A ROGUE’S COMPANY (A Sparks and Bainbridge Mystery Book #3) by Allison Montclair is another first-rate addition to this historical mystery series set in 1946 London and featuring the daring duo of ladies of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. While this is the third book in the series, it can be read as a standalone, but there are character plotlines that continue to progress in each book. I have read the series in order and have loved every book.
Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge are doing well enough to expand their matchmaking business. As their business grows, so does their friendship. With the return of Gwen’s father-in-law from Africa, she is determined to state her case and have his guardianship removed from her son, but what she doesn’t know is he has other reasons to keep the guardianship intact.
When a new client shows up at The Right Sort, Gwen does not believe he is there for a match. When he continues to appear around the Bainbridge home, she becomes alarmed. When Gwen and his lordship are kidnapped, Sparks seeks help from underworld acquaintances, but will it be in time to save Gwen’s life?
This addition to the series had me turning the pages from beginning to end. The information on the British in Africa at this time was not only interesting, but well integrated into the story without slowing the pace. The mystery plotline is full of twists and red herrings that I was not able to unravel before the conclusion but were tied together with believable resolutions by the author. I love every one of the main characters in this series and find them to be well developed and quite realistic to the period. It came as a surprise to learn that Allison Montclair is a pseudonym, but it does not matter to me because a great story is a great story. I always look forward to visiting with these protagonists again with each book and following them on their next adventure.
I highly recommend this historical cozy mystery series!
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About the Author
ALLISON MONTCLAIR grew up devouring hand-me-down Agatha Christie paperbacks and James Bond movies. As a result of this deplorable upbringing, Montclair became addicted to tales of crime, intrigue, and espionage. She now spends her spare time poking through the corners, nooks, and crannies of history, searching for the odd mysterious bits and transforming them into novels of her own. The Right Sort of Man is her debut novel.
A glimpse of a quickly melting corpse at the foot of a volcano has amateur sleuth and food enthusiast Valerie Corbin shocked. But how can she investigate a murder, when there’s no evidence the victim ever existed?
Retired caterer Valerie Corbin and her wife Kristen have come to the Big Island of Hawai’i to treat themselves to a well-earned tropical vacation. After the recent loss of her brother, Valerie is in sore need of a distraction from her troubles and is looking forward to enjoying the delicious food and vibrant culture the state has to offer.
Early one morning, the couple and their friend – tattooed local boy, Isaac – set out to see an active lava flow, and Valerie is mesmerized by the shape-shifting mass of orange and red creeping over the field of black rock. Spying a boot in the distance, she strides off alone, pondering how it could have gotten there, only to realize to her horror that the boot is still attached to a leg – a leg which is slowly being engulfed by the hot lava.
Valerie’s convinced a murder has been committed – but as she’s the only witness to the now-vanished corpse, who’s going to believe her?
Determined to prove what she saw, and get justice for the unknown victim, Valerie launches her own investigation. But, thrown into a Hawaiian culture far from the luaus and tiki bars of glossy tourist magazines, she soon begins to fear she may be the next one to end up entombed in shiny black rock . . .
MOLTEN DEATH (An Orchid Island Mystery Book #1) by Leslie Karst is an entertaining cozy mystery featuring a retired lesbian foodie protagonist set on the lush, big island of Hawaii with beautiful descriptions of island locations and delicious island fare. This is a delightful new amateur sleuth who happens upon a murder in paradise written by a new to me author who has me hooked.
Valerie Corbin and her wife, Kristen have come to Hawaii for a vacation to hopefully reconnect and mentally heal after Valerie’s car accident in which she watched her brother die. They are staying with Kristen’s Island native friend, Isaac. When they go to watch the sunrise and walk on a lava field, Valerie falls behind and sees a boot in the distance that she goes to investigate and discovers it is in a lava flow and attached to a leg that is quickly disappearing.
Valerie is convinced a murder has been committed, but she has no proof now that the lava has done its job of destroying the evidence. Even though no one believes her, she is determined to discover who is missing and get justice for them.
I enjoyed Valerie and her sense of determination even when it gets her in trouble. While she investigates, the reader gets to follow her to many beautifully written scenic destinations on the island and gets to read descriptions of tropical and local island cuisine. I also liked that the Valerie and her wife were mature characters. Isaac is the perfect bridge between the white women and Hawaiian native culture, history (both past and present), and cuisine. The plot is unique with the lava destroying any evidence and causing everyone to question whether Valerie saw the leg and boot even as she questions the suspects. A good ending with everything tied up in the end and Valerie and Kristen considering a permanent move to the big island.
Overall a delightful cozy mystery that also delivers on beautiful geography, culture, and cuisine.
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About the Author
Originally from Southern California, Leslie Karst moved north to attend UC Santa Cruz (home of the Fighting Banana Slugs), and after graduation, parlayed her degree in English literature into employment waiting tables and singing in a new wave rock and roll band. Exciting though this life was, she eventually decided she was ready for a “real” job, and ended up at Stanford Law School.
For the next twenty years Leslie worked as the research and appellate attorney for Santa Cruz’s largest civil law firm. During this time, she discovered a passion for food and cooking, and so once more returned to school—this time to earn a degree in Culinary Arts.
Now retired from the law, Leslie spends her time cooking, singing alto in the local community chorus, gardening, cycling, and of course writing. She and her wife and their Jack Russell mix, Ziggy, split their time between Santa Cruz and Hilo, Hawai’i.
December 1903: While Wilbur and Orville Wright’s flying machine is quite literally taking off in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina with its historic fifty-seven second flight, their sister Katharine is back home in Dayton, Ohio, running the bicycle shop, teaching Latin, and looking after the family. A Latin teacher and suffragette, Katharine is fiercely independent, intellectual, and the only Wright sibling to finish college. But at twenty-nine, she’s frustrated by the gender inequality in academia and is looking for a new challenge. She never suspects it will be sleuthing…
Returning home to Dayton, Wilbur and Orville accept an invitation to a friend’s party. Nervous about leaving their as-yet-unpatented flyer plans unattended, Orville decides to bring them to the festivities . . . where they are stolen right out from under his nose. As always, it’s Katharine’s job to problem solve—and in this case, crime-solve.
As she sets out to uncover the thief among their circle of friends, Katharine soon gets more than she bargained for: She finds her number one suspect dead with a letter opener lodged in his chest. It seems the patent is the least of her brothers’ worries. They have a far more earthbound concern—prison. Now Katharine will have to keep her feet on the ground and put all her skills to work to make sure Wilbur and Orville are free to fly another day.
TO SLIP THE BONDS OF EARTH (Katharine Wright Mystery Series Book #1) by Amanda Flower is the perfect mash-up of biographical fiction and cozy mystery featuring an overshadowed and forgotten sister finally being recognized for her strengths and accomplishments and weaving into the facts of her life a smartly plotted cozy murder mystery. This is the first book in the series, and I am thoroughly hooked.
Katharine Wright is a brilliant scholar, teacher, and suffragette who also runs the family household of her reverend father since the death of her mother at the age of fifteen. Besides all these personal accomplishments, she also assists her brothers, Wilbur and Orville, with their books in their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. While disappointed when she is passed over for a head teaching promotion, she is very excited by a telegram received from her brothers in North Carolina stating that they have flown their motorized flying machine.
When the brothers return for the Christmas holidays, Katharine talks Orville into attending a Christmas party given by the head of the PTA. Orville’s coat goes missing and when the siblings find it, it is in the billiards room with a dead man stabbed with a screwdriver. One of Katharine’s students is in the room with blood all over his shirt and the design papers for their flying machine Orville had in his coat pocket are missing. Katharine’s student is arrested, but Katharine is not satisfied with the detective’s conclusions.
Katharine begins asking questions that lead to the prominent men of Dayton having secrets that are worthy of blackmail, but do they lead to murder? And the flying machine design papers are still missing, could they be worth killing over?
I loved this story for so many different reasons. I knew nothing about Katharine and was happy to be introduced to a strong, independent, educated woman who was so accomplished in a time when it was not common. She lends herself to being a perfect protagonist in a mystery plot with her curiosity and tenacity. The depth of research into Katharine’s life, the Wright family, and all the history of the period is evident and intertwined seamlessly throughout the book. The cozy mystery plot has all the red herrings and twists that keep the reader guessing, and it gives believable resolutions to all questions by the end.
I highly recommend this engaging historical cozy mystery and I cannot wait for more mysteries to follow in this series.
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About the Author
Amanda Flower is a USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author of over thirty-five mystery novels. Her novels have received starred reviews from Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Romantic Times, and she had been featured in USA Today, First for Women, and Woman’s World. She currently writes for Penguin-Random House (Berkley), Kensington, Hallmark Publishing, Crooked Lane Books, and Sourcebooks. In addition to being a writer, she was a librarian for fifteen years. Today, Flower and her husband own a farm and recording studio, and they live in Northeast Ohio with their two adorable cats.
New York, 1908: The days are getting longer—and warmer—in Manhattan. Molly Murphy Sullivan doesn’t want to leave her home in the city, but typhoid is back, and she’s expecting. So she heads north with the children to summer with her mother-in-law in Westchester County. Molly tells herself it won’t be so bad, after all the countryside is pretty, and she’s determined to make the best of it. Even if she’s leaving her husband, Daniel, behind. And at least she’s not the only one heading north. Her great friends, Sid and Gus, are headed to the Catskills to visit Sid’s family.
Though her mother-in-law is a surprisingly excellent host, Molly quickly grows bored. And when Sid and Gus invite her to visit, Molly jumps at the chance to stay with them at an artist’s community. What a pleasant time they’ll have, so far from the city, although Sid isn’t so enthusiastic about having to visit her family in the nearby Jewish bungalow community. But deep in the Catskills, tensions are running high, and it’s not long before a body delays Molly’s return to Westchester.
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Elise’s Thoughts
In Sunshine or In Shadow by Rhys Bowen and Clare Bowles the focus is on the good friend of Molly Murphy, Sid. As with all these books readers get a glimpse of what is happening in the time period that is weaved throughout the story. This book is very relevant because it delves into the Catskills before it became a resort and how antisemitism flourished, just as today.
Because of the typhoid epidemic in the city, Molly and her children decide to stay with her mother-in-law in Westchester. Molly, who’s bored, visits her friends, who are staying at an artists’ retreat near Sid’s relatives. Sid’s grandfather’s alleged ill health was just an excuse to get her to the Catskill farm, where a matchmaker has brought possible mates for both Sid and her cousin Mira.
Mira’s match, Mr. Simon Levin, has made many enemies. Sid’s match is a college professor she finds interesting but has no intention of marrying. While out walking in the woods, Levin is shot with his own rifle, and the local police immediately focus on Mira, as a suspect. After her friends beg Molly to help Mira, she unearths other motives for his murder.
The reader is kept guessing as to who the murderer was almost to the very end, with clues strewn throughout. Where it really shines is in the descriptions of life during that time period, 1908, and all the historical information on the early Catskill resorts. A riveting murder, fun characters, interlaced with tidbits of historical information make this story a great read.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: How much are you involved in writing this story?
Rhys Bowen: Very involved. We talk through the story idea. Then Clare does some research, and we see what we want to incorporate. In the first couple of books, we wrote alternating chapters. Now Clare is writing more, but I am still going in and giving my suggestions. I am still very hands on. Working with someone else is a gift because they have enthusiasm and new ideas.
Clare Broyles: If I do write a scene or a chapter she reads it immediately for feedback, and vice-versa.
EC: How did you get the idea for this story?
RB: We realized we never focused on Sid and her Jewish heritage. We thought it might be interesting to have her family wanting to have her married off. With the typhoid epidemic everyone wanted to get out of the city, but Jewish people were not welcome at the normal resorts. They decided to go up to the Catskills and stay in primitive cabins. We used typhoid to get Molly out of the city. Even some upscale houses became sick. This is why we bought in the cook, “typhoid Mary,” who went from household to household affecting the families.
CB: We wanted to write everything going on at the Catskills. It had its beginning in 1903. Park Rangers were just coming into existence. Their chain of command had them reporting to NYPD, a perfect line to Daniel. They had the mining in trouble. There was also the growing environmental movement that started to clash with the big quarry there. Plus, there was a Bohemian community of professional women. Ontera was its name. We fictionalized it. We wanted to show that it was a place where woman could be free.
EC: Your story is very relevant today considering what happened on October 7th and the antisemitism going on in the US today. Do you agree?
RB: It is very relevant now. It did not matter how respected someone was or how rich, it was hard for Jewish families to get out of NYC. They were still not welcome. The police detective in this story exhibited the underlying antisemitism that comes out all the time. My health club is in the Jewish Community Center and there must be a guard outside and now there is a sheriff’s car.
CB: There were stories around that time that had to deal with the ‘No Hebrews allowed” signs at the upscale resorts. Unfortunately, this continues to be relevant throughout the years.
EC: There is a portrayal of the different levels of Judaism. Please explain.
CB: Sid’s family was wealthy and less religious versus the religious immigrant strain.
RB: One of my oldest friends in New York picked up some tiny things we did to make it more accurate. She did loads of research for us.
EC: The Catskills?
CB: It was based on fact. Some background, there were some wealthy Jewish philanthropists that wanted to help Jewish immigrants. This was about fifty years before. They bought large tracks of land in the Catskills to give to arriving families who instead of farming made money by renting out cabins.
EC: How would you describe Mira, Sid’s cousin?
RB: She is an interesting character. Not much of a fighter. Not strong-willed or independent. She is hopeful. She is very young who has been a sheltered Jewish girl. Sid and Gus gave her options in life.
EC: You also go into arranged marriages?
RB: Her role in life was to marry whoever her family chose for her and live happily ever after. We put in this quote from Sid, “This is how it is done in the old country. Parents chose a spouse, daughters obey, with a question of dowry and financial advantage. Love did not enter into it.” Gradually we see Mira gaining strength throughout the story. There were very few opportunities for women. Sid and Gus survived because they had money. Maybe this is easier than online dating now.
CB: It is not just the Jewish community that does this. We first considered to set it in Boston with Gus’ family. Women at the time did not have much of a voice. Mira’s family did not force her into marriage but made that option the most attractive. I think Gus’s family in Boston would have done the same thing.
EC: How would you describe the victim, Levin, who was chosen to marry Mira?
RB: He is brash. He is someone who talks about how good they are at their job and how much money he makes. He is annoying and sleezy. He is not trustworthy but is clever enough to convince people he might be a good match.
CB: He talks a good talk.
EC: What about your next books?
RB: The historical novel comes out in August titled The Rose Arbor. It takes place in 1968 with a little girl vanishing. The heroine is a journalist. Her roommate is a police officer. They go down to the South of England. Through their research they find out that three little girls evacuated during WWII also disappeared. This book is a jigsaw puzzle tying all the cases.
CB: The next Molly book has Bridie growing up, a fourteen-year-old. Ryan, a playwright, has written and acted in some motion pictures. Bridie is offered a part. It is titled, Silent as The Grave. It takes place in 1908. The very interesting part of the stories are the situations that lead to a murder. The way the people acted and felt in history.
RB: The special effects were all real. Someone tied to the train tracks was real, taking terrible risks. This all is presented in the book. It comes out the same time next year. All our books are linked to real time. We think about what happened then and how do we tie into it. I like to learn when I read. The sleuth character and how she handles things that stretch her makes the story interesting. When people write me fan mail, they never say that was a clever plot, but say “I love Molly,” which is what matters.
THANK YOU!!
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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE GIRL WITH THE RED HAIR (The Dutch Girls Book #2) by Imogen Matthews on this Bookouture Book Tour.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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Book Description
1942, Amsterdam. The Nazi occupation has shattered the lives of inseparable best friends Hannie and Sonja. The canals and rainy cobbled streets they once strolled down are now patrolled by soldiers day and night, who arrest people at will and beat those who resist.
Hannie can’t stand by and watch the lives of the innocent be destroyed by the evil occupiers. At great danger to herself, she joins the underground resistance, where she meets the charming and mysterious Jan. She covers her bright red hair to avoid detection by the Nazis while distributing fake IDs. And she makes a promise to Sonja and her little sister Maya, who are Jewish – she will hide them and keep them safe, no matter the cost.
But as the German grip on the country tightens with each passing day, Sonja’s worst fears come true when members of her family are taken prisoner. With Jan by her side, Hannie goes undercover as a nurse to try to free them. But she’s devastated when she discovers they’ve been taken to a concentration camp in the isolated far east of the country. Is she too late to save them?
And when Sonja goes missing, Hannie is terrified the worst has happened – has someone betrayed her best friend? Hannie knows her most dangerous task is now ahead of her. Can Hannie save Sonja, and will she have to make the biggest sacrifice of all to bring her home?
THE GIRL WITH THE RED HAIR (The Dutch Girls Book #2) by Imogen Matthews is a heart-wrenching historical fiction novel set in Nazi occupied Amsterdam in 1942 featuring two best friends, one a law student who joins the Dutch resistance and the other a Dutch Jew. Even though this is the second book in the Dutch Girl series, it is easy to read as a standalone.
Hanni and Sonja are inseparable best friends who find their lives slowly changed as the Germans invade and begin to impose their laws against the Jews as they did in Germany. Hanni witnesses many injustices imposed on Sonja for being a Jew and refuses to just stand by. She joins the Dutch resistance and vows to help her friend. When Sonja goes missing, Hanni is willing to sacrifice anything to bring her home.
This story is well written and researched with interesting information about the counterfeiting of documents and the sacrifices made by Dutch resistance fighters. The story demonstrates the heroism and selflessness of people during the worst of times vs. the depravity and cruelty of others. This is an emotional story, and while I enjoyed it, it did not have for me the depth of fear, believable emotional reactions, or pull me in as other historical fiction books I have read. I do believe this would be an excellent story for YA readers of this genre though.
Overall, an intriguing historical fiction story.
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About the Author
Imogen Matthews writes novels based on true stories about the Netherlands during the German occupation in World War 2. Some stories she discovered by chance, others are based on her Dutch mother’s own experiences of hardship and survival during the Hunger Winter of 1944-45.
Her first novel, The Hidden Village, is set in the Veluwe woods, a beautiful part of Holland that Imogen has visited frequently over the past 30 years. It was in these woods that she discovered the story of the real hidden village which provided shelter in underground huts for Jews during WW2. Imogen retells the story of the hidden village with characters drawn from real life and from her imagination.
Within weeks of publication in 2017, The Hidden Village became an international bestseller, ranking at the top of a number Amazon’s most-read book lists.
Following on from The Hidden Village comes Hidden in the Shadows, which has the pace of a thriller yet is also a love story. It tells the story about two young people who are brutally torn apart and must find a way to be together against all odds.
The Girl Across the Wire Fence, is set in Amersfoort, Netherlands, and is based on the unforgettable tale of two young lovers who risked everything to keep hope alive in the very depths of hell – the little known Dutch concentration camp called Kamp Amersfoort.
The Boy in the Attic is a dual timeline novel in which Anna discovers a bent sixpenny coin on a silver chain amongst her father’s possessions that leads her on a journey to discover the grandmother and grandfather she didn’t know she had in wartime Holland.
The Dutch Girls is a new series based on the true story of three female activists who worked in the Dutch resistance. The Girl from the Resistance is the first to be published in October 2023.
Imogen’s WW2 novels are published by Bookouture, a digital imprint of Hachette.
Based on the real life of Lieutenant Annie Fox, Chief Nurse of Hickam Hospital, The Woman with a Purple Heart is an inspiring WWII novel of heroic leadership, courage, and friendship that also exposes a shocking and shameful side of history.
Annie Fox will stop at nothing to serve her country. But what happens when her country fails her?
In November 1941, Annie Fox, an Army nurse, is transferred to Hickam Field, an air force base in Honolulu. The others on her transport plane are thrilled to work in paradise, but Annie sees her new duty station as the Army’s way of holding the door open to her retirement. But serving her country is her calling and she will go wherever she is told.
On December 7, Annie’s on her way to work when the first Japanese Zero fighter plane flies low over Hickam’s Parade Ground. The death and destruction that follow leave her no time to process what’s happening. She rallies her nurses, and they work to save as many lives as they can. But soon their small hospital is overwhelmed. Annie drives into Honolulu to gather supplies, nurses, and several women who will donate blood. However, the nurses are Japanese Americans, and the blood donors are prostitutes.
Under Annie’s leadership and working together in unexpected ways, they make it through that horrific day, when one of the Japanese American nurses and Annie’s friend, Kay, is arrested as a suspected subversive. As Hickam tries to recover, Annie works to find her friend and return Kay to her family. But Annie’s love for her country is put to the test. How can she reconcile the American bravery and resilience she saw on December 7 with the prejudice and injustice she witnesses just a few months later?
THE WOMAN WITH A PURPLE HEART by Diane Hanks is an enlightening, engaging, and heartbreaking historical fiction based on just a moment in a truly heroic career Army nurse’s service on one of the most infamous days in American history. This is a story of an inspiring woman that I was unable to put down.
Lt. Annie Fox served her country in the battle hospitals of WWI, was transferred to the Philippines and now in November of 1941, she is transferred to Hickam Hospital on the Army/Air Force Base near Honolulu and Pearl Harbor. Rather than being excited, she senses this is the Army’s way of moving her into retirement, but she is determined to do her duty and train her new group of nurses to the best of her ability.
As she walks to the hospital to work on the morning of December 7th, enemy fighter planes bring unbelievable death and destruction. As Annie does everything she can to support her young nurses and solve problems in unique ways to just survive the day and then the week, but her love of country is put to the test with the prejudice and injustice she witnesses in the aftermath.
I always love learning about new people and/or new things when I pick up historical fiction books and I learned so many new bits of information in this captivating story. Not only did this book enlighten me about Hickam Base, but the racial tensions that were already evident before the attack on the Hawaiian Islands during this time. The author brings Annie to life, and I felt real empathy for her as an older, single woman in that period and in the Armed Forces. I am so glad that Annie’s heroism, ingenuity, and bravery were recognized and rewarded in her lifetime, and I hope with this historical fiction book she can go on inspiring many more woman and girls who discover her story.
I highly recommend this wonderful historical fiction book!
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About the Author
Diane Hanks has a BFA in Creative Writing from Roger Williams University and an MA in Professional Writing & Publishing from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. A medical writer by day, she has written numerous screenplays and recently returned to her first love—writing novels. Diane also is a mentor for the Writers Guild Initiative, which makes the art of storytelling accessible to underserved populations. When not writing, she enjoys walking by the river near her home.
