Can't Wait Wednesday: A Recipe For Murder by Verity Bright (A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery Book 21)

 

For this week's Can't Wait Wednesday, hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings, I'm featuring,A Recipe For Murder, by Verity Bright. I am finally reading book 11, Death Down the Aisle, which is where I left off a few months ago. This series was my first introduction to cozy mysteries and it remains in my top favorites. This book has Lady Eleanor and her dashing beau Detective Hugh Seldon planning their nuptials when their chef is poisoned. As more murders occur she must work to find the killer before they harm her or anyone else. Even Hugh is in danger and needs her help this time!

Cozy Historical Mystery

March 31, 2025

Book Description courtesy of GoodReads:

Cream cakes, cucumber sandwiches, apple tarts and… poison? Lady Swift is trying to plan the menu for her wedding, until murder strikes in kitchens across the village!

Lady Eleanor Swift’s marriage to dashing Chief Inspector Hugh Seldon is just days away. There’s a lot to organise from the dress to the catering, including, of course, the all-important wedding cake.

But Eleanor is heartbroken when their chef, apple-cheeked Annie Tibetts, dies of poisoning. And as the doctor confirms her death wasn’t an accident, accusations fly around the whole community.

With more of the village struck down by the poison, Eleanor must unmask a killer who seems intent on spreading chaos amongst her nearest and dearest. Everyone is accusing their neighbour… and Eleanor is in a pickle as the seating plans for the wedding fall apart. But she soon has bigger fish to fry when the source of the poison is traced to a trusted establishment in town. Eleanor is certain they are being framed and that sabotage is afoot…

And when a sample of poisoned wedding cake is delivered anonymously to Hugh working at his station miles away in Oxford, Eleanor realises that while she has been planning for the future, her past has been catching up with her. Eleanor must race across the countryside to save her love from certain death. Can Eleanor find the proof in the pudding and save Hugh in time? And will the poisoner finally get their just desserts?

 

Stacking the Shelves #48

 

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Reading Reality. It's a place to showcase any books I have purchased, borrowed, or been lucky enough to have been given an advance copy of. Hope you find something that looks interesting to you or that makes you remember a favorite book you need to finish. Enjoy your reading this week!

Borrowed audiobook and book from Libby: Free

This is the second book in the Jane Wunderly series. I enjoyed the other two I've read and wanted to go back and see how the one set in England turned out. I like that these books are following her from overseas back to America and then to other exotic locations. That sounds like a lot of fun! In this one she works with her love interest, Redvers, to solve a murder at the home of Lord Hughes, where she is a guest. 

Purchase from Amazon for Kindle: $1.49 with points:

I am so behind on this series! For a long time I read one each season. The books follow a seasonal rotation with locations and theme. I really like that idea. This one I should have finished over the fall but life got busy. I think this was my first series exposure to "cozies" and I love it but have found so many others to read now. I finally bought it and need to get going in March. This is the 11th book and the series I've read the most from. Eleanor attends a wedding and of course......stumbles into another murder to solve. With the help of her love interest, Dectective Hugh Seldon, she is on the case!

Purchase from Amazon for Kindle: $0.99 with points:

The title and cover appealed to me because of course, Egypt and pyramids. Oh, and a mystery too! My favorite kind of book. I had never heard of the author or series so thanks Book Bub for introducing it to me. It is book two of a three part series written by an English author. I might wait to read this one until I've read book one. It is part of the Ursula Marlowe Series and there are three books in all. Set at the turn of the 20th Century, it features a young heiress who finds murder and mysteries to solve. I love the covers and it has that old time classic feel to it. 

A King's Ransom by Sharon Kay Penman (Plantagenets Book 5)

 

Publication Date: March 4, 2014

Genre: Historical Fiction/Medieval Fiction

Series: Plantagenet Saga

Length: 685 pages

Book Description (GoodReads):

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Lionheart comes the dramatic sequel, telling of the last dangerous years of Richard, Coeur de Lion’s life.
 
This long-anticipated sequel to the national bestseller Lionheart is a vivid and heart-wrenching story of the last event-filled years in the life of Richard, Coeur de Lion. Taken captive by the Holy Roman Emperor while en route home—in violation of the papal decree protecting all crusaders—he was to spend fifteen months chained in a dungeon while Eleanor of Aquitaine moved heaven and earth to raise the exorbitant ransom. But a further humiliation awaited him: he was forced to kneel and swear fealty to his bitter enemy.

For the five years remaining to him, betrayals, intrigues, wars, and illness were ever present. So were his infidelities, perhaps a pattern set by his father’s faithlessness to Eleanor. But the courage, compassion, and intelligence of this warrior king became the stuff of legend, and A King’s Ransom brings the man and his world fully and powerfully alive.

My Thoughts:

When I read the last sentence of this book Sunday night I was pretty elated. Not because I'm done and didn't like it but because I've finished all the books in this series which I started during Covid. I felt like I'd accomplished something big! Penman's books are so amazing they take awhile to read carefully. And there were times I thought I'd never finish a chapter, trying hard to concentrate on everything going on. 

It made me want to go back and re-read The Land Beyond the Sea, her last book and set during the period of Saladin and Baldwin, The Leper King. So I am reading it again before I start another epic. 

If I'm honest, this was my least favorite of the series. It was still amazing! Penman doesn't write a bad book, period. This one just wasn't quite as exciting as I'd hoped. The one before, Lionheart, was so intense and so beautifully written it was hard to top though. In this story, we spend a lot of time inside Richard's head. Penman said that she felt her novel Lionheart was about Richard the warrior and A King's Ransom was about Richard the man. I totally agree.

Richard leaves the Holy Land at the end of Lionheart. This book picks up at that point and takes us in spectacular detail through his attempted journey back to Europe. Through a series of bad events, he is captured first by Leopold, the Duke of Austria who has a major axe to grind with him, and then handed over to brutal captivity in the hands of the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry Hohenstaufen. His mother Eleanor works back home to raise his ransom. After three long years he is freed but must now deal with his shady brother John and arch enemy Phillip of France as they have sought to steal Richard's kingdom and thwart his freedom at every turn. They never anticipated Richard would be freed. Now, as John says, "Look to yourself... the devil is loose!" They are panicked and realize their schemes will be revealed and have no idea how Richard will react. 

Can't Wait Wednesday: Homicide in the Indian Hills by Erica Ruth Neubauer (A Jane Wunderly Mystery Book 6)

 

For this week's Can't Wait Wednesday, hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings, I'm featuring, Homicide in the Indian HIlls, by Erica Ruth Neubauer. I've read books one and three in this series and they were fun. I like the series mysteries that take place in unique, exotic places and hers generally do. 

The books feature heroine sleuth, Jane Wunderly, and her mysterious love interest, called Redvers.  I have started with book two this week. The only reason I skipped it was that it takes place in England and I really wanted to read the others taking place in other countries. Hope you've found something you can't wait to read this week. Happy reading ya'll!

Historical Mystery

March 25, 2025

Book Description courtesy of GoodReads:

Intrepid American newlywed Jane Wunderly learns that tigers aren’t the only dangers lurking in 1920s India, when a murder in a popular resort town threatens to destabilize the local government and undermine the resistance movement for Indian self-rule . . .

Ooty, 1927: Accompanying Mr. Redvers on an assignment to Ootycamund to quell revolutionary rumblings, Jane finds there’s more than meets the eye to India’s Queen of Hill Stations. Ooty’s lush tea plantations and tranquil gardens barely conceal its secrets--scandalous affairs, political sabotage, and a mounting anti-colonial movement. Even Redvers intends to subvert his official mission in Ooty, by arranging a series of clandestine meetings with local resistance leaders. But it’s not until the shocking death of a British national that Jane and Redvers are truly drawn into Ooty’s deepest shadows.

Jane’s suspicions that the death is more than a tragic accident are soon confirmed, but word of a murder could stoke Ooty’s simmering tensions into a full boil. Navigating corrupt local officials, festering personal vendettas, and a complicated network of bureaucratic entanglements that lead to the top tiers of government, Jane and Redvers edge closer to the truth…and its deadly consequences. Someone is willing to spill blood to protect their interests, will Jane become just another of Ooty’s darkest secrets?
 

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Set in Another Time

 

This week's theme for Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, is "Books Set in Another Time." Since that is practically all I read that is an easy topic for me! Here are my top ten favorites right now although I think with more time I'd probably change the list constantly. 

The link will take you to Goodreads if you are interested in the book. You won't be disappointed in any of these if they are in a genre you enjoy. Happy reading ya'll!

1. The Land Beyond the Sea by Sharon Kay Penman- Crusader period 1100's

2. Voyager by Diana Gabaldon- Scotland/Caribbean 1700's 

3. The Falcon of Palermo by Maria R. Bordihn- Sicily 1100's-1200's

4. The Iron King by Maurice Druon- France- 1300's

5. Gracelin O'Malley by Ann Moore- Ireland- 1800's

6. Death of a Stranger by Anne Perry- Victorian England- 1800's

7. Uneasy Lies the Crown by N. Gemini Sasson- Scotland- 13-1400's

8. Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie- England- 1900's

9. Highland Fling by Amanda Scott- Scotland- 1700's

10.Pirates and Patriots by David Field- Elizabethan England- 1500's

I could honestly have a list of 100 or more books here. I absolutely love historical fiction and most of the books I've listed also belong to a series in which all the books are great. This list was hard to whittle down!