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Catch Us the Foxes
Marlowe Robertson is a young photojournalist looking for the big break to get her out of small-town Kiama. She has a sort of rivalry going with Lily Williams, who was once her best friend. Lily has just earned herself a cadet-ship and is on her way out of the town and Lo is just a bit envious. It’s while working for the local paper as a photographer that she discovers’ a murdered Lily’s body at the local show. Soon she is trying to solve the murder and find justice for her one-time friend and goes on an interesting journey along the way. I won’t go into any more specifics here…
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Hunting the Wren
As Bennet is completing his training as a master astrologer, his esteemed mentor dies leaving him a book spelling out predictions about what’s going to happen next in his life. Christa Wren comes into his life through a client who is murdered. She has no place to go and the establishment needs someone to help out with household duties. The two soon become a pair of sorts and end up in all sorts of intrigue related to the murder and to other occurrences in the town. This turned out to be a pleasant enough read although there are parts that were a bit hard to fathom. I just don’t feel…
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A Grimoire for Gamblers
Elizabeth, has been on leave from her job as an assistant to the mayor of her small town. A couple of weeks earlier her father had committed suicide, leaving her quite adrift, mentally. As she returns to work, she is approached by a stranger who hands over a file with news articles about several local suicides with a curious pattern. She soon realises she’s not quite ready to be back at work and takes further leave. Meanwhile, while going through the attic of her childhood home, she discovers a side of her father totally unknown to her, magic. It’s not long before she has learned a bit of it herself…
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The Ripping Tree
At the age of sixteen, Thomasina Trelora, “Tom”, finds herself sailing for Australia to be married to a vicar she’s never met. She’s had a radical upbringing and isn’t too happy with the plan for her future, particularly the lack of any say in the matter. There is a shipwreck along the rocks on the coast and Tom finds herself rescued by an aboriginal man from the wreckage. She’s left on the verandah at Willowbrae, a well-to-do estate belonging to the Craw family in the middle of nowhere. At first, she feels she has gained a reprieve from her fate, and due to her (feigned) lack of memory, she tries…
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Karolina and the Torn Curtain
Zofia Turbotyńska’s maid, Karolina, has gone missing, leaving the house short-staffed in the midst of Easter preparations. Zofia hears the news a body of a murdered woman has been found washed up from the Vistula River and soon discovers the victim to be the same maid who has disappeared. Zofia is shocked and horrified and immediately starts to investigate on her own and soon finds herself in the underbelly of Crakow society, quite far from her own high social standing as the wife of a university professor. This murder mystery is a bit of Agatha Christie, a bit of cozy mystery, a bit of detective story, and quite a lot…