Month: April 2023

A Beginner’s Guide to Scandal by Alivia Fleur

On By TracyIn Part of a Series, Tracy's Reviews, Victorian Era (1837-1901)Leave a comment

A Beginner's Guide to Scandal (Tales from Honeysuckle Street, #1)A Beginner’s Guide to Scandal by Alivia Fleur

Tracy’s rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: Tales from Honeysuckle Street, #1

Release Date: April 18, 2023

Years ago, Hamish Dalton the forgotten younger son of an earl, and Iris Abberton, the adopted daughter of a rich businessman were the best of friends, but tragedy tore them apart and they didn’t see each other for almost 13 years. Hamish is now the heir to his father’s earldom and chaffing under his constant criticisms and the pressure of living up to the ghost of his elder brother. He has been sent back to London to find a proper wife, but Hamish has other plans, he plans to start a scandal to upset his father and ruin his plans. His problem is, he doesn’t really know how to go about it, so he goes to his Aunt Tilly, who was disowned years ago and then became a courtesan to support herself. She agrees to help him, thrilled his plan are finally in motion, he returns to his house and is surprised to see his childhood friend and neighbor, Iris. He can’t believe she hasn’t married and moved away. He finds himself drawn to her, and despite his plans to thwart his father, he can’t seem to stay away from her.

Iris Abberton has loved Hamish Dalton for as long as she can remember and was heartbroken when he left after the accident that killed his mother and elder brother. She tried to stay in touch with him, but he never replied to her letters, so she stopped writing. She and her father spent years traveling the world and expanding their business, but now her father’s memory is declining and she is desperately trying to hide that fact from the company’s board, they have no idea that Iris has been running things for her father and wants to join the board and expand the business. She has plans to see this happen, but then Hamish returns and she can’t resist him. But when his plans succeed, it destroys hers and for the first time ever, Iris walks away from Hamish. Can he find a way to make things right and win her back or has he truly lost the only woman he ever loved?

This was an interesting and steamy story of reunited lovers and their bumpy road to HEA. The book is filled with emotion, hijinx, forbidden love, steamy love scenes, heartache, wonderful secondary characters, groveling, second chances, and finally a HEA. I enjoyed this book, I would have liked to see Hamish right his wrongs a bit quicker, and an epilogue a few years later would have been nice. But overall, it was a good read and I would be happy to recommend this title. This is the first book in a new series, but the author states each book can be read as a standalone title.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher. All opinions in this review are my own.*

Heart of the Nile by Will Thomas

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Historical Mystery, Part of a Series, Victorian Era (1837-1901)Leave a comment

Heart of the Nile (Barker & Llewelyn, #14)

Barbara’s rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Series: Barker and Llewelyn #14
Publication Date: 4/11/23
Period: Victorian London – 1893
Number of Pages: 320

What do you get when you combine murders, Cleopatra’s mummy, a huge ruby, a street gang, a highly distraught widow, and two excellent enquiry agents? A very good mystery! This author just churns out great mystery after great mystery and I never tire of reading them.

It is rapidly approaching the beginning of the new year and cases are few because of the holidays. A distraught young woman comes into their offices and requests they find her husband who is missing. He teaches school during the day and works as a volunteer at the British Museum until midnight. Except – he didn’t come home last night.

Phillip Addison is a wonderful young man who defied his very rich family for love. His teaching job just doesn’t support him and his wife, so he is working as a volunteer at the British Museum in hopes of turning it into a paying position. While going about his tasks of classifying, weighing, and storing a number of Egyptian mummies, he makes a startling discovery. Deep in the chest cavity of one of those mummies is a large ruby that would be priceless. In his excitement, he runs out of the museum with the ruby (to show his boss) – only to realize a few minutes later that he’s now locked out – with a giant, priceless ruby in his possession. Oops! His body is found the next morning floating in the Thames.

Barker and Llewelyn’s missing person case has morphed into something much larger and deadlier. Everyone is now trying to recover, for themselves, the item Phillip found. Where is it? What is it? Everybody knows he found something, but nobody knows what.

Everybody believes that Barker has whatever they are looking for – but does he? They’ll do whatever they have to do to get it from him. Bribery, threats, trickery, attempts on his and Llewelyn’s life – it is all tried to pry the item’s location from Barker.

This was a great mystery, but I was pretty sure I knew who the villain was early on. However, there were so many red herrings thrown it that it kept me from being sure until the very end. It wouldn’t have mattered if the name of the villain(s) had been plastered in large red letters on the first page of the book – the story was so good I would still have loved it.

My only complaint is that this tale broke my heart. Being a soft-hearted romantic, I could hardly stand the idea that such a lovely young man was murdered and two people who truly loved each other were torn apart. Please, Mr. Will Thomas, don’t let me get to know and like a character and then kill them off.

I can definitely recommend this entertaining, well-crafted mystery. I love how the characters have grown through the series. Another thing I like about the series is the point of view. It is written from Llewelyn’s POV – as if he is writing his memoirs years later.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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