Narrated by Steve West I’ll confess straight off that I’m not what I’d call a Sherlock Holmes “aficionado”. I’ve read some of the books and stories, and have enjoyed his various celluloid iterations, from Basil Rathbone and Peter Cushing to Jeremy Brett and Benedict Cumberbatch, and Sherry Thomas’ re-imagining of Sherlock as Charlotte in A…
Dictionary.com describes the term ‘camp’ as “Deliberate affectation or exaggeration of style, especially of popular or outdated style, for ironic or humorous effect.” That’s an excellent descriptor of the writing style used in this final Amelia Peabody novel, The Painted Queen. Begun by Elizabeth Peters but finished after her death by her good friend, Joan…
Narrated by Matthew Lloyd Davies An Unnatural Vice is the second book in K.J. Charles’ Sins of the Cities series, a trilogy set in late Victorian London which revolves around the search for the missing heir to an earldom. Each book features one central couple whose romance is complete by the end, but the overarching…
Murder on Black Swan Lane is the first book in a new series of Regency-era historical mysteries by Andrea Penrose (who also writes as Andrea Pickens and Cara Elliot), which sees a satirical cartoonist teaming up with a scientifically-minded earl to investigate a couple of gruesome murders. The mystery is well-put together and includes some…
Narrated by Davina Porter It’s the rare author who can reach the twelfth book in a long-running series and still keep coming up with fresh ideas and interesting developments, but C.S. Harris manages to do both those things and more in her latest Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery, Where the Dead Lie. In this new instalment,…
Narrated by Louisa Jane Underwood Anyone who has read or listened to even a small number of Amanda Quick’s historical mysteries will have realised that her books tend to be somewhat formulaic. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing; Ms. Quick’s particular formula – independent heroine meets mysterious, slightly dangerous hero and they solve…
Twenty years ago, Kate Ross published the fourth (and last) of her Julian Kestrel mysteries, The Devil in Music. The entire series is strongly written and wonderful to read, but this last book contains an intricate mystery and adds depth to Kestrel’s character. It was a fantastic reading experience, though bittersweet, because I knew as…
Code Name: Verity is one of the most memorable YA novels I have ever read. A breathtaking story about a young Scottish woman taken prisoner for being a spy in Nazi Germany, it was heart wrenching, enlightening, beautiful, and lyrical. The Pearl Thief is the prequel to that tale, a look at Julia before she…
Legendary author Amanda Quick returns with her latest romantic suspense novel, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, an historical mystery set in the outskirts of Hollywood’s secret-laden movie colony in the 1930s. After stumbling onto the scene of the murder of her socialite employer and benefactress, Anna Harris takes the woman’s postmortem advice and runs,…
When it comes to C.S. Harris’ long-running series of historical mysteries featuring the aristocratic sleuth, Sebastian St. Cyr, I arrived rather late to the party. With eleven books already available, I wasn’t going to be able to catch up on them all in print, so, as I often do in such cases, I turned to…
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