Kathleen Buckley's Blog, page 4

The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson

 

Antonia Hodgson’s novel, The Devil in the Marshalsea, is exactly the kind of historical mystery I enjoy. Most of the story takes place in the Marshalsea debtors’ prison, where a rakehelly parson’s son is imprisoned for a debt of £20. Doesn’t sound like much? At the time, a maidservant might earn only £5 a year. Conditions in the prison are worse than you can imagine. They’re worse than I could imagine in spite of being hardened to some of the less pleasant features of the eighteenth century. Tr...

A Westminster Wedding Advance Reader Copy available

A Westminster Wedding

The Barding earldom may be doomed. A shocking suggestion might provide another potential heir.

Miles Halliwell, Barding’s man of business, owes everything to the earl. Does loyalty to his employer require him to deal with a known criminal and incite forgery? Unfortunately for Miles’s peace of mind, it may.

 To protect her family's reputation, Julia St. John, daughter of a baron, has given up everything to live in obscurity with an illegitimate son. She has no better future in ...

Ashton Hall by Lauren Belfer

Ashton Hall by Lauren Belfer is the perfect read for anyone who loves old books, centuries-old, rambling English houses, or England itself. I’m not going to re-hash the plot. Betrayal of trust, other kinds of loss, the challenge of juggling career and child care, unexpected romance, and a mystery all figure in the story. The characters and situation are interesting and Hannah Larson's stay at Ashton Hall is one most bibliophiles and old house buffs would kill for.                                ...

Review of DIE AROUND SUNDOWN by Mark Pryor

 Recently I've found myself writing a lot of book reviews. Probably I should be cleaning the house instead, or trying to grow something—anything without thorns!—in my front yard. The only things that are thriving there are an aggressive prickly pear cactus and a large, bad-tempered sweetbriar rose which clawed me when I tried to prune it a few days ago. 

Somehow, reviewing another book seemed like a good idea. 

Die Around Sundown by Mark Pryor is a thoroughly enjoyable story. Set in Paris soon aft...

Occasionally I review a book for NetGalley. I just re-re...

 

Occasionally I review a book for NetGalley. I just re-read a review I wrote last fall, long before its release date (today), and thought I'd mention it here, in case there are other people who don't read the reviews on the bookseller sites.   

Resting Place by Camille Sten is a page-turner. A murder, a manor house deep 
in the Swedish countryside, longstanding family conflicts, and a blizzard provide plenty of atmosphere, questions and chills. Ms. Sten knows how to write an eerily compelling myst...

TALES FROM THE HIGHLANDS by Martha Keyes

 

I should have written a glowing review of the first Martha Keyes novel I read, THE WIDOW AND THE HIGHLANDER. Maybe it’s just as well I waited, because now I‘ve finished all four of the TALES FROM THE HIGHLANDS and can praise them all in one review, a great saving of time. 

Here’s what I like about these traditional Georgian historical romances. They’re in the manner of Georgette Heyer, so there are no obligatory sex scenes, but with a Scottish accent. The characters face real, believable problem...

A Westminster Wedding

 It's been a long haul.

My sixth novel, Portia & the Merchant of London,  was released in February of last year. The seventh, A Westminster Wedding, should (I hope!) come out in the next two or three months. The delay was caused by the need to make some extensive revisions and then by scheduling issues. I believe I've got one more set of galleys to look at, but the cover and blurb are done. 

The title does not refer to a wedding at St. George's, Hanover Square. It's taken from N. Bailey's Universa...

Why do you write?

 A while ago, Anna Faversham, whose books I always enjoy, posed a question on her Goodreads blog. 

The question was, "Why do you write?" She received half a dozen answers, which you can see  at 

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6905076.Anna_Faversham/blog. 

The answers were surprisingly varied, suggesting this is actually a more complex question than one might think. So I'm asking the same question of my blog, Facebook and other social media readers/followers:

If you write, why do you write? 

In...

DAMNING THE DEAD by Kerry Blaisdell: release date 1/5/2022

 I guess this is my year for reviewing non-Georgian/Regency novels. Recently I finished Kerry Blaisdell's third novel in her series featuring Hyacinth Finch, who is sort-of-dead illicit antiquities dealer on a mission from the Archangel Michael.

Do I need to say I read the third because I really enjoyed the preceding books? If you haven't read Debriefing the Dead and Waking the Dead, do that before Damning the Dead.

Kerry Blaisdell’s Damning the Dead is the third in her Dead series. You might have...

Once in a while I review a book, usually one in the Geor...

 

Once in a while I review a book, usually one in the Georgian/Regency period. I do like other historical fiction, however, and mysteries, and besides, my father grew up in New York City not long after the period in which this series is set. I could not resist reading this turn-of-the-century mystery.

I’ve read and liked several of Rhys Bowen’s novels so I had high expectations for Wild Irish Rose by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles. There are a number of series running to a dozen or eighteen books th...