And now it it time for some mysteries...
Deborah Donnelly has created a great character in wedding planner Carnegie Kincaid. Her latest in the series is You May Now Kill the Bride. This mystery is set in in Puget Sound's San Juan Islands with Carnegie trying to arrange the wedding of her best friend. Carnegie sounds like a great wedding planner (having been a professional bridesmaid, she rings true to me...) who just has a problem with corpses falling in her path. Her best friend's future husband is a cop so that helps with the current batch of deaths, and she has a great cast of characters surrounding her - the on and off again boyfriend, the ex military man for a secretary/assistant and her mom who is thinking of remarrying. I have not read the past ones in the series, but am looking forward to exploring/reading those. A good read which falls into the "read it for character - not a intense and intricate plot" - mystery.
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Having a historical setting for a mystery series can backfire - especially if the author does not do their research. The Edwardian England mystery series by Marion Chesney is a nice glimpse into the past. Marion Chesney is another writing name for M.C. Beaton who has written several other series. This series is about Lady Rose Summer and Captain Harry Cathcart. The latest book is Our Lady of Pain. Again the emphasis is on the characters, before concentrating on the mystery.
This is the fourth book in the series and Chesney is continuing to develop the relationship between the two leads. Lady Rose, who her father claims is over educated and that is why she is not getting any marriage offers, is now in a engagement with Cathcart - because otherwise her parents were going to send her to India. Cathcart, who is a veteran of the Boer war is trying to create a business of his private investigations. Rose and Harry like each other, but their timing seems off in their relations with each other, and their status in this society keeps causing misunderstandings. The other fun characters are Daisy - the dance hall girl/maid that Rose has taught to become her assistant/chaperone, and Superintendent Kerridge of Scotland Yard, a man of the people, who is not a fan of the aristocracy.
If the bodies and cases don't get in the way, Rose and Harry may prosper yet! Start with the first in the series - Snobbery with Violence. A fast & fun series.
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