Historical Mystery

B+
The Bride Wore White

This is the seventh book in the Burning Cove series which takes place during the 1930s in the glamorous coastal town of Burning Cove, a seaside resort town popular with the rich and famous. I loved it! This is my favorite book in the series. It is full of suspense, murder and romance and takes plac ...

B
The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies is the first book in Allison Goodman’s new Ill-Mannered Ladies series of historical mysteries. It’s nicely told, featuring two older heroines who find themselves becoming detectives, which definitely alleviates the boredom of their orderly lives. ...

B+
The Secret Book of Flora Lee

The Secret Book of Flora Lee is a genuinely interesting mystery that keeps the reader focused and keenly flipping the pages, even when the answers are sometimes frustrating. Young Flora Lee Linden is out in the middle of a wooden copse one day when she sees them. The Whisperwood, the magical crea ...

A-
Who Cries for the Lost

Who Cries for the Lost, the eighteenth book in C.S. Harris’ series of historical mysteries featuring aristocratic sleuth Sebastian St. Cyr, opens as the people of London – and all of England – are holding a collective breath waiting for news of Napoléon’s progress following his escape from ...

A-
Hotel of Secrets

Diana Biller’s Hotel of Secrets is one part romance, once part historical fiction, one part mystery. Biller definitely manages to keep the suspense and the romance rollicking along, making for a delightful read. Maria Wallner has dedicated herself to restoring the Hotel Wallner, her legacy and ...

B+
The Shadows of London

The Shadows of London, book six in Andrew Taylor’s fabulous series of historical mysteries set in post-Restoration London, finds our protagonists, James Marwood and Cat Hakesby (née Lovett) once again embroiled in an intricate and cleverly constructed murder mystery. Like the earlier books in the ...

B-
A Tempest at Sea

After feigning her own death in Cornwall to escape from Moriarty’s perilous attention, Charlotte Holmes goes into hiding. But then she receives a tempting offer: Find a dossier the crown is desperately seeking to recover, and she might be able to go back to a normal life. Her search leads her a ...

A-
The Cliff's Edge

The Great War has finally come to an end, but that doesn’t mean Bess Crawford’s days of fighting crime are finished. In The Cliff’s Edge, the thirteenth volume in the Bess Crawford series, Bess travels to Yorkshire to sit beside a family friend as she recovers from surgery, only to stumble upo ...

A-
The Fossil Hunter

The Fossil Hunter splits its point of view between two different timelines and characters connected by a fossil. Cooper manages to keep this deft balancing act going, creating three very interesting and worthwhile heroines.  Dark and engrossing and with dual timelines that are expertly captured in ...

B+
Last Call at the Nightingale

Last Call at the Nightingale combines authentic-feeling prohibition era period detail with a heroine who’s easy to love, a unique cast of supporting characters, and a genuinely surprising mystery. It’s 1924, we’re in New York City, and bisexual Irish immigrant Vivian Kelly sews at a dress s ...