Review: Christmas at Embthwaite Farm

Christmas at Embthwaite Farm by Kate Hewitt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This second book concerns Harriet Mowbray, Rachels' younger sister, the sister that never left the farm.

Harriet's mother left Embthwaite Farm when Harriet was just seventeen. The shock and hurt led her to make a hash of her exams and so she never got to go to university or leave Embthwaite like her older sister.

Following their father's diagnosis of a terminal brain tumour Rachel and Harriet have had something of a rapprochement, although Harriet still feels like the loser with no qualifications. Their father, a typical taciturn Yorkshireman, has never been affectionate but he seems to actively dislike Harriet and she has no idea why. She is attempting to set up her own bread/ cakes /scones /cookies business but it has been hard going. Her latest idea is to approach the mysterious millionaire who has bought the nearby derelict manor house and is restoring it into a hotel and ask if he wants to place an order some of her cookies.

Quinn Tyler was a gaming entrepreneur on the brink of selling his business for millions of dollars until he hit the self-destruct button (yet again) and wiped half the value off his shares. Now he's left California and invested in an ideal of a country house hotel. He's keeping a low profile because he really doesn't want the YouTube footage of his meltdown following him to Yorkshire or affecting the hotel launch. Quinn comes from a traditionally wealthy family, the sort that play tennis and polo and drift round the world on their yachts. Quinn has never conformed to their ideals, being dyslexic and nerdy, interested in computer games and comics rather than designer watches and banking.

Little do they know, but Quinn and Harriet have already met at the ceilidh where they briefly danced together. When they meet again its an instant attraction, but can these two lost souls, both desperately seeking recognition/love from their fathers, overcome their insecurities?

I liked this much better than the first one. Ben still seems to be a bit of a mansplainer in this book but I can at least see that his comments are coming from a place of love. Quinn is just adorable (I might even say adorbs) and Harriet has some much stuff to deal with but she keeps going.

It will be interesting where the third book goes.

I received an ARC from the publisher Tule for an honest review.

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Review: Dredemere Castle

Dredemere Castle by G.J. Bellamy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

I read this five days ago, yet when I read the blurb I could not recall a single thing that happened!

Sophie Burgoyne is a minor aristocrat, daughter of an impoverished vicar, who has set up rather an unusual business as both a typing and employment agency. Through a cousin, she has also become a police spy working for the Foreign Office and some of her most trusted friends/employees assist her.

At a pivotal moment in Egyptian history, an Egyptian statesman is in England, he is due to meet with British politicians at Dredemere Castle to broker Egyptian independence, however there is a strong risk that he will be assassinated. Security is heavy, with police surrounding the castle, and Sophie and her team are undercover. But as always, there are so many people undercover or playing a part that it is difficult to determine allegiances.

This was probably my favourite of the series (out of the four I have read).

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Review: Chertsey Park: A 1920s historical mystery of drama and suspense

Chertsey Park: A 1920s historical mystery of drama and suspense by G J Bellamy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

News about Burgoyne's Employment Bureau has spread fast and the team are asked to provide additional servants for Lady Stokely's dinner party in honour of her son. following on from that, the team are asked to visit Lord Stokely's home, Chertsey Park, to assist the skeleton staff in catering for four days of meetings and entertainment for Stokely and his cohort. It's an ideal opportunity for the gang to dig up some dirt about the dastardly Stokely and the police are on standby nearby.

Meanwhile Stokely's plotting is coming to a head, he's inciting riots, strikes, and financing acts of terrorism.

These books are very much in the same theme as Buchan's The 39 Steps, by which I mean that there are wealthy men plotting the downfall of the government and the rise of a new power. Of course the 1920s were a hotbed of political extremism, the fascists were rising to power in Italy, many former soldiers embraced the communist ideals of equality and a classless society. After WW1 people wanted to change the world for the better and many young people were sick of old men leading them into catastrophic wars for their own aggrandisement.

Having said that, this was only okay. It felt like Sophie created all the mayhem because she couldn't/wouldn't act like a servant and ended up putting everyone in danger. Also, towards the end I felt like Sophie got captured about six times in one evening. There were at least three different layers of henchmen, and it stopped making sense a little bit.

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Review: The Body in Seven Dials

The Body in Seven Dials by H.L. Marsay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Set at the outbreak of WW1, this novel is inspired by the remarkable life of Dorothy Peto, the Metropolitan Police’s first female superintendent.

Dorothy wants to be a writer and has moved to London to live with her brother Raymond. She is active in the women's rights movement, although she doesn't ascribe to the violent protests of Mrs Pankhurst's group.

When war breaks out many men join the army, this combined with the influx of Belgian refugees, means that the police force is woefully under-resourced so Dorothy and a group of similar minded women offer to create a volunteer force to assist the police. They have no powers to arrest people but can advise refugees on where to get assistance, or encourage prostitutes to move elsewhere etc.

Then Dorothy learns that an actress starring in a West End show has died, mere hours after Dorothy herself saw her backstage. Dorothy finds it hard to believe that a young woman who seemed so happy and vivacious when she signed Dorothy's programme could have committed suicide shortly afterwards.

During a Zeppelin raid on the capital Dorothy finds a little Belgian girl apparently begging on the streets, when she takes her back to her home in Seven Dials, where they find the little girl's mother's body. The circumstances of her death bear a striking similarity to those of the actress and Dorothy is convinced that they are linked, but the police seem to be focusing on Dorothy's brother as a suspect.

I have read one of this author's contemporary romances so this was a different genre for me. While I enjoyed it, I did find some of the logic to be a bit convoluted, and surely there shouldn't what felt like five different suspects.

Overall, historically interesting, and an easy read but I'm ambivalent about reading any more in the series.

I received an ARC from the publisher Tule for an honest review.

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Review: Lady Holme

Lady Holme by G.J. Bellamy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Sophie Burgoyne's employment and typing agency is doing well, as is her secret work for the police. She and her team go undercover at a London casino to gather more information about the drug dealing on the premises (funny to think that opium and cocaine weren't illegal until 1920) and suspicions of passing of counterfeit money. When Sophie picks up a matchbox left by one of the guests it references an establishment in Lymington, which ties into information the police have received about potential smuggling along the Hampshire coast and an explosion out at sea.

Deducing that anyone involved in wholesale smuggling is probably using local caves or inlets and would need an area of isolation with access to large storage facilities Sophie suspects that the smugglers are using a country house in the area and highlights Lady Holme, a beautiful Tudor mansion home to Lord and Lady Hazlett, as a likely suspect.

Lord Hazlett hasn't left Lady Holme for nearly forty years, despite his wife's protests. When he refuses yet again to go to London for a society event he placates Lady Hazlett by offering to throw a house party for friends and family. Of course Burgoyne's Agency would be ideally placed to provide additional maids to help out at the party.

The party has barely started when one of the guests is murdered, but with so many secrets flying around will Sophie and her team ever be able to solve the crime?

This felt more disjointed than the first book. The counterfeit currency was mentioned at the start of the book and then never mentioned again until the very end when it conveniently tied into the other plots. There was a secret society which Lord Hazlett had crossed (hence being forced to stay at Lady Holme for forty years), but I don't think we ever found out why.

Also the epilogue seemed to tie off lots of loose plot strands (like HEAs) as if it was the final book in the series, but then things were left wide open for Sophie on a personal front.

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Review: Christmas at the Inn on Bluebell Lane

Christmas at the Inn on Bluebell Lane by Kate Hewitt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Apparently this is the second book in a series.

In the previous book Ellie and Matthew and their two children left the US to come to Wales and help Matthew's mother Gwen run his family's inn. After some tensions Gwen and Ellie are getting on well, until Gwen's daughter Sarah informs them that the inn is running at a loss and unless they do something drastic they will have to close. Meanwhile Matthew has a secret.

Sarah has her own problems, her husband seems to be working longer and longer hours, he pays her and the children no attention and when she asks for his help, or asks him to call when he is going to be late he accuses her of nagging. Added to which her highly intelligent daughter is stressing about her GCSEs.

Finally, after being widowed for longer than she was married, Gwen has met up with an old friend of her husband's that she hasn't seen since her husband died. Newly retired and also widowed, he has moved to the area to be closer to his daughter who is expecting a baby.

Can Ellie, Gwen and Sarah find a new income stream to save the inn?

I'll be honest, this just didn't grab me and I have to say I didn't really see the point when I had finished it, unless of course there is a triumphant third book in the offing. Otherwise it was a bit ... so what? Also, all the male characters were not portrayed in a particularly positive way.

I received an ARC from the publisher for an honest review.

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Review: Secret Agency

Secret Agency by G.J. Bellamy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sophie Burgoyne is a minor aristocrat, daughter of an impoverished vicar. She has set up an employment and typing agency in London but is struggling to make ends meet. Then a cousin who works at the Foreign Office stops by with a proposition. There is to be a meeting between representatives of the Greek government and the British government to discuss Britain providing a fleet of submarines. The meeting will be hosted at a stately home over the weekend and the government has just learned that one of the Greek delegate is actually a spy, there to steal the submarine plans and sell them to the highest bidder. Her cousin has persuaded his girlfriend to attend the meeting, as representative of her father's steel business, and wants Sophie to accompany her in disguise as her servant. Sophie's job will be to observe what happens at the meeting and, once the spy has taken photographs of the plans, replace them with photos of much older and imperfect plans. In return, the British government will pay Sophie a considerable sum, enough to eep her business afloat.

Separately, Frank Wright, an architect has been murdered and his father, Sir Ephraim Wright, majority shareholder in Frobisher Bank is being blackmailed; unless he sells the majority of his shares to a middle man for a fraction of their true value his children will be killed. One of Sir Ephraim's other sons Alfred Wright is the designer of the submarine which forms the basis of the negotiations over the weekend.

I love this between the wars spying caper, country houses, aristocracy, blackmail, murder, enterprising young women, mysterious gentlemen, secret societies. can't wait to read the next one.

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Review: Only Good Enemies

Only Good Enemies by Jennifer Estep
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Vesper Quill has convinced Lord Callus Holloway, the Imperium ruler, and Kyrion Caldaren, the leader of the Arrows, the Imperium’s elite fighting force, that she and Kyrion are not a bonded pair using a pair of gloves that mimic human skin (when one member of a bonded pair is injured the other immediately manifests a similar mark on their bodies).

With Callus no longer taking an interest in them, Kyrion and Vesper have gone their separate ways, with Vesper taking Kent Corp over and improving profitability drastically by making things that actually work properly. However, it seems as though more of her inventions have been sold to Techwave which plans to use them to mount an offense against a neutral planet.

The truth about Vesper's father is revealed and Kyrion and Vesper learn more about the powers of a bonded pair.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that I just don't like space opera. As I said in my review of the previous book, I'm a bit underwhelmed. I've read all this before, one way or another. Poor, downtrodden, no magic, drone suddenly finds out she does have magic, its just of the super special variety and really she's more powerful than everyone else. Blah, blah, blah.

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Review: Throwback

Throwback by Maurene Goo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Samantha Kang has always had more in common with her grandmother (Halmoni) than with her own mother, she feels like nothing she does is ever right for her mother, Priscilla. Priscilla is a first generation Korean-American and she seems to have obliterated everything Korean from her life, they don't eat Korean food at home, she doesn't speak Korean, even to her mother, and seems to have a similarly fraught relationship with her own mother which apparently dates back to when Priscilla failed to be voted Prom Queen.

After Halmoni has a heart attack Priscilla and Samantha have a massive argument, culminating in Sam saying she hated her mother. Sam downloads and books a taxi app ,but instead of taking her home it takes her back to 1995 when her mother was at high school and running for Prom Queen. It seems that Sam has been sent back in time to help Priscilla win the vote for Prom Queen (and thereby fix the problems between Priscilla and Halmoni) and she can't return to her own time until her task has been completed.

At first Sam finds it a shock to the system, in her reality their school is a veritable melting pot of diversity and she finds it hard to negotiate the 1990s high school cliques of jocks and goths and the Asian kids etc.

If you loved Back to the Future, or Freaky Friday, or maybe Thirteen Going on Thirty like I did then I think you'll enjoy this.

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Review: Weight Expectations

Weight Expectations by M.E. Carter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Rian is a plus-sized woman working as an account manager for a media company. After her annual physical check-up she has been advised to exercise more and eat more healthily, hence she has joined Weight Expectations, a local gym.

Carlos is the COO of Cipher Security. He loves and respects women but has no desire for a relationship of any description, he doesn't even want to date. But he tells himself he is honest with the women he sleeps with. Carlos also has a type, blonde, skinny, fit, and shallow. Carlos also has a few hang-ups about his physical appearance. Working with ex Special Forces operatives is almost guaranteed to make a desk jockey feel inadequate, which is why he has started going to the gym religiously and eating healthily.

The smoothie bar tender at Weight Expectations Tabitha invites a few of the regulars out for drinks and dinner. In the event only four people turn up, Tabitha, Carlos, Rian and an older guy. The older guy and Tabitha have a strong flirting game going and Carlos and Rian get talking. But just as Rian is sure than someone as devastatingly handsome and fit as Carlos could never be interested in a woman like her, Carlos knows that he isn't good enough for an intelligent, driven woman like Rian.

This was quite a slow burn. Rian is immediately attracted to Carlos whereas Carlos, being unused to having any deep feelings, takes a while to realise that he is thinking about Rian all the time.

I liked it, but I didn't love it.

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Review: Playing it Safe

Playing it Safe by Ashley Weaver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's the height of the Blitz, but as the bombs rain down on London might after night, Major Ramsay informs Electra (Ellie) McDonnell that she must travel to Sunderland for purposes as yet unknown, but while she waits for further instructions she should start to make friends with the other residents of the guest house where she will be staying.

Ellie hasn't even arrived at the guesthouse when she is roughly shoved into the path of an oncoming vehicle, luckily a passer-by rescues her, so she is horrified when the same man dies in the street outside her guesthouse, clutching a cryptic note in his hand. Could his death be related to her mission?

I think others have commented that these books seem to have settled into a holding pattern. Major Ramsay never tells Ellie what is going on, they have a moment, Major Ramsay pulls away, Ellie finds the clue that cracks the case wide open but doesn't share/forgets about it. Also, and I have just checked, at 267 pages this isn't much shorter than the first book (300 pages) but it just feels like less happened, or maybe it was all more superficial? Also, there seemed to be a lot of things which happened off-page, eg they get an anonymous tip that X is happening.

The mystery over whether Ellie's mother really murdered her father is also proceeding at a glacial pace, although there is a development right at the end of the book.

I just don't feel after three books the same attraction to the characters as I did with Amory and Milo (although I do recall being very irritated by the on-again, off-again nature of their relationship). Nevertheless, I have pre-ordered the fourth book.

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