Category: Historical Mystery

The Viscount Made Me Do It by Diana Quincy

On By TracyIn Georgian Era (1714-1837), Historical Mystery, Regency Era (1811-1820), Tracy's ReviewsLeave a comment

The Viscount Made Me Do It (Clandestine Affairs, #2)The Viscount Made Me Do It by Diana Quincy

Tracy’s rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Series: Clandestine Affairs, #2

Release Date: July 27, 2021

Fourteen years after the murder of his parents, Thomas “Griff” Ellis, the Viscount Griffin receives a package with a ring belonging to his late mother, a ring that was stolen the night she was killed. In an effort to track down the sender, he visits the post office, hoping for a lead, but is sent away empty-handed. He visits a nearby coffeehouse and is shocked when he sees a lovely woman enter, wearing his mother’s necklace. The woman stops at the table of some young noblemen who apparently requested her services as a bonesetter to mock her. Angry, the woman dislocates the man’s wrist, telling him to visit her office to get it fixed, and storms out.

Griff learns her name and due to a war injury, has an excuse to visit her offices, even though he doesn’t believe she will be able to help him, since his former guardian is a respected doctor and wasn’t able to alleviate his pain, nor had any of the specialists he has seen. So he is shocked when her treatments work. They form a friendship and he confesses his true reason for seeking her out and she offers to help any way she can.

Hanna Zaydan is the daughter of immigrants from the Levant, most of her family is involved in the cotton trade, but her father was a bonesetter and taught her the art, much to the dismay of her mother and grandmother, who hoped she would marry a nice Arab man and start a family. Hanna truly has a gift for bonesetting and will not give up her practice, therefore she believes marriage and a family are not a part of her future. Her attraction to Griff is inconvenient and impossible, even if he wanted to marry her, her family would never approve. But that doesn’t stop her from helping him solve the mystery of who murdered his parents and why.

Almost as soon as they start digging into the past, ugly truths begin to emerge and everything Griff has been told seems to be lies. Add to this, his former guardian seeming to have a vendetta against Hanna, and a secret he has kept for years coming out and forcing him to offer marriage to save a friend’s honor. All of these combined seem to ensure that there is no possibility for a HEA with the woman he has come to love.

This was a well-written, fast-paced story with wonderful characters and a fresh and original plot. The book is filled with secrets, lies, betrayal, murder, interesting facts on bonesetting, class/station differences, prejudice, warm love scenes, help from unexpected sources, and finally a HEA that seemed impossible. This book achieved the perfect balance of mystery and romance, with neither aspect overpowering or detracting from the other, resulting in a well-balanced and gripping read. There were some typos and title errors, but this was an uncorrected proof, so those errors may be corrected before publication. This is the second book in the series, but it can be read as a standalone title with no problems.

*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.*

Death of A Duchess by Nellie H. Steele

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Gothic Historical, Historical Mystery, Paranormal / Fantasy2 Comments

Death of a DuchessDeath of a Duchess by Nellie H. Steele
Barbara’s rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: Duchess of Blackmoore Mysteries #1
Publication Date: 5/1/21
Period: ?? Not Apparent – Sometime before trains and cars
Number of Pages: 290

Since I don’t read the paranormal genre, I certainly surprised myself when I decided to purchase – and then enjoyed – this book. The mystery is well-plotted and well presented, with just enough obscure clues to cause you frustration, yet keep you reading. This is a new-to-me author and I enjoyed her writing style which captures the more formal speaking style of earlier historical periods. There wasn’t enough information within the story to get a grasp of the period in which the story takes place, and that always annoys me – couldn’t somebody just put a date at the beginning of the first chapter or something?

Lenora Hastings has a gift – or a curse – depending on your point of view. She sees and communicates with dead people and has done so her entire life. While it all seems perfectly normal to Lenora, the adults in her life can’t deal with it – when she was six, her father left and her mother turned her over to a nunnery soon after. When the nuns couldn’t deal with it, they turned her over to Headmistress Williamson at St. Mary’s Orphanage for Girls, where she lived for the next ten years. The headmistress didn’t care for Lenora nor her abilities, so she never recommended Lenora for placement into any of the employment opportunities that came to the orphanage’s occupants. Lenora was totally shocked when she was told to pack her things at once as she was leaving immediately. Lenora was excited to be going to the Highlands even though she had no idea what position her employment required. Maybe she would be a governess, or a companion, or – scullery maid, she didn’t care, she was out of the orphanage. When she finally learned what position was being offered, her jaw dropped.

Robert Fletcher, Duke of Blackmoore, has been a widower for three years. He has suffered greatly for those years because he loved his wife and cannot imagine what could possibly have caused her to take her own life. When he hears rumors of a young woman at an orphanage – one who can communicate with the dead – he immediately has her tracked down and investigated to see if she is the real article. He then has her summoned to Blackmoore Castle where he offers her marriage and a life of luxury in exchange for her ‘special’ skills. He needs her to communicate with Annie, the former Duchess of Blackmoore, to find out why she took her own life.

Annie is one very angry and confused ghost. She’s hard to communicate with because she doesn’t speak to Lenora in any way. She projects feelings and does other things and Lenora has to guess at their meanings. That communication process is very slow, dangerous, and vexing. Will Lenora be able to figure it all out before it is too late?

I enjoyed the other tangents of the story aside from the main mystery. It was lovely to see the duke come to care for Lenora and to demonstrate that caring by his actions in regard to her friend Tillie and also in regard to Headmistress Williamson.

I could have easily rated this at five stars, but there were just too many historical inaccuracies that I just couldn’t get past them. Proper forms of address were all over the place – sometimes they were correct, but mostly they weren’t. Then there was the ‘adoption’ when formal legal adoptions didn’t happen until sometime in the 1900s. Before then, there were guardianships or wardships, etc. An ‘adopted’ child could not have become the duke’s heir – the title would have gone to the duke’s brother, etc. anyway – lots of historical errors in an otherwise great mystery.

View all my reviews