Christina here with a round-up of what the Wenches have been reading this month. This is a truly varied selection and I hope there will be something for everyone and that you find something that appeals to you. I’ve already clicked on a few things myself …
My own favourite reads this month were the two new Wench books – The Crystal Key by Patricia Rice and The Rake’s Daughter by Anne Gracie.
The Crystal Key is the third book in the Psychic Solutions Mystery series, and these stories just keep getting better and better. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, which broadened the cast and built on the previous books in a most satisfying way. Ghostbuster Evie Malcolm Carstairs has finally got together with gorgeous lawyer Jax Ives and they are raising their ward, Loretta, together while trying to make ends meet – her by speaking to ghosts and him by setting up a new law practice in the tiny town where they live. When Evie and her hacker team at the Sensible Solutions Agency take on a new case that involves a dead former FBI agent – an old lady who had been poking around in things she shouldn’t have – and a potential murder, things start to heat up. Jax tries to keep Evie out of trouble, but she has her own way of dealing with things and doesn’t think she needs his help. He wants to do things the proper way while Evie and the others don’t always take the legal approach. Add to that the fact that his reclusive sister Ariel starts to help his best friend to uncover a major scamming network run by some seriously unscrupulous people – while slightly coming out of her shell – and he has his work cut out for him making sure everyone is safe and the bad guys get their come-uppance. With a huge cast of crazy but wonderful characters, this is a fabulous story that kept me turning the pages. I can’t wait for the next book in the series to see what will happen next!
The Rake’s Daughter by Anne Gracie is the second title in the Brides of Bellaire Gardens series. I had been eagerly awaiting this one and it definitely didn’t disappoint! I love the setting – large houses backing onto a huge and gorgeous garden where the residents can enjoy a quiet oasis away from the hustle and bustle of London. In this story, Leo, the Earl of Salcott has just returned from a lengthy sojourn abroad to find that he is the guardian of Clarissa, a wealthy young heiress. She arrives in town with an illegitimate half-sister in tow, Izzy, and to his dismay the girls refuse to be parted. They believe they can make their entry into the ton together, and nothing he says can dissuade them. He is powerfully attracted to the half-sister, but tries to resist as she is not suitable wife material and he doesn’t believe she’ll ever be accepted by the ton. He has no idea what to do with her and she thwarts him at every turn while sparks fly between them. How is he supposed to find a suitable husband for Clarissa with Izzy around? He deposits them with his eccentric old aunt, thinking that will help matters, but instead it makes things worse. I thoroughly enjoyed the battle of wits that ensued between Leo and Izzy, and the old lady was a hoot! This is the perfect Regency romance with everything a reader could wish for – highly recommended!
Patricia recommends Murder at Melrose Court and The Black Cat Murders by Karen Baugh Menuhin.
These are the first two books of the Heathcliff Lennox series. They’re called historical mysteries, although I quit caring whodunnit, and simply sank into the illusion the author creates of an aristocratic Cotswold world after the first war. Our hero is a pilot who has returned to his stately, rundown home, to hunt pigeons with his untrustworthy dog, aided by his even less trustworthy butler. In the first book, he’s invited to the home of a relative from whom he might expect an inheritance, only to be accused of murder, as these things happen. So, of course, he sets out to defy his hated lawyer of a kinsman and the annoying policeman who wants to hang him. The tone is just on the edge of Wodehouse with a hint of Agatha Christie.
Out of curiosity, to see how the author carries on, I quickly read the next book, and it’s even better than the first. This time, our curmudgeonly loner of a bachelor hero is roped into attending the wedding of a childhood friend. He’s been reading Sherlock Holmes and learning this detecting business, and the detective who almost had him hanged now asks for his aid, said detective being a Socialist unaccustomed to aristocratic homes and manners. Opera singers, art forgers, men in drag, and a wedding party from Texas are all thrown into one wildly fascinating if improbable set of murders. It’s not the mystery so much as the lovely hints of description, the moldering wallpaper in the unused rooms, the can-can with men in slipping wigs, the dust on the back of the stolen Gainsborough … small touches that make the world come alive.
I’d been warned of copy edit errors before I started, but to me, the oddly wrong word used by an author much too clever to make such a mistake, seem like Easter eggs planted to joyfully wait for the nitpickers to uncover. But then, I was enjoying myself, so who cares?
Nicola – Summer at the Highland Coral Beach by Kiley Dunbar. It was the beautiful cover of this book that first grabbed me followed by the description of summer in a quaint seaside village in the Scottish Highlands and the mention of a gorgeous if grumpy hero! I started reading it at bedtime and it was one of those books that I carried on with far into the night because it was so charming and I just wanted to read one more page.
Beatrice Halliday is in dire need of a break after some painful personal experiences and on a whim she books herself onto what she thinks is a Gaelic language course in a remote Scottish seaside hotel. However when she arrives she discovers that she is all set for a personal course in willow weaving at Port Willow Bay, she has a Princess and the Pea themed room in the dilapidated hotel, and inevitably she is drawn into the eccentric lives of the owner and the other guests and villagers. On one level it’s a gentle, romantic and amusing read but it’s underpinned with real emotional poignancy as Beatrice deals with grief and loss, and I found it very moving. The grumpy hero, Atholl, is an absolute gem, a rugged and loyal guy who cares deeply for his home and community. This is a small town romance where the cast of characters are funny and very likeable and the Scottish setting is richly described. The book has a Local Hero vibe about it and I was rooting for Beatrice to let the magic of Port Willow and its inhabitants help heal her heart.
Anne here, and I'm recommending three books — two fiction and one non-fiction. First up is Lizzie and Dante by Mary Bly (aka Eloisa James). Not a romance but a wonderful love story with a bittersweet, but perfect ending. Facing a devastating diagnosis, Shakespearean scholar Lizzie travels to Elba, the beautiful island off the Italian coast (where Napoleon was once exiled — not that it's an important part of the story) with her oldest friend and his lover, a well known actor. There she meets Dante, a gorgeous local chef, and slowly she becomes involved with him, his dog and his young teenage daughter. But the more she is drawn to them, the more she asks herself, is it fair to let herself become part of their lives, when she knows it cannot last long? Sophie Kinsella called it 'A feast of a novel: for the senses, the mind and the emotions' and I couldn't agree more. Highly recommended.
The Wild Garden by William Robinson with photos by Rick Darke. Non-fiction. I came across this book while watching a program that referred to the garden at Gravetye in the UK, and its 19th century designer, William Robinson. The Wild Garden was first published in 1870, and it challenged the Victorian-era fashion of strictly controlled garden design, and advocated a return to a more natural, wild landscape. With the current growth in the popularity of "wild gardening", this book is as relevant as ever, so I bought it, and have been browsing through it. Along with the photos it's gorgeous and inspiring.
Lastly I read Mary Balogh's latest, Remember Love, the first in a new series. To be honest, I found the first few chapters very slow and descriptive but then wow! — the story really took off with Mary Balogh's trademark emotional intensity, and never slowed after that. It's a story that explores the question, is it better to expose an uncomfortable truth or to remain discreet and pretend not to notice? Heartbreaking in places but ultimately heartwarming. An engaging and thought provoking story, with a wonderful romance at the heart of it. Highly recommended.
Mary Jo here. I second Pat's recommendation of the Heathcliff Lennox mysteries. Set in Britain shortly after WWI and featuring a handsome former flying officer who loves dogs, cats, and eating, and drives his car as if he's still in an airplane, what's not to like? <G> I've read the first seven books of the series, and I see that there's now an eighth.
Moving along here, I've enjoyed all of Lian Dolan's women's fiction novels because they’re warm, witty, and romantic. Her newest book, Lost and Found in Paris, is another fine read, not to mention a great travelogue of Paris. The narrator, Joan Blakely, is the daughter of a world-famous space and light artist and an equally famous supermodel and photographer. In her youth she'd traveled widely and met lots of famous people. But her life shatters when her father is killed in one of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers, and she and her mother are both paralyzed with grief and become frozen in their lives.
Joan works as a curator at a topnotch private art museum in Southern California. She's the keeper of her father's legacy and is the one who gives all the interviews as her mother withdraws from life completely. Ten years after her father's death, Joan's life shatters again when her husband blows up their marriage in a spectacularly messy way. Joan has been numb but she's no doormat. She divorces her husband and jumps at the chance to act as a courier delivering a set of sketches to Paris, a city she knows and loves. But the sketches are stolen from her hotel room before she can deliver them, and she starts receiving clues from the thief that lead her around Paris to places that featured in her father's work, many of them associated with Joan of Arc, for whom Joan was named. With a tech genius sidekick named Nate, she rediscovers herself as well as parts of her family's past that she'd never known.
There is romance, but the book is not primarily a romance because in women's fiction, the heart of the story is always a woman's journey as she overcomes her past and moves into a better future. This is exactly what Joan does – and so does her mother. <G> I thoroughly enjoyed Lost and Found in Paris.
Andrea – I’m a big fan of Kate Quinn’s WWII books, which all feature strong and complex woman heroines. I just finished her latest one, The Diamond Eye, and found it just as compelling as her earlier stories. This one features Mila, a studious, bookish young woman, who is raising her young son in a loveless marriage while working on her dissertation. Her dream is to become a history professor – but then the Nazis invade Russia and her passions turn to defending her homeland. (She is actually Ukrainian, and much of the emotional passion she and her Russian comrades express against the invaders has a very poignant ring, though the book was written before Russia invaded Ukraine.) It turns out Mila has a gift for marksmanship and she becomes the most celebrated sniper in the Russian army, a lethal shadow known to the enemy as Lady Death. The descriptions of warfare – the camaraderie, along with the emotional stresses and wrenching personal losses in battle – make for an absolutely riveting read.
Then, after Mila is wounded, the Russian government decides to send her to the U.S. as part of a student delegation to an international conference organized by Eleanor Roosevelt. Russia is desperate to have the Allies open a European front to help them fight the Nazis. And suddenly the shy, introverted Mila finds herself expected to do a publicity tour through America to win public support for the “Commies.” But little does she know that an old enemy of hers and forces opposed to President Roosevelt are planning to test her mettle … Quinn unearthed the real-life diary of a woman sniper and the books is based on a true story. I had never heard of Eleanor Roosevelt’s unlikely friendship with a Russian sniper, so learning some history also added to the pleasure of the book. I highly recommend it!
What about you - what wonderful stories have you discovered this month? We'd love to hear all about them!
