Books I Love! Murder on Principle – Drop Everything and Read Eleanor Kuhns Latest Will Reed Mystery

This is the tenth in Eleanor Kuhn’s Will Rees mystery series. I love these books! They’re original and unexpected. This one’s got an interesting plot twist: smallpox. How timely. Read it when you’ve got nothing else to do after you pick it up.

About the Book

Will Rees faces a moral dilemma when a slaveholder is murdered while attempting to recapture a former slave: should he pursue lawful justice or should he let the killer go free?

November 1800, Maine. After helping their long-time friend Tobias escort his wife, along with a liberated slave and her child, from the Great Dismal back to Durham, Will and Lydia Rees’s lives are interrupted when a dead body is found near their home.

The body is that of Mr Gilbert, a slaveholder from the Great Dismal. Was he murdered in pursuit of the former slaves?

When it’s discovered Gilbert was infected with smallpox, and Gilbert’s sister arrives demanding justice and the return of her absconded slaves, Will is torn. Finding the killer could lead to the recapture of the former slaves. Letting them go free could result in a false arrest and endanger the Durham community. Will must make a choice . . .

My Take

It’s easy to get lost in Eleanor Kuhn’s world of 1800’s Maine. The series is painstakingly researched and the characters are written so well. You’ll think you’re in the mystery alongside Will and Lydia, feel the fear of the escaped slaves, and despise the elegant southern plantation mistress who comes to take them back to Virginia. The issue of race is deep in this story as abolitionists and sympathizers with the slave owners do battle. The smallpox outbreak – and the doctor’s ingenious way to offer a vaccination – is taken right out of today’s headlines. I couldn’t stop reading and spent a delightful Saturday afternoon trying to figure out the killer. Kuhns gave us several good options, but the ending came as a surprise. Highly recommended for those who enjoy historical fiction and cozy mysteries.

About the Author

ELEANOR KUHNS is the 2011 winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel competition. She lives in New York, received her master’s in Library Science from Columbia University, and is currently the Assistant Director at the Goshen Public Library in Orange County, New York.

Connect with Eleanor Kuhns

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New Release Spotlight! Kate Carlisle’s Little Black Book Revisits the Gothic Classic Rebecca

These book covers always intrigue me, especially the cats. I’m intrigued by this one because it’s about the classic gothic novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, which I enjoyed as an audiobook read by Anna Massey.

About the Book

San Francisco book-restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright is on the case when a rare edition of Rebecca leads to murder in this latest installment of the New York Times bestselling Bibliophile Mystery series.

Brooklyn and her hunky husband, security expert Derek Stone, have just returned from a delightful trip to Dharma, where the construction of their new home away from home is well underway, when a little black book arrives in the mail from Scotland. The book is a rare British first edition of Rebecca, and there’s no return address on the package. The day after the book arrives, Claire Quinn shows up at Brooklyn and Derek’s home. Brooklyn met Claire when the two women worked as expert appraisers on the television show This Old Attic. Brooklyn appraised books on the show and Claire’s expertise was in antique British weaponry, but they bonded over their shared love of gothic novels.

Claire reveals that during a recent trip to Scotland she discovered her beloved aunt was missing and that her home had been ransacked. Among her aunt’s belongings, Claire found the receipt for the package that wound up with Brooklyn and Derek. Claire believes both her own life and her aunt’s are in danger and worries that some complications from her past are coming back to haunt her.

But just as Brooklyn and Derek begin to investigate, a man who Claire thinks was following her is found murdered, stabbed with a priceless jeweled dagger. With a death on their doorstep, Brooklyn and Derek page through the little black book where they discover clues that will take them to the shadows of a medieval Scottish castle on the shores of Loch Ness. Under the watchful gaze of a mysterious laird and the irascible villagers who are suspicious of the strangers in their midst, Brooklyn and Derek must decode the secrets in Rebecca to keep their friend’s past from destroying their future….

Recipes included!

About the Author

New York Times bestselling author Kate Carlisle is a native Californian who worked in television production for many years before turning to writing. It was a lifelong fascination with the art and craft of bookbinding that led her to write the Bibliophile Mysteries, featuring Brooklyn Wainwright, whose bookbinding and restoration skills invariably uncover old secrets, treachery and murder. Her first book, Homicide in Hardcover, debuted in February 2010, followed by If Books Could Kill, The Lies That Bind, Murder Under Cover, One Book in the Grave.

With the publication of A High-End Finish in November 2014, Kate launched the Fixer-Upper Mysteries featuring building contractor Shannon Hammer, who specializes in Victorian home renovation and repair. The series is set in Lighthouse Cove, a seemingly idyllic town with many dark secrets hiding under its floorboards. Hallmark Movies & Mysteries Channel is bringing the Fixer-Upper Mysteries to TV in a series of movies starring Jewel and Colin Ferguson. The first movie premiered in January 2017, the second less than three months later, with plans to film several more.

Kate’s television credits include numerous game shows, music videos, concerts, and variety shows, including The Midnight Special, Solid Gold and The Gong Show. She traveled the world as a Dating Game chaperone and performed strange acts of silliness on The Gong Show, most notably as a member of the girl group, The Whispers. They didn’t sing, exactly, but spit water on the host of the show.

Kate also studied acting and singing, toiled in vineyards, collected books, joined a commune, sold fried chicken, modeled spring fashions and worked for a cruise ship line, but it was the year she spent in law school that finally drove her to begin writing fiction. It seemed the safest way to kill off her professors. Those professors are breathing easier now that Kate spends most of her time writing near the beach in Southern California where she lives with her perfect hero husband.

Kate is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America. She is the proud recipient of the Golden Heart and Daphne du Maurier awards, and her first Bibliophile Mystery received a Best First Mystery nomination from RT Book Reviews. Kate loves to travel and read and drink good wine and watch other people cook.

Visit Kate online at http://www.KateCarlisle.com, where you’ll find a Secret Room filled with lots of bonus content, such as maps and character lists!)

New Release Spotlight! A Sprinkling of Murder, a Cozy Mystery by Daryl Wood Gerber

New Release Spotlight Driftwood Dreams

This week’s new release spotlight is Daryl Wood Gerber’s latest cozy mystery, A Sprinkling of Murder (A Fairy Garden Mystery Book 1). 

Book Description

Fairy garden store owner Courtney Kelly believes in inviting magic into your life. But when uninvited trouble enters her shop, she’ll need more than a sprinkling of her imagination to solve a murder . . .

Since childhood, Courtney has loved fairies. After her mother died when Courtney was ten, she lost touch with that feeling of magic. A year ago, at age twenty-nine, she rediscovered it when she left her father’s landscaping business to spread her wings and start a fairy garden business and teashop in beautiful Carmel, California. At Open Your Imagination, she teaches garden design and sells everything from fairy figurines to tinkling wind chimes. Now she’s starting a book club tea.

But the light of the magical world she’s created inside her shop is darkened one night when she discovers neighboring dog-grooming business owner Mick Watkins dead beside her patio fountain. To make matters worse, the police suspect Courtney of the crime. To clear her name and find the real killer, Courtney will have to wing it. But she’s about to get a little help from an unexpected source . . .

 

A Sprinkling of Murder

 

About the Author

Daryl Wood GerberAgatha Award–winning Daryl Wood Gerber writes the French Bistro Mysteries as well as the nationally bestselling Cookbook Nook Mysteries. As Avery Aames, she pens the popular Cheese Shop Mysteries. Daryl also writes stand-alone suspense, which include the titles Day of Secrets and Girl on the Run. Fun tidbit: as an actress, Daryl appeared in Murder, She Wrote. She loves to cook, and she has a frisky Goldendoodle named Sparky who keeps her in line!

Connect with Daryl Wood Gerber

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Note: I am an Amazon Associate and may receive a small commission from book sales.

New Release Spotlight: Barbara Silkstone’s New Cozy “Soap on a Rope,” Book 3 in the Cold Cream Murders Series

new release spotlight

Barbara Silkstone visits the blog again with her latest installment in the Cold Cream Murders Series.

_Barbsilkstone-7 copyBook Description

When Nelson Dingler is found dangling from a chandelier—feet-side up—Grams Dingler determines to find her son’s killer. Can Olive help her best friend Lizzy save her feisty grandmother from suffering the same fate? And can the Cold Cream Shop survive while Olive psyches out the killer?

Bonus: Contains a recipe for heavenly lavender lemon honey soap.

Excerpt

Officer Kal wasn’t waiting for me at Lizzy’s. Too bad. I wanted to be sure the women were safe inside for the night. What if the entire Dingler family was in danger? I reached inside my tote feeling around for my can of self-defense hair spray. Unarmed! Not allowed on the flight, I’d left it home.

A slobbering red tongue greeted Lizzy as she unlocked her door. “Enough WonderDog! Sit!”

Instead of obeying, the gangly hound pawed at the front door once Lizzy closed it.

“Dave was supposed to walk WonderDog before the dinner rush. I don’t think he’s been emptied. Maybe Dave couldn’t break away.”

She clipped a leash to the dog that bore a striking resemblance to the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. “Be right back.”

“Grams would you like some tea? Maybe Lizzy has some chamomile?”

“That would be nice dear.”

We left her bag at the door and walked into the kitchen.

A bright turquoise teakettle sat on the stove. I filled it with water, but hesitated. One of Lizzy’s new finches swooped down and landed on my shoulder. Fearful that turning on the gas stove might result in an injury to the bird, I stopped my tea making. Continue reading