strange and random happenstance

Death in Castle Dark by Veronica Bond
Published by: Berkley
Publication Date: August 3rd, 2021
Format: Paperback, 288 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Actor Nora Blake finds her dream job when she is cast in a murder-mystery troupe that performs in an imposing but captivating old castle. When she stumbles upon a real murder, things take a nightmarish turn in this first book in an exciting new series.

Maybe it was too good to be true, but when Nora Blake accepted the job from Derek Corby, proprietor of Castle Dark, she could not see any downsides. She would sink her acting chops into the troupe’s intricately staged murder-mystery shows, earn free room and board in the fairy tale - like castle, and make friends with her new roommates, which include some seriously adorable kittens.

But something sinister lurks behind the walls of Castle Dark. During Nora’s second performance, one of her castmates plays the part of the victim a little too well. So well, in fact, that no one can revive him. He has been murdered. Not ready to give up her dream gig - or to be the next victim - Nora sets out to see which one of her fellow actors has taken the role of a murderous real-life villain."

It's like Austenland's darker sequel, Midnight in Austenland!

Murder Always Barks Twice by Jennifer Hawkins
Published by: Berkley Books
Publication Date: August 3rd, 2021
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A charming tea room owner and her excitable talking corgi will need to work together to bring a killer to heel in this delightful cozy mystery.

For ex-accountant Emma Reed and her beloved corgi, Oliver, opening Reed's Classic Tea and Cakes in the idyllic village of Trevena in Cornwall has been the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Her cakes are popular, she has a host of wonderful new friends, and even a potential new romance. There's even time left over for plenty of long country walks with Oliver, who is not only the cutest corgi on record (at least to Emma), he happens to talk (at least to Emma). What could be better?

How about being asked to help cater the local Daphne Du Maurier literary festival?

But when the festival organizer is found dead and foul play is suspected, Emma, Oliver and their friends are plunged deep into a poisonous mix of village jealousy, family tension, money troubles, and secret love affairs. Emma quickly realizes it's up to her and her intrepid corgi to discover a canny killer whose bite is worse than their bark."

I want to live in a world with corgi crime solvers and Daphne Du Maurier literary festivals! I've watched enough Midsomer Murders to hopefully survive!

Escape to Honeysuckle Hall by Rebecca Raisin
Published by: HQ Digital
Publication Date: August 3rd, 2021
Format: Kindle, 258 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A fresh start brings a second chance at love...

When Orly’s boyfriend and business partner dumps her for a celebrity fling, she finds solace in tacos, tequila and tears. One terrible hangover later, she’s packed her bags and swapped her London apartment for the overgrown grounds of Honeysuckle Hall.

After years spent catering to others’ whims, Orly is going after what she wants: a simpler life, surrounded by nature. Her plan to set up countryside retreats for burned-out city-dwellers means she soon has the social life she’s been dreaming of – and gorgeous carpenter Leo is always around when she needs something fixed...

As Orly’s new life blossoms, so does her friendship with Leo, and she wonders if she’s finally found somewhere to put down roots - until she discovers a series of anonymous notes, warning her off. Was she wrong to trust Leo? Or is someone else trying to sabotage her future?

A heartwarming romance full of humour and friendship, perfect for fans of Debbie Johnson and Holly Martin."

I want to ditch my apartment and go to Honeysuckle Hall as well! At least I can through my frequent flyer miles with armchair air!

Her Heart for a Compass by Sarah Ferguson
Published by: William Morrow
Publication Date: August 3rd, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 560 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From one of the most famous former members of the British royal family, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York  - a mesmerizing novel of a young noblewoman’s coming-of-age that richly details both high society and low in Victorian England.

Queen Victoria’s close friend, the Scottish Duke of Buccleuch, Lady Margaret Montagu Scott is expected to make an advantageous marriage. But Margaret is an impulsive and outspoken girl in a repressive society where women are, quite literally, caged in corsets and required to conform.

When Lady Margaret’s parents arrange a society marriage for her, she tries to reconcile herself to the match. But shortly before her betrothal is announced, Margaret flees, leaving her parents to explain her sudden absence to an opulent ballroom stuffed with two hundred distinguished guests.

Banished from polite society, Margaret throws herself into charitable work and finds strength in a circle of female friends like herself - women intent on breaking the mold, including Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Louise. Margaret resolves to follow her heart - a journey of self-discovery that will take her to Ireland, America, and then back to Britain where she finds the life she was always meant to lead.

A bold and thoughtful story about a rebellious woman finding herself and her voice in an age of astounding technological change and great social unrest, Her Heart for a Compass is a delicious costume drama rich in atmosphere, history, and color."

Fergie wrote a book!?! And OK, I'm REALLY behind on the times because she's written a TON of books! Also, Diana Rigg played the Duchess of Buccleuch on Victoria!

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee
Published by: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: August 3rd, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A dark, twisty, atmospheric thriller about a centuries-old, ivy-covered boarding school haunted by its history of witchcraft and two girls dangerously close to digging up the past. The fierce and dangerous romance and evocative setting makes it a perfect read for Pride month and for fans of dark academia vibes.

Felicity Morrow is back at the Dalloway School to finish her senior year after the tragic death of her girlfriend. She even has her old room in Godwin House, the exclusive dormitory rumored to be haunted by the spirits of five Dalloway students - girls some say were witches.

Felicity was once drawn to the dark legacy of witchcraft. She's determined to leave that behind her now; but it's hard when Dalloway's occult history is everywhere. And when the new girl won't let her forget it.

It's Ellis Haley's first year at Dalloway. A prodigy novelist at seventeen, Ellis is eccentric and brilliant, and Felicity can't shake the pull she feels to her. So when Ellis asks Felicity for help researching the Dalloway Five for her second book, Felicity can't say no. And when history begins to repeat itself, Felicity will have to face the darkness in Dalloway - and in herself."

Haunted boarding school? Yes please!

Where the Truth Lies by Anna Bailey
Published by: Atria Books
Publication Date: August 3rd, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"When a teenaged girl disappears from an insular small town, all of the community’s most devastating secrets come to light in this stunningly atmospheric and slow-burning suspense novel - perfect for fans of Megan Miranda and Celeste Ng.

The town of Whistling Ridge guards its secrets.

When seventeen-year-old Abigail goes missing, her best friend Emma, compelled by the guilt of leaving her alone at a party in the woods, sets out to discover the truth about what happened. The police initially believe Abi ran away, but Emma doesn't believe that her friend would leave without her, and when officers find disturbing evidence in the nearby woods, the festering secrets and longstanding resentment of both Abigail’s family and the people of Whistling Ridge, Colorado begin to surface with devastating consequences.

Among those secrets: Abi's older brother Noah’s passionate, dangerous love for the handsome Rat, a recently arrived Romanian immigrant who has recently made his home in the trailer park in town; her younger brother Jude's feeling that he knows information he should tell the police, if only he could put it into words; Abi's father's mercurial, unpredictable rages and her mother's silence. Then there is the rest of Whistling Ridge, where a charismatic preacher advocates for God's love in language that mirrors violence, under the sway of the powerful businessman who rules the town, insular and wary of outsiders.

But Abi had secrets, too, and the closer Emma grows to unraveling the past, the farther she feels from her friend. And in a tinder box of small-town rage, and all it will take is just one spark - the truth of what really happened that night - to change their community forever."

I am ALL IN for mysteries tearing small towns apart!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anna Bailey, Corgis, Daphne Du Maurier, Diana Rigg, England, Fergie, Jennifer Hawkins, Midnight in Austenland, Murder, Mystery, Rebecca Raisin, Sarah Verguson, Tuesday Tomorrow, Veronica Bond, Victoria Lee

Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale
Published by: Bloomsbury
Publication Date: January 31st, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 288 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Charlotte Kinder is still wondering how it went wrong. She dedicated her life to her family. Now she's single again and her husband James will soon be married the a woman named Justice. How is that just? To be single again at her age is something she never thought would or could happen. Thankfully due to her brains, and her Internet start-up company, she's not exactly hurting for money. But what does that matter. She doesn't know who she is without James. Finding an old bucket list from when she was a teenager she realizes how many dreams she had that where abandoned by an early marriage and pregnancy. The list is unrealistic, Kilimanjaro, really? But what about the part about reading all Jane Austen's books? That was something that she didn't even have to leave the house to do.

Reading the works of Jane Austen is the first time she has truly felt anything in a long time. Realizing that she has the money and the time to take a vacation, Charlotte thinks she would like to go to England and walk in the steps of this great author to hopefully recapture some of those feelings Austen has reawakened. Then she hears about Pembrook Park... an immersive Austen experience. She wouldn't be walking in Jane's footsteps, she would be living in her world! Arriving at the park she meets a motley crew, from the strict proprietress, Mrs. Wattlesbrook, to the Englsih songstress Alisha, ill and in disguise as Miss Gardenside, with her ever present nurse, Mrs. Hatchett, as well as the guest in permanent residence, Miss Charming. But what about the men? There's the exuberant Colonel Andrews, the Rochester like Mr. Mallery, and the actor who is to play her brother, Eddie. Because Charlotte has left her life behind and is now Mrs. Cordial, the widowed bell of Regency England. Even if Charlotte just learned what Regency means...

A relaxing stay doesn't seem in the cards. The drunken and decidedly modern dressed husband of Mrs. Wattlesbrook makes an appearance. But an interruption into the verisimilitude isn't so troubling as the ghost stories and mysteries that start to weave through the house. Dead nuns and ghosts and secret rooms and fire. Charlotte stumbles on a corpse, but was it really there, was it Bloody Murder? Could Charlotte be next?

For those familiar with Pembrook Park from Hale's previous jaunt into Austenland, you are in for a complete 180. Instead of the romance and comedy of manners, much like Austen's Pride and Prejudice, her we have the Austen of Northanger Abbey. The laundry list that might be a plaintive cry for help. The tone is set quite early by Charlotte, who, upon first seeing Pembrook Park, thinks "this is the sort of house were murders happen." She isn't far off. With a far more Bronte-esque man set aside for her, this isn't going to be all longing gazes and secret rendezvous. Instead Charlotte will be sizing everyone up in the drawing room and making lists of suspects.

Quite a suspect list it is, with some familiar faces returning, in fact, after her last stay, Miss Charming has never left, instead moving into the park full time. Also, Mrs. Wattlesbrook's husband, who was booted out of the house because of an incident in Austenland, shows he's even more of a villain than previously thought. Also, the new characters are interesting, though I think with Miss Gardenside is badly timed. She is very much of the Amy Winehouse/Lily Allen persuasion... and, well... things didn't really turn out well there. Not that Hale was to know writing this book way in advance of Winehouse's death.

While I found the change of tone and the recurrence of characters fun, feeling at times like my favorite movie, Clue, there was one problem I had. A problem that often happens in murder mysteries. Why does the heroine always have to be in danger? Not just once, but repeatedly. The same scenario played out over and over and over. The inner monologue trying to justify what was really going on and always second guessing herself. I did like how the red herrings Hale laid out did lead me down a few dead ends, but once it was all solved... there was not enough rapidity in the conclusion. A drawn out ending can be the killer of a book and this ending did bring it down a full star rating. If I where Charlotte I wouldn't have second guessed, I would have called the police immediately and had done with it. Why do people have to figure things out for themselves before calling the proper authorities... I mean, I'm sure I might make the same mistake, but I'm hoping that after all the horror films and mysteries I've been exposed to I wouldn't be so dumb.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Amy Winehouse, Austenland, Bloody Murder, Bronte, Clue, Jane Austen, Kilimanjaro, Midnight in Austenland, Northanger Abbey, Pembrook Park, Pride and Prejudice, Rochester, Shannon Hale

Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale
Published by: Bloomsbury
Publication Date: January 31st, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 288 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"When Charlotte Kinder treats herself to a two-week vacation at Austenland, she happily leaves behind her ex-husband and his delightful new wife, her ever-grateful children, and all the rest of her real life in America. She dons a bonnet and stays at a country manor house that provides an immersive Austen experience, complete with gentleman actors who cater to the guests' Austen fantasies.

Everyone at Pembrook Park is playing a role, but increasingly, Charlotte isn't sure where roles end and reality begins. And as the parlor games turn a little bit menacing, she finds she needs more than a good corset to keep herself safe. Is the brooding Mr. Mallery as sinister as he seems? What is Miss Gardenside's mysterious ailment? Was that an actual dead body in the secret attic room? And-perhaps of the most lasting importance-could the stirrings in Charlotte's heart be a sign of real-life love?

The follow-up to reader favorite Austenland provides the same perfectly plotted pleasures, with a feisty new heroine, plenty of fresh and frightening twists, and the possibility of a romance that might just go beyond the proper bounds of Austen's world. How could it not turn out right in the end?"

Ok, so I was a bit harsh on the first Austenland book when I read it the first time. Now, I'm more mellow, I enjoyed the re-read and this was a fun Agatha Christie-esque spin on the idea of "Austenland."

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
Published by: Reagan Arthur Books
Publication Date: January 31st, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart--he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone--but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.

This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them."

I just loved how a review called it: "If Willa Cather and Gabriel Garcia Marquez had collaborated on a book." Sold.

Princess of the Wild Swans by Diane Zahler
Published by: Harper Collins
Publication Date: January 31st, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 224 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Princess Meriel's brothers have been cursed. A terrible enchantment--cast by their conniving new stepmother--has transformed the handsome princes into swans. They now swim forlornly on a beautiful heart-shaped lake that lies just beyond the castle walls.

Meriel will do whatever it takes to rescue her beloved brothers. But she must act quickly. If Heart Lake freezes, her brothers will be forced to fly south or perish.

With help from her newfound friends Riona and Liam--a pretty half-witch and her clever brother--Meriel vows to finish a seemingly impossible task. If she completes it, her brothers may be saved.
But if she fails . . . all will be lost."

Fairy Tale retelling yeah!

A Parliament of Spies by Cassandra Clark
Published by: Minotaur
Publication Date: January 31st, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"All the danger and intrigue of 14th-century England spring to life in this "compelling" (Publishers Weekly) series about the brave, incorruptible Abbess of Meaux.

Abbess Hildegard may consider herself “just a nun with no useful skills or connections,” yet her loyalty and intelligence have brought her to the attention of King Richard II himself—not the safest place to be, when the king has enemies on all sides. As Hildegard wrestles with her role as a spy in the parliament that is hastily gathering at Westminster, Cassandra Clark shows us the human side of history, giving readers new reason to follow Publishers Weekly’s rallying cry: “Medievalists rejoice!”

Olde Tyme England with evile poltte, yeah!

River Marked by Patricia Briggs
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: January 31st, 2012
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Being a different breed of shapeshifter-a walker-Mercy Thompson can see ghosts, but the spirit of her long-gone father has never visited her. Until now, on her honeymoon with the Alpha werewolf Adam. An evil is stirring in the depths of the Columbia River-and innocent people are dying. As other walkers make their presence known to Mercy, she must reconnect with her heritage to exorcise the world of the legend known as the river devil..."

Perhaps my favorite Mercy Thompson book now in paperback! You'll have a year till a new one, so savor it.

Anthem for Doomed Youth by Carola Dunn
Published by: Minotaur
Publication Date: January 31st, 2012
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In the Spring of 1926, the corpses of three men are found in shallow graves off the beaten path in Epping Forest outside of London—each shot through the heart and bearing no identification. DCI Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, the lead detective, is immediately given two urgent orders by his supervisor at the Yard: solve the murders quickly and keep his wife, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, away from the case! Thankfully, Daisy’s off visiting their daughter at school. But when a teacher is found dead, Daisy is once again in the thick of it. As Daisy tries to solve one murder, Alec discovers that the three victims in his case were in the same Army company during World War I, that their murders are likely related to specific events that unfolded during that tragic conflict, and that, unless the killer is revealed and stopped, those three might only be the beginning."

While I'm not THIS far in the Daisy Dalrymple books, I'm happy to know I have lots more to read! And in paperback too!

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Published by: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication Date: January 31st, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 280 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Fifty years ago, Madeleine L’Engle introduced the world to A Wrinkle in Time and the wonderful and unforgettable characters Meg and Charles Wallace Murry, and their friend Calvin O’Keefe. When the children learn that Mr. Murry has been captured by the Dark Thing, they time travel to Camazotz, where they must face the leader IT in the ultimate battle between good and evil—a journey that threatens their lives and our universe. A Newbery Award winner, A Wrinkle in Time is an iconic novel that continues to inspire millions of fans around the world. This special edition has been redesigned and includes an introduction by Katherine Paterson, an afterword by Madeleine L’Engle’s granddaughter Charlotte Jones Voiklis that includes photographs and memorabilia, the author’s Newbery Medal acceptance speech, and other bonus materials."

I remember the first time my 4th rgade teacher read this to us. Oddly enough, no matter how many times I've read it (even seeing a play about it) I can't seem to remember the plot, just that storm that starts off the book.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: A Wrinkle in Time, Austenland, Carola Dunn, Cassandra Clark, Diane Zahler, Eowyn Ivey, Madeleine L'Engle, Mercy Thompson, Midnight in Austenland, Patricia Briggs, Shannon Hale, The Snow Child