Review: Lavender Blue Murder by: Laura Childs

Title: Lavender Blue Murder

Author: Laura Childs

Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime

Series: A Tea Shop Mystery #21

Format: Hardcover ( 320 p.) NetGalley

Description:

Tea Maven Theodosia Browning brews up trouble in the latest Tea Shop Mystery from New York Times bestselling author Laura Childs, now in paperback

Tea maven Theodosia Browning and her tea sommelier Drayton Conneley are guests at a bird hunt styled in the precise manner of an English shooting party. Which means elevenses (sloe gin fizzes), gun loaders, the drawing of pegs, fine looking bird dogs, and shooting costumes of tweed, herringbone, and suede.

But as gunshots explode like a riff of Black Cat firecrackers, another shot sounds too close for comfort to Theodosia and Drayton. Intrigued but worried, Theodosia wanders into the neighbor's lavender field where she discovers their host, Reginald Doyle, bleeding to death.

His wife, Meredith, is beside herself with grief and begs Theodosia and Drayton to stay the night. But Theodosia awakens at 2:00 A.M. to find smoke in her room and the house on fire. As the fire department screams in and the investigating sheriff returns, Meredith again pleads with Theodosia for help.

As Theodosia investigates, fingers are pointed, secrets are uncovered, Reginald's daughter-in-law goes missing presumed drowned, and Meredith is determined to find answers via a seance. All the while Theodosia worries if she's made a mistake in inviting a prime suspect to her upscale Lavender Lady Tea.

INCLUDES DELICIOUS RECIPES AND TEA TIME TIPS!

My Thoughts: 

In this book Theo and Drayton find themselves out with people they don't know the best at a bird hunt shooting   When they find their host Reginald Doyle bleeding to death they decide to try to go home but Meredith is so upset she pleads with them to stay unwillingly they stay for the night and find more questions than answers.

As they dig into the murder the pressure is on everyone to figure out who killed Doyle and why?  When Meredith's daughter-i-law goes missing off a boat in the water the pressure is on Meredith's son of having done something to his wife.    What happened to Fawn and why? And who burned down the Doyle house and killed Reginald Dyle?

I love this series it's a fun with tea being served and Theo running around hoping for a Bruce Wills moment that doesn't come.  It's fun being with her and Dayton as they try to solve this murder and find any and all clues!  

If you haven't read the series you are missing something you will definitely fall in love with these characters and have tons of fun on their many adventures!

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Review: A Death Long Overdue by: Eva Gates

Title: A Death Long Overdue

Author: Eva Gates

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

Series: Lighthouse Library Mystery #7

Format:  Hardcover ( 372 p.) NetGalley

Description:

When her former director is found dead in the water, librarian Lucy Richardson will have to get to the bottom of the mystery before the killer ends her tale.

It's summertime in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Bertie James's college class is having their 40th anniversary reunion. The opening night reception is held at the Lighthouse Library and Lucy and her colleagues have assembled an exhibit of library artifacts showing how libraries have changed over the years. After the reception, some of the women take a walk down the boardwalk to the pier, using flashlights to illuminate the dark path, but what's scarier than the dark is finding the former director of the Lighthouse Library floating lifeless in the water.

Helena Sanchez, the former director, wasn't much loved and spent the party being rude to almost everyone there. As a result, Lucy finds herself in deep water as she rocks the boat, questioning several suspects. But she'll have to batten down the hatches and fast before she's left high and dry...and right in the killer's crosshairs.

My Thoughts: 

We're back to Outer Banks and Lucy's boss is hosting her reunion from college.  Various people show up and meet up with fellow classmates but soon they decide to go out on the bluff and their a past librarian winds up dead and the pressure is on to figure out who did it.  Unfortunately she upset alot of people before her death.  Who killed her and why?

This book had so much going on Connor is trying to find a way to talk to Lucy about something personal but people keep getting in the way.  Louisa Jane has convinced alot of the people around to try to summon spirits which she seems obsessed with proving she can do.  Then there are all the attendants of the reunion what motive might they have for the killing.

This book was a blast to read with all the various people showing up and Lucy and Connor running in circles with this discussion.  It was worth reading and following to see what happens in the story to see if your murderer is the same as the real one!

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Review: The Wright Sister by: Patty Dann

Title: The Wright Sister
Author: Patty Dann
Publisher: Harper Pernnial
Format: E-book ARC ( 218 p.) NetGalley

Synopsis:

An epistolary novel of historical fiction that imagines the life of Katharine Wright and her relationship with her famous brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright.

On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright flew the world's first airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, establishing the Wright Brothers as world-renowned pioneers of flight. Known to far fewer people was their whip-smart and well-educated sister Katharine, a suffragette and early feminist.

After Wilbur passed away, Katharine lived with and took care of her increasingly reclusive brother Orville, who often turned to his more confident and supportive sister to help him through fame and fortune. But when Katharine became engaged to their mutual friend, Harry Haskell, Orville felt abandoned and betrayed. He smashed a pitcher of flowers against a wall and refused to attend the wedding or speak to Katharine or Harry. As the years went on, the siblings grew further and further apart.

In The Wright Sister, Patty Dann wonderfully imagines the blossoming of Katharine, revealed in her "Marriage Diary"--in which she emerges as a frank, vibrant, intellectually and socially engaged, sexually active woman coming into her own--and her one-sided correspondence with her estranged brother as she hopes to repair their fractured relationship. Even though she pictures "Orv" throwing her letters away, Katharine cannot contain her joie de vivre, her love of married life, her strong advocacy of the suffragette cause, or her abiding affection for her stubborn sibling as she fondly recalls their shared life.

An inspiring and poignant chronicle of feminism, family, and forgiveness, The Wright Sister is an unforgettable portrait of a woman, a sister of inventors, who found a way to reinvent herself.

My Thoughts: 

You say the name Wright and the first thing you think of is Orville and Wilbur Wright you don't realize they had a sister named Katharine who was with them every step of the journey with the aeroplane.  She helped them more than the world knows.

In this book we see Katharine talking about her life and in between are letters to Orville who stopped speaking to her when she wed Harry Haskell.  All the letters and chapters are from Katharine's point of view.  We the reader that is really aren't sure why they aren't talking it's a journey one woman goes on and her emotions everything from being desperate to talk to Orville to anger that he's not answering her.  

It was so beautifully written and the author really developed a great story even if it is one sided.  It was definitely well written without upsetting the history we know of the wright brothers.  Definitely a fabulous historical fiction book!

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