is some romance sprinkled in as well. (Duh, of course I would read a book like that.) I can’t decide which of the three (!) men in Billie’s orbit I want her to end up with. All of them have solid reasons for being worthy of her but she’s not quite ready for any of them. Clearly I’m all in for the next book already!

I liked that Billie is Australian. It adds another perspective to the bazillion World War II novels out there. Sure, it’s yet another Allied country that is very similar to Great Britain, Canada, and the US, but every country had their own unique worries and concerns and I’d like Moss to focus on Australia's a little bit more in the next book.

The historical elements of the novel were really interesting. I’m leaning more into the post-WWII stories lately because there’s a ton of hardship that still happened after the war officially ended that we don’t often focus on. Maybe it’s because we’re dealing with our own global trauma at the moment with the pandemic that these types of things hit a bit harder (no, war does not equal global pandemic but it’s the closest we, in North America, can come to understanding things right now). Moss, thankfully, seemed to tone down explaining every single outfit Billie was wearing but I still got a good sense of the fashion of the time. The description of the flight Billie and Sam had to take from Sydney to London was a hoot and I don’t know how anyone would have been able to deal with such a stupidly long flight with so many stops (I think Billie listed every one when she was talking to her mother and it was…a lot).

The Ghosts of Paris was an entertaining read and I enjoyed the look at post-war Sydney, London, and Paris that Tara Moss provided. Billie Walker continues to be a heroine I’m loving and I’ll for sure pick up the next book in this series. 

*An ARC of this novel was provided by the publisher, HarperCollins Canada, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*