Tag: Historical

Action Adventure, British, Fantasy, Magical, Mystery, paranormal

Piety’s Fury by Sam Ragnarsson

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

A missing girl. A town full of secrets. A past that won’t stay buried.

Some families keep dark secrets. Some families *are* dark secrets.

When a young girl vanishes in rural Northern Ireland, Piety, a newly appointed Queen’s agent, must return to the same orphanage she grew up in to investigate.

Lissy isn’t just any child. She has magic in her blood, a power she doesn’t understand and can’t control. It’s been driving her father to madness. It may even have killed her mother.

As Piety digs deeper, she finds more than a missing girl. A dangerous artefact, steeped in ancient power, was left in Lissy’s bedroom. A warning, a weapon, or perhaps something worse. And Lissy isn’t the first girl to disappear.

The trail leads to a quiet family farm where generations of women protect a dark secret. They all share the same magical gift, and the same tragic history; taken in by their new mother, after their real parents mysteriously died. And now that mother has her eyes set on Lissy.

To uncover the final, terrifying truth hidden in Templepatrick, Piety must untangle decades of disappearances—and confront a past that wants to stay buried.

A chilling and atmospheric urban fantasy set in 1960s Northern Ireland, Piety’s Fury is a tale of magic, mystery, and the cost of uncovering the truth.

My Thoughts

What a wild story! I haven’t read such an un-put-downable adventure in ages, and am now mourning the end because I WANT MORE!

The second in the Agents by Royal Appointment series, Ragnarsson has written one of the best fantasy/adventure stories of the year. The characters leap off the pages with smart-ass dialog and heart-stopping action centered on Lissy, a young girl who is just learning about her gift of magic. The concept here is one I’ve not read often – a family of magical beings keeping their line going by “adopting” children gifted with magic. I suppose it’s a bit similar to Mother Malkin’s “family” in Joseph Delaney’s Last Apprentice series, but this story is just so well-developed it seems wholly original.

The action never stops, and Piety and Fitz are two of the most engaging lead characters out there. As I read, I kept imagining this as a movie or TV series. It would be fantastic!

Fans of witty, fast-paced, action-packed fantasy will slurp this one up.

Highly recommended.

Publication Date: April 20, 2025
Thanks to Book Sirens for the review copy

Historical, Horror, Mystery, Psychological, Short Stories

Deeds of Darkness by William Burton McCormick

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

DEEDS OF DARKNESS is the best short fiction produced by award-winning author William Burton McCormick. A collection of twenty-four globetrotting stories of suspense, mystery, crime, espionage, horror, and historical genres from the pages of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Mystery Magazine, and elsewhere.

This collection includes short stories nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award, Shamus Award, Thriller Award, five Derringer Award-nominated stories, and two unabridged novellas, “Demon in the Depths,” which finished second in the Ellery Queen’s Readers’ Poll for 2021, and “House of Tigers,” named to the Honor Roll for both the Black Orchid Novel Award and the Mysterious Bookshop’s Best Mystery Stories of 2023.

DEEDS OF DARKNESS takes readers from war-torn Eastern Europe to gangster America and deep below the frozen seas of the Arctic Ocean. From modern tales of crime to World War II espionage to ghost stories in shadowy Odessa and murder in Ancient Rome, every flavor of suspense and adventure awaits within. With a foreword by Linda Landrigan, Editor-In-Chief of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.

My Thoughts

It’s been awhile since I so throughly enjoyed a collection of short stories as I did this one. Each story is a polished jewel of suspense or horror that explores the darkest areas of the human psyche. Some I’d read before but stories like Locked In and Kutsenko’s Cage impart the same sense of dread and horror every single time you read them.

Many stories take place in Latvia or other parts of eastern Europe, some in ancient Rome, and still others in various colorful locations. The stories also have an incredible range and varying lengths, both of which add considerable interest and readability to this collection. The author provides some sly commentary on things as wide-ranging as plagiarism in The House in Glamaig’s Shadow to beauty practices in Cleopatran Cocktails.

Every story brings something new, which is not often something you see in anthologies like this where many stories are pretty much the same. Not here. You’ll find a delightful if sometimes dark reading experience enhanced by the author’s beautiful command of his craft.

Highly recommended.

Publication Date: November 5, 2024
Published By: Level Short
Thanks to Book Sirens for the review copy

Book Tour, Detective, Historical, Mystery

Twist of Time by Gy Waldron

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Book Siren Description

A Templar secret, a brutal murder—can Detective Flynn unravel a deadly mystery before time runs out?

Detective Sgt. Kate Flynn of the Santa Barbara Police Department is called in to investigate a gruesome decapitation and homicide. Her first clue comes from a most unlikely source: an Anglican monk and Celtic studies expert.

Brother Thomas has been expecting the hand-delivery of a priceless diary of a fourteenth-century Templar Knight, but instead he finds the messenger has been murdered.

Kate and Thomas are pulled deep into a centuries-old mystery with roots in medieval Europe and branches that lead to government intelligence, the Vatican, and a top-secret private lab where untold powers were being alchemized that could alter the face of humanity forever.

It’s a race against evil to uncover a plot that could lead them to centuries-old treasure — or to their own demise at the hands of a deranged tech billionaire who has nothing to lose.

A fast-paced thriller by Emmy Award-nominated screenwriter, producer, and director Gy Waldron.

With parallel quests for the truth taking place centuries apart, and a touch of mysticism, readers will be taken on a suspenseful journey with one twist after another in Twist of Time, an electrifying novel of intrigue and history.

Readers of thrillers and novels of suspense by Dan Brown, Ken Follett, David Baldacci will savor every surprise in screenwriter Gy Waldron’s fiction debut.

My Thoughts

I went through a period a few years ago where I binge-read every bit of fiction I could find on the Templars. Some of it was really, really good and some not so great. Twist of Time is a really, really, really great addition to the subject.

I was captivated from the first page, even though the very first sentence was a bit startling! We begin with a present day murder that is immediately connected to the chaotic days in France when the Templars were hunted and executed by the French king. At the center of the chaos is a diary that holds many Templar secrets, including, possibly, the key to finding the fabled Templar treasure.

The author immediately begins building a web of complicated relationships between and among the characters – a tough homicide detective, a mysterious modern-day monk, and a number of other shady characters. I was particularly taken with the author’s cleverness in keeping me guessing about who was shady/bad and who was shady/good.

I also enjoyed the way Waldron wove together the mysterious Templar past with modern day science. I hope to read more stories like this from this author.

I will recommend this for fans of historical mysteries.

Publication Date: August 20, 2024
Published By: First Fruits Publishing
Thanks to Book Sirens for the review copy

Historical, Mystery, Suspense, Women

Trouble Island by Sharon Short

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Netgalley Description

A gripping new novel inspired by a real place and events from the author’s family, Trouble Island is the standalone suspense debut from historical mystery writer Sharon Short.

Many miles from anywhere in the middle of Lake Erie, Trouble Island serves as a stop-off for gangsters as they run between America and Canada. The remote isle is also the permanent home to two women: Aurelia Escalante, who serves as a maid to Rosita, lady of the mansion and wife to the notorious prohibition gangster, Eddie McGee. In the freezing winter of 1932, the women anticipate the arrival of Eddie and his strange coterie: his right-hand man, a doctor, a cousin, a famous actor, and a rival gangster who Rosita believes murdered their only son.

Aurelia wants nothing more than to escape Trouble Island, but she is hiding a secret of her own. She is in fact not a maid, but a gangster’s wife in hiding, as she runs from the murder she committed five years ago. Her friend Rosita took her in under this guise, but it has become clear that Rosita wants to keep Aurelia right where she is.

Shortly after the group of criminals, celebrities, and scoundrels arrive, Rosita suddenly disappears. Aurelia plans her getaway, going to the shore to retrieve her box of hidden treasures, but instead finds Rosita’s body in the water. Someone has made sure Aurelia was the one to find her. An ice storm makes unexpected landfall, cutting Trouble Island off from both mainlands, and with more than one murderer among them.

Both a gripping locked room mystery, and a transporting, evocative portrait of a woman in crisis, Trouble Island marks the enthralling standalone suspense debut from Sharon Short, promising to be her breakout novel, inspired by a real island in Lake Erie, and true events from her own rich family history.

My Thoughts

As a native of western New York and a child of the Great Lakes, I love reading books that are set in the area. Trouble Island was especially fun because it blended my regional interest with a cracking good historical mystery.

This one is all about gangsters of the early 20th century and how they used remote locations like Trouble Island to shield and fuel their illicit activities. This story is also about the friendship between two women deeply embedded in the world of crime. The author’s exploration of what brought them to Trouble island and, for one, how she was getting out of it made for a fascinating and relatively quick read. The writing is evocative and the plotting tightly wound and suspenseful. The author’s treatment of the complicated relationship between the two female protagonists is very well done.

This would make a good book club selection. Recommended.

Publication Date: December 3, 2024
Published By: St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Cozy, Historical, Indie, Mystery, Women

Strong Temptations by Amy Renshaw

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Publisher Description

Reporter Sophie Strong uncovers deadly secrets in a 1912 department store. Can she find the killer?

In 1912 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, aspiring reporter Sophie Strong yearns for a thrilling undercover mission that rivals those of her idol, journalist Nellie Bly. Her dreams of adventure are dashed when her cautious editor assigns her to the seemingly mundane role of a shopgirl.

But appearances can be deceiving. What starts as an ordinary job takes a sinister turn when a fellow employee meets a tragic end. Suddenly, Sophie and her coworkers fall under suspicion. Determined to prove their innocence and driven by insatiable curiosity, she embarks on her own covert investigation. Detective Jacob Zimmer urges her to leave the pursuit of criminals to the professionals, but she can’t resist plunging into the perilous web of secrets, lies, and hidden motives. Sophie explores the shadowy corners of one of the city’s most popular department stores, and each step closer to the truth lures her into more danger.

In this gripping historical mystery, Sophie Strong’s relentless pursuit of justice sets the stage for a heart-pounding race against time. Will she expose the killer’s identity before she, too, becomes a victim? Perfect for fans of Rhys Bowen, Victoria Thompson, and Ashley Weaver.

My Thoughts

This is a solid, entertaining historical mystery featuring a smart and sassy protagonist in Sophie Strong. Modeled after famed reporter Nellie Bly, Sophie longs for an undercover assignment that is more exciting and exhilarating than the women’s columns she habitually writes. Finally given the chance, she finds herself smack in the middle of a murder mystery.

The author writes some strong female characters here who all contribute to the arc of the story. Of course, there’s the underlying romantic element which adds some mild spice to the story and promises of things to come. Sophie is the star here – she’s unflappable, brave, smart, and loyal – all the traits that will endear her to readers.

While I hadn’t read book 1 of the Sophie Strong series, I will go find it and I’m sure will enjoy it. Then I’ll await new entries in the series! Recommended.

Publication Date: April 23, 2024
Published By: Lilac Bower Media
Thanks to Book Sirens for the review copy

Historical, Horror, Mystery, Psychological, Uncategorized

The Death of Clara Willenheim by Charlotte Lesemann

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

Surrounded by family secrets, suspicious deaths, and her own repressed memories, fifteen year-old Clara Willenheim lives as a prisoner in her ancestral estate in 1860s Bavaria. Her only chance of escape is to journey through the castle’s secret passages, unraveling her family’s dark history and its place at the center of a vast web of crime. Driven by the capricious and vengeful ghost of her long-dead aunt, Clara opens doors that threaten powerful enemies, a place where she’s forced to choose between righting past wrongs or losing her own life.

A historical Gothic mystery brimming with suspense and plot twists, The Death of Clara Willenheim is layered in rich, period detail. The novel explores the cost of selflessness and the struggle to choose between justice and vengeance. But at its heart, it’s a story about how, when one part of ourselves dies, something greater can rise in its place.

My Thoughts

If you’re looking for a modern book written in the style of traditional gothics, this is your book. The language is complex, florid at times, and beautifully descriptive which will appeal to readers who truly love language, albeit very dark. The author has a solid grasp of descriptive narrative bolstered by a suspenseful and horrifying story with a satisfying resolution.

The first chapter skillfully set the stage for the suffocating, dangerous narrative which followed. There’s a lot in this story that will make a person with claustrophobia cringe. Which brings me to my only issue with this book – lack of trigger warnings in the description. While gothics traditionally hint at truly terrible things that occur to the heroine, the truly terrible things here – child molestation and trafficking – are topics that I typically avoid in the books I select. Taking my personal reaction to that out of the mix, I am left with a favorable review because the story is very well-written and the plot convincingly dark.

Publication Date: October 29, 2024
Published By: The Gothic Literary Society
Thanks to Book Sirens for the review copy

Historical, Mystery, Romance, Women

The Story Collector by Evie Woods

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

An evocative and charming novel full of secrets and mystery, from the million-copy bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop

In a quiet village in Ireland, a mysterious local myth is about to change everything…

One hundred years ago, Anna, a young farm girl, volunteers to help an intriguing American visitor translate fairy stories from Irish to English. But all is not as it seems and Anna soon finds herself at the heart of a mystery that threatens her very way of life.

In New York in the present day, Sarah Harper boards a plane bound for the West Coast of Ireland. But once there, she finds she has unearthed dark secrets – secrets that tread the line between the everyday and the otherworldly, the seen and the unseen.

With a taste for the magical in everyday life, Evie Woods’s latest novel is full of ordinary characters with extraordinary tales to tell.

My Thoughts

What a lovely story!

The dual-time storytelling works beautifully here as we follow Sarah and Oran in the present as they learn about Anna and Harold in the past. There’s some suspension of disbelief needed here as we follow Sarah’s unexpected journey from NYC to Ireland and her discovery of Anna’s diary. However, every good story requires that suspension and it’s not hard to do here.

Woods spins a gentle but gripping tale of past small village intrigue with a modern tale of a woman examining her life and wondering how she got so off track. This will appeal to fans of Susanna Kearsley and those who enjoy dual-time stories.

Recommended

Family, Historical, Mystery

The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia by Juliet Grames

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

One unidentified skeleton. Three missing men. A village full of secrets.

The best-selling author of The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna brings us a sparkling—by turns funny and moving—novel about a young American woman turned amateur detective in a small village in Southern Italy.

Calabria, 1960. Francesca Loftfield, a twenty-seven-year-old, starry-eyed American, arrives in the isolated mountain village of Santa Chionia tasked with opening a nursery school. There is no road, no doctor, no running water or electricity. And thanks to a recent flood that swept away the post office, there’s no mail, either.

Most troubling, though, is the human skeleton that surfaced after the flood waters receded. Who is it? And why don’t the police come and investigate? When the local priest’s housekeeper begs Francesca to help determine if the remains are those of her long-missing son, Francesca begins to ask a lot of inconvenient questions. As an outsider, she might be the only person who can uncover the truth. Or she might be getting in over her head. As she attempts to juggle a nosy landlady, a suspiciously dashing shepherd, and a network of local families bound together by a code of silence, Francesca finds herself forced to choose between the charitable mission that brought her to Santa Chionia, and her future happiness, between truth and survival.

Set in the wild heart of Calabria, a land of sheer cliff faces, ancient tradition, dazzling sunlight—and one of the world’s most ruthless criminal syndicates—The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia is a suspenseful puzzle mystery, a captivating romance, and an affecting portrait of a young woman in search of a meaningful life.

My Thoughts

I always enjoy and appreciate a well-written story, and The Lost Boy of Chionia is certainly that.

This is a complex and layered story featuring a fairly remarkable character in Franca, or the maestra of this remote Italian village. I found the story slow to start, but the author clearly relished the opportunity to describe the isolated environment and its inhabitants which shape the story as it really gets going. The meandering pace is the only thing keeping me from really loving this book. I picked it up, put it down, picked it up, put it down so many times. But, I kept at it and was rewarded with a story that unfolded into one of the most interesting tales I’ve read this summer.

Grames is very, very good at writing characters where their true natures are sort of peeled back gradually. She clearly relished the opportunity to build a microcosm of a world in Santa Chionia – a village so remote that its residents might as well be on another planet. Agatha Christie based so much of her work on the premise that evil can exist anywhere, even in the tiniest village, and Grames writes that concept very well indeed.

If you like mysteries without the gore and that make you think, you’ll enjoy this.

Publication Date: July 23, 2024
Published By: Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage & Anchor
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Detective, Historical, Mystery

A Case of Desecration in the West by

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

‘All is secrecy. All is lies… Does anyone tell us the truth here?’

Scotland, 1691. Hooded figures have been seen in the woods and the dead have been wrenched from their resting place under the cover of darkness and their graves desecrated. A body is found floating in the River Clyde and a Duchess is determined to find answers.

John MacKenzie’s latest case takes him and his loyal assistant Davie Scougall to Hamilton Palace to discover the truth behind the curious drowning of local woman Bethia Porterfield. The kirk and sheriff have pronounced a verdict of self-murder, but the Duchess is unconvinced, and every soul connected to the case is guarding secrets of their own.

Despite mounting pressure to leave the West, MacKenzie and Scougall must navigate the murky waters of the Clyde, where nothing is as it seems, to uncover the truth – was Bethia’s death an accident, a suicide, or part of something much more sinister?

My Thoughts

Fans of historical mysteries will thoroughly enjoy this clever and sometimes heart-wrenching story set in late 17th century Scotland. I say heart-wrenching because the treatment of the woman whose death prompted the investigation is horrifying. This is not a “cozy” mystery but a hard-hitting and well-researched historical novel.

I had not read earlier entries in this series by Douglas Watt, but was easily able to read this as a stand-alone story. Watts is a very capable writer and the scenes and characters leapt off the pages for me. I will be looking up the earlier entries in the John MacKenzie series and adding them to my TBR pile.

To be sure, this is not a book for the faint of heart. There are some startling and graphic imagery and actions described here, historically accurate to the late 17th century. If you enjoy hard-boiled crime fiction with an historical setting, this is for you.

Publication Date: July 30, 2024
Published By: Luath Press
Thanks to BookSirens for the review copy

Cozy, Detective, Historical, Mystery

Lies & Deception by Laraine Stephens

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

Melbourne 1925.

Jasper Fitzalan Howard is found stabbed to death in his room at The Hotel Windsor. In a bizarre twist, he is clutching a tarot card, the Ten of Swords, in his right hand. Initially, the police identify him as a wealthy investor and a cousin of the Duke of Norfolk. However, while investigating the murder, Reggie da Costa, The Argus’s celebrated crime reporter, uncovers a web of lies and deception surrounding Howard’s carefully constructed façade. It seems that Howard has engaged in swindling wealthy businessmen whilst blackmailing their wives, giving Reggie a host of suspects for the murder. Enlivened by what he discovers, Reggie embarks on a crusade to rid the city of confidence men and ‘snake oil’ salesmen, while tracking down a killer.

My Thoughts

It’s sometimes difficult to read a story that is part of a series when you haven’t read the earlier entries. Fortunately that is not an issue with this 4th entry in the Reggie da Costa series. The author does a great job of filling in any gaps where there’s reference to the earlier books, which are mostly things related to Reggie and his personal life. The mystery here is completely independent and can be read as a stand-alone.

And what a mystery it is! The plot is clever enough to keep you guessing, and is helped along by very competent writing. I found myself utterly relaxed and enjoying the witty dialog and pace of the story. As an older reader, I found myself frustrated and sympathetic to Reggie’s mother and her relationship with Ruby, Reggie’s love interest, but thoroughly appreciated the outcome of their sparring. Both Ruby and Reggie show remarkable aptitude for reading people and deducting. In the end, the bad guys are caught and the heroes celebrated.

I enjoyed this enough that I will seek out the author’s earlier entries in this series. Recommended!

Publication Date: July 2, 2024
Published By: Level Best Books
Thanks to Book Sirens for the review copy