Barbara’s rating: 3.7 of 5
Series: Goode’s Guide to Misconduct #0.5
Publication Date: 12/27/22
Period: Regency
Number of Pages: 91 (Novella)
This short novella provided a nice set-up for the series by explaining how the magazine comes to exist and also the infrastructure behind it. I really liked the characters because they were interesting and were people I would have liked to know in real life. I’ll be really interested to see what role Oliver will play in the future because, to me, he is the most interesting character in the book.
Remember, this is a short book whose main purpose is to set up the rest of the series and to provide us with a bit of romance. I just couldn’t give it a full 4 or 5-star rating because it just wasn’t long enough for the romance to be believable. The two main characters Tabetha and Kit, grew up together as children and each regarded the other with affection but never told the other. Tabetha and Kit were from two different worlds and would never have been allowed to have a life together.
Twenty years later, Tabetha is a widow and Kit has never married but has unexpectedly inherited a title. To me, that has all of the makings of a grand romance. However, since it is a novella, it loses a good deal of that. For instance – though the two of them had never declared their feelings for each other when they were younger – and they haven’t seen each other in over twenty years – they are madly in love and betrothed in less than twenty-four hours. I’m sorry – I love romance, but if I hadn’t seen somebody in over twenty years, I’d want to know more about the sort of person they’d become and the things they’d done in their life before I decided to become betrothed to them. So, for me, the romance was a bit too quick.
Still, it was a very nice read with a good setup for the series.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
TV Chef Luca Mazza Dies After Collapse at Food Show on the King’s Private Estate.
Luca Mazza (38), who was taken ill during a food demonstration at the Fenn House Food and Wine Festival two days ago, is now known to have ingested poison. Lady Beatrice (36), the king’s niece, who is working on a refurbishment project at Fenn House with her business partner Perry Juke (34), is believed to be comforting Luca’s boss and close friend Sebastiano Marchetti (38), who she began dating last month.
Is he crazy? Why else would Detective Chief Inspector Richard Fitzwilliam suggest that Sebastiano poisoned Luca without any evidence? So now, with the help of her little dog Daisy and her best friends Perry and Simon, Lady Beatrice will have to prove to Mr. Know-it-all Fitzwilliam that Seb is innocent. But with so many people having access to the food preparation area at the show, how will she find out who did murder Luca before Fitzwilliam lets his personal dislike get the better of him and arrests Seb?
Hello. I’m Helen Golden. I write British contemporary cozy whodunnits with a hint of humour. I live in a small village in Lincolnshire in the UK with my husband, my stepdaughter, her two cats, our two dogs, sometimes my stepson, and our tortoise. I used to work in senior management, but after my recent job came to a natural end I had the opportunity to follow my dreams and start writing. It’s very early in my life as an author, but so far I’m loving it. It’s crazy busy at our house, so when I’m writing I retreat to our caravan (an impulsive lockdown purchase) which is mostly parked on our drive. When I really need total peace and quiet, I take it to a lovely site about 15 minutes away and hide there until my family runs out of food or clean clothes.
Lady Beatrice, Simon Lattimore, and Perry Juke are back at it again and totally at odds with Detective Chief Inspector Richard Fitzwilliam. If you’ve read the previous books, you know that Lady Beatrice and DCI Fitzwilliam always rub each other the wrong way.
A celebrity cooking event is being held at Fenn House, the king’s private estate in Fenshire. Lady Beatrice and her business partner Perry Juke are at the estate to refurbish several rooms of Fenn House while Sebastiano Marchetti (Chef Seb) is there to oversee the cooking event which features several celebrity chefs. If you read the second book in the series, you’ll know that Lady Beatrice and Chef Seb are dating. However, Chef Seb sees it as a much more serious relationship than Lady Beatrice does. For Lady Beatrice, the shine has begun to tarnish as she has gotten to know the chef better.
When celebrity chef Luca Mazza becomes ill at his demonstration and subsequently dies DCI Fitzwilliam has to investigate and decide if it is accidental or murder. All of his hopes of Lady Beatrice and her cronies staying out of his investigation evaporate when he boldly tells her that it must be Sebastiano who did it. Lady Beatrice, of course, was certain that Sebastiano didn’t do it and gleefully set about proving the obnoxious, overbearing Fitzwilliam wrong!
This was an interesting mystery with plenty of clues and dead ends to keep you wondering who did what to whom. Of course, the star of the story is Daisy, Lady Beatrice’s West Highland Terrier who is cute, lovable, bold, protective, and a great judge of character. I still don’t like Lady Beatrice’s mother, but she did come across as more likable in this story than she did in the last.
I can definitely recommend this book with its intriguing mystery along with the good humor and lively banter among the recurring players. Should you choose to read it, I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.