2016 reading, July
Lots of distractions this month - family wedding, so I only read 23 books.
To Brew or Not To Brew - Joyce Tremel 7/31/16 Brewing Trouble #1 Max(ine) O'Hara has learned brewing in Germany after getting her BS & Masters in Chemistry. She is the youngest of 6 with 5 older brothers, father a homicide detective. She has come back to Pittsburgh to open a brewpub with a good friend from Germany who is killed in the first 12 pages. The murderer took the implement with him, the police & the Medical Examiner aren't convinced it's murder, despite all the minor vandalism that has been occurring. Max gets another chef, her next-elder brother's good friend Jake, who has retired from professional hockey because of a series of concussions. Vandalism continues. Perp: someone who resents that Jake didn't play for the Penguins, or someone who wants Max out of the building? Enjoyed!
Foreign Eclairs - Julie Hyzy 7/30/16 White House Chef #9 Ollie thwarted a plot by terrorists several books ago, and now they are targeting her. End of series
Blood Orange - Susan Wittig Albert 7/29/16 China Bayles #24 Kelly Kaufman, a guest in China's b&b at the back of Thyme and Seasons, disappears then asks China for a meeting about a murder. Kelly has been a nurse at the local hospice, and the patients there are dying anyway - why murder one? Then Kelly & her borrowed van are hit-and-runned, no brake marks, China's b&b is ransacked, and the only clues are the contact marks on the van and footprints in the b&b. Then Kelly's computer is found, and we're off.
Malice at the Palace - Rhys Bowen 7/2816 Lady Georgie #9 Georgie is drafted by Queen Mary to help Princess Marina get acclimated to London before the wedding to Prince George. Georgie finds one of George's old girlfriends dead in a courtyard of the Aunthill, aka Kensington Palace. Up to Bowen's usual standard of funny.
Manners and Mutiny - Gail Carriger 7/22/16 Finishing School #4 Sophronia, Agatha, & Dimity are finished. At their school, which turns young ladies into spies, this means killing someone who deserves it. Steampunk England, 1854: werewolves are scheming against vampires, and both are in danger from traitors called Picklemen, the chief of whom wants the Throne for himself. The school is a huge dirigible, suitable for transporting a large number of mechanicals which do not have Isaac Asimov's Three Rules in their protocols. It is based over Cornwall's moors, and moves slowly, taking at least 3-4 days to get to London. The Picklemen hijack it, but Sophronia manages to get back on board before lifting off. The headmistress and a professor/vampire are hostages - can she save the Empire?
All the President's Menus - Julie Hyzy 7/22/16 White House Chef #8 The White House is in sequester mode, Ollie is coping with reduced staff, and a female candidate for president of a totalitarian country will be visiting in 2 weeks. 4 chefs from her country are also visiting the white House kitchen for those 2 weeks and several are behaving suspiciously. One is openly hostile to Ollie as a female wielder of authority, but he's not the one that ends up dead. 2 others persist in speaking their language privately, despite the order of their chief to speak English as a courtesy to Ollie & Bucky, so Ollie gets a mini tape recorder, which prompts a mugging to retrieve it before a translator can work on it. Plot to discredit the US and/or kill the candidate?
The Ides of April - Lindsey Davis 7/21/16 Flavia Albia #1 (out of order) I don't remember reading of Albia's marriage in the Falco books, but she's already 8 years widowed in this one, now aged 28. She's been an informer (detective) for 12 years. At the start, she is hired by Salvidia, another widow running her husband's construction business, to prove she isn't liable for the death of a little boy run over by one of her drivers. Salvidia dies within days of unknown causes, her stepson hires Albia, I am suspicious of poison immediately, several other people die equally suspiciously within days. The aedile sends a runner, Tiberius, to do his legwork, the Temple of Ceres' archivist Adronicus is a freedman of the same household and resents greatly that he wasn't made the aedile's secretary. Adronicus is a real charmer and gets away with too much & always has, according to Tiberius. The title refers to Albia's birthday and also to the period of a festival for Ceres, which the aedile has to organize, a major distraction from the investigation of the deaths. Albia is nearly seduced by Adronicus, leaving them both frustrated at the interruptions, but she is glad by the end of the book.
Miss Julia's School of Beauty - Ann B. Ross 7/20/16 Miss Julia #6 In which Miss Julia returns from her honeymoon with Sam & discovers their Dollywood wedding chapel minister might not be licensed > they're not really married. AAACK! She is a very moral Presbyterian & makes Sam move out of her bedroom until a) they find out and b) they get really married. Her best friend LuAnne is all bent out of shape that there were no engraved announcements mailed nor reception nor proper announcement in the newspaper & wants to spring a reception on them, but her housekeeper Lillian tells Julia, so she sends Sam out of town to hunt down the “preacher” during the week that LuAnne wants to hold the surprise reception, and since Sam isn't around, there can be no party. There is also a beauty pageant happening to earn money for more snifferdogs for the sheriff's department, organized by Hazel Marie, who lives with Julia. HM is the mother of Julia's dead husband's illegitimate son, a co-legatee with Julia. The girls for the contest are sponsored by the various departments of the sheriff's office & have little to no talent, only looks & shape, except for one girl, a dowdy but excellent guitarist, who happens to be the niece of the fake minister, who blackmails Julia into trying to sway the judges.
My Life in France - Julia Child, with (Paul's grandnephew) Alex Prud'homme 7/19/16 Much more than that - post-Paris in Marseille, then Bonn, then back in D.C., then Oslo, then Cambridge. Writing MtAoFC, testing recipes, working out what to leave out after Houghton Mifflin declined as too long > Knopf.
Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously - Julie Powell 7/18/16 Cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year. I also saw the movie a few years ago & enjoyed it too.
A Madras Miasma - Brian Stoddart 7/15/16 Christopher Le Fanu is an inspector in Madras' crime unit, tasked with solving the murder of a British woman, Jane Carstairs. He has to deal with the Commissioner, Jepson, a horrible boss determined to get him out but is protected by the Inspector-General, Wilson, who appreciates his abilities. Le Fanu, aka LF, and Jepson clashed at another location over an Indian sergeant. Carstairs' best friend Virginia Campbell came with her to India as part of the fishing fleet, seeking husbands - both are nearing 30 in the early 1920s. Indians have been seeking independence from Britain since before WWI, the Presidency's Governor wants to liberalize, but the financiers are very conservative & want to turn the political clock back at least 40 years. Carstairs & Campbell had been staying with Sir Roland Wark, a most prominent local businessman, and his wife, while fishing in the unattached British male pond, going to several parties every night. LF is vulnerable: his wife returned to England several years ago & wants a divorce, & he has taken up with his Anglo-Indian very beautiful & intelligent widowed housekeeper, supposedly very quietly & discretely, but the other servants notice & talk. The British community shuns anyone who goes “native” and would refuse to speak to him even in the course of his duties.
Dora Bruder - Patrick Modiano 7/14/16 Modiano's attention was caught in 1988 by an entry in a Paris newspaper about a missing person advertisement - 15-year-old Jewish girl in 1941 sought by her parents, not at that time by the police or Gestapo. Modiano is also Jewish, and the parallels are striking.
Enemies at Home - Lindsey Davis 7/14/16 Flavia Albia #2 A newlywed couple is strangled in their bed, their 10 slaves all deny having heard anything, a magnificent silver wine set is missing. The slaves claim burglars stole the wine set & killed the couple & seek asylum at the Temple of Ceres. The aedile for that area is Tiberius Manlius Faustus, stuck with proving their innocence or guilt, so he hires Albia to get the evidence. He has worked with her and Falco before. The newlywed husband was divorced 20 years before & has an ex-wife and 3 grown children - the ex-wife is determined to get as much possible for their son and is hard enough to have paid for assassins. Or did the burglars do it? Albia sets off a gang war - the Temple of Ceres is in another part of Rome than the murders, and the vigiles there were paid off, but not Faustus, who is too honorable to be paid off, and doesn't release the suspect, whose family, shall we say, resents that the gang leader failed him.
Flesh & Bone - Jefferson Bass 7/12/16 Dr. Bill Brockton, forensic anthropologist, professor, & chief scientist at The Body Farm, helps getting Garland Hamilton, the Knoxville medical examiner suspended. Unfortunately the ME didn't lose his state license to practice medicine. The ME from Chattanooga, Dr. Jessamine Carter, covers Knoxville while Hamilton is on suspension, she starts to fall in love with Brockton & he with her. They work together on a case in which a man is found mutilated, another police officer finds evidence that man was a pediphile, and Jess is murdered. Now whodunit? One of the pedophile's victims or a relative, some other criminal who Carter and/or Brockton helped convict, a fundamentalist in revenge for Brockton's teaching that creationism is baloney, or someone yet other?
Primates of Park Avenue - Wednesday Martin 7/10/16 Very entertaining. Martin's memoir/anthropological study of trying to fit in on NYC's Upper East Side, for her son's benefit in school, then help coping with the miscarriage of her daughter at 6 months.
Yes, Mr. Darcy - Joy Dawn King 7/7/16 P&P Elizabeth is instructed by her father to marry Mr. Collins to secure hir mother & sisters' future, is unwilling, goes to Derbyshire with the Gardiners as a last pleasure jaunt, meets Georgiana & consoles her after Wickham's betrayal, Darcy tries to find her & fails but sees her while visiting Netherfield & comes up with a scheme to save her from Collins and get Lady Catherine off his back.
Mrs. Jeffries on the Trail - Emily Brightwell 7/2/16 A flower seller, the illegitimate daughter of a rich shipbuilder, is bludgeoned on the Strand. Papa. Once he was sure she was his daughter, he wanted to take her to San Francisco & start over. Lots of motives: his business partner, his (deceased) wife's nephew & nephew's wife, his widowed sister-in-law with designs on him, his solicitor, the man who loved the flower seller. Mrs. Jeffries organizes the household staff to solve the case and drops hints to Inspector Witherspoon to keep Scotland Yard headed in the right direction.
Accusing Elizabeth - Jennifer Joy 7/5/16 While Elizabeth & Maria Lucas are visiting Hunsford, Anne de Bourgh's diamond earrings go missing. The parsonage is searched, finding nothing, but another search near the end of the book finds the earrings, prompting a revelation of a number of things.
Mayhem in Christmas River - Meg Muldoon 7/4/16 Arsonist dressed as Santa torches ornament shop, then the florist, trying to disrupt the Xmas in July tourist draw, but that's not all. Cinnamon Peters takes the role of Mrs. Claus to ease her best friend Kara's mind - Kara owned the ornament shop that burned. Cinnamon's boyfriend Daniel, a deputy sheriff, gets upset that she can't stay out of the investigation, especially after she can't answer yes or no when he proposes.
Shadows Over Longbourn - Jann Rowland 7/4/16 Widowed Mr Bennett dies too quickly, leaving the girls to Darcy as wards - his mother was Darcy's aunt. His cousin Thadeus Collins inherits, determines to marry Jane to his son William, but is foiled by Darcy's arrival. Uncle Phillips and Uncle Gardiner are trying to fend off Thaddeus, bu he is illiterate and stubborn, doesn't believe Darcy can take the girls to live at Pemberly. Some idea of revenge via them on their father. Jane & Bingley marry as soon as mourning is over, as do Major (not Colonel, in this book) Fitzwilliam and Mary. Lizzie & Darcy take about 4 years. Caroline Bingley is even more horrible, Wickham's attempt to elope with Georgiana is foiled by Lydia, who writes Lizzie at Bingley's house in London - she has moved there in frustration that Darcy doesn't have a clue about her feelings, much less his own. Lizzie is nearly trapped by Thaddeus, who says he'll get another heir on her since his son declines to force her, William gets into a brawl with his father & burns the house down - log rolls out of the fireplace, they both are killed in the fire. Fortunately. Jane inherits the remains of the estate as there are no more Collinses.
The Blood Spangled Banner - Barbara Schlichting 7/3/16 Olivia Anderson lives in Minneapolis and owns/runs a doll house shop. The specialty is models of the White House, during each presidency, complete with dolls of the Presidents and First Ladies. She sews the costumes of the women, the men's are purchased. She is descended from Dolley Madison's sister. Her parents were killed in a car accident when she was four. Raised by her mother's parents, she still lives with them. They have been keeping certain inherited treasures secret. A NYC collector also descended from Dolley's sister comes to the shop examines the dolls closely and asks if Liv knows the family secret, Liv doesn't even know that there is a secret. Murder and mayhem follow, to get possession of Grandpa's cufflinks, which had been James Madison's, but the cufflinks are only another clue to a bigger secret.
Mr Darcy's Secret - Barbara Silkstone 7/1/16 Mr Darcy & Georgiana live in a Major Real Estate high rise development with enormous security. Wickham is about to inherit the small hotel next door and has taken payment to tear it down and build another high rise, funded by Russian mafiosi. Bunbury is an architect who has ethics about building where the foundation is insufficient. The land beneath is too marshy and tunneled to support great weight. Someone tries to eliminate Bunbury to foil Darcy's attempts to get planning permission refused.
Aunt Dimity & the Buried Treasure - Nancy Atherton 7/1/16 Lori finds a piece of jewelry in her/Aunt Dimity's attic, asks her about it: Badger, a young man Dimity met in London, post-war, post-her fiance Bobby's death, who was a dear friend but wanted more and ran off when she couldn't get over Bobby. Lori is to find him & explain; Dimity knows somehow he isn't dead yet. There are also new residents in Finch, former schoolteachers who are metal detectorists. The village goes nuts with the detector, find lost things that became sources of argument and bad feelings, of course resolved by the end of the book.
To Brew or Not To Brew - Joyce Tremel 7/31/16 Brewing Trouble #1 Max(ine) O'Hara has learned brewing in Germany after getting her BS & Masters in Chemistry. She is the youngest of 6 with 5 older brothers, father a homicide detective. She has come back to Pittsburgh to open a brewpub with a good friend from Germany who is killed in the first 12 pages. The murderer took the implement with him, the police & the Medical Examiner aren't convinced it's murder, despite all the minor vandalism that has been occurring. Max gets another chef, her next-elder brother's good friend Jake, who has retired from professional hockey because of a series of concussions. Vandalism continues. Perp: someone who resents that Jake didn't play for the Penguins, or someone who wants Max out of the building? Enjoyed!
Foreign Eclairs - Julie Hyzy 7/30/16 White House Chef #9 Ollie thwarted a plot by terrorists several books ago, and now they are targeting her. End of series
Blood Orange - Susan Wittig Albert 7/29/16 China Bayles #24 Kelly Kaufman, a guest in China's b&b at the back of Thyme and Seasons, disappears then asks China for a meeting about a murder. Kelly has been a nurse at the local hospice, and the patients there are dying anyway - why murder one? Then Kelly & her borrowed van are hit-and-runned, no brake marks, China's b&b is ransacked, and the only clues are the contact marks on the van and footprints in the b&b. Then Kelly's computer is found, and we're off.
Malice at the Palace - Rhys Bowen 7/2816 Lady Georgie #9 Georgie is drafted by Queen Mary to help Princess Marina get acclimated to London before the wedding to Prince George. Georgie finds one of George's old girlfriends dead in a courtyard of the Aunthill, aka Kensington Palace. Up to Bowen's usual standard of funny.
Manners and Mutiny - Gail Carriger 7/22/16 Finishing School #4 Sophronia, Agatha, & Dimity are finished. At their school, which turns young ladies into spies, this means killing someone who deserves it. Steampunk England, 1854: werewolves are scheming against vampires, and both are in danger from traitors called Picklemen, the chief of whom wants the Throne for himself. The school is a huge dirigible, suitable for transporting a large number of mechanicals which do not have Isaac Asimov's Three Rules in their protocols. It is based over Cornwall's moors, and moves slowly, taking at least 3-4 days to get to London. The Picklemen hijack it, but Sophronia manages to get back on board before lifting off. The headmistress and a professor/vampire are hostages - can she save the Empire?
All the President's Menus - Julie Hyzy 7/22/16 White House Chef #8 The White House is in sequester mode, Ollie is coping with reduced staff, and a female candidate for president of a totalitarian country will be visiting in 2 weeks. 4 chefs from her country are also visiting the white House kitchen for those 2 weeks and several are behaving suspiciously. One is openly hostile to Ollie as a female wielder of authority, but he's not the one that ends up dead. 2 others persist in speaking their language privately, despite the order of their chief to speak English as a courtesy to Ollie & Bucky, so Ollie gets a mini tape recorder, which prompts a mugging to retrieve it before a translator can work on it. Plot to discredit the US and/or kill the candidate?
The Ides of April - Lindsey Davis 7/21/16 Flavia Albia #1 (out of order) I don't remember reading of Albia's marriage in the Falco books, but she's already 8 years widowed in this one, now aged 28. She's been an informer (detective) for 12 years. At the start, she is hired by Salvidia, another widow running her husband's construction business, to prove she isn't liable for the death of a little boy run over by one of her drivers. Salvidia dies within days of unknown causes, her stepson hires Albia, I am suspicious of poison immediately, several other people die equally suspiciously within days. The aedile sends a runner, Tiberius, to do his legwork, the Temple of Ceres' archivist Adronicus is a freedman of the same household and resents greatly that he wasn't made the aedile's secretary. Adronicus is a real charmer and gets away with too much & always has, according to Tiberius. The title refers to Albia's birthday and also to the period of a festival for Ceres, which the aedile has to organize, a major distraction from the investigation of the deaths. Albia is nearly seduced by Adronicus, leaving them both frustrated at the interruptions, but she is glad by the end of the book.
Miss Julia's School of Beauty - Ann B. Ross 7/20/16 Miss Julia #6 In which Miss Julia returns from her honeymoon with Sam & discovers their Dollywood wedding chapel minister might not be licensed > they're not really married. AAACK! She is a very moral Presbyterian & makes Sam move out of her bedroom until a) they find out and b) they get really married. Her best friend LuAnne is all bent out of shape that there were no engraved announcements mailed nor reception nor proper announcement in the newspaper & wants to spring a reception on them, but her housekeeper Lillian tells Julia, so she sends Sam out of town to hunt down the “preacher” during the week that LuAnne wants to hold the surprise reception, and since Sam isn't around, there can be no party. There is also a beauty pageant happening to earn money for more snifferdogs for the sheriff's department, organized by Hazel Marie, who lives with Julia. HM is the mother of Julia's dead husband's illegitimate son, a co-legatee with Julia. The girls for the contest are sponsored by the various departments of the sheriff's office & have little to no talent, only looks & shape, except for one girl, a dowdy but excellent guitarist, who happens to be the niece of the fake minister, who blackmails Julia into trying to sway the judges.
My Life in France - Julia Child, with (Paul's grandnephew) Alex Prud'homme 7/19/16 Much more than that - post-Paris in Marseille, then Bonn, then back in D.C., then Oslo, then Cambridge. Writing MtAoFC, testing recipes, working out what to leave out after Houghton Mifflin declined as too long > Knopf.
Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously - Julie Powell 7/18/16 Cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year. I also saw the movie a few years ago & enjoyed it too.
A Madras Miasma - Brian Stoddart 7/15/16 Christopher Le Fanu is an inspector in Madras' crime unit, tasked with solving the murder of a British woman, Jane Carstairs. He has to deal with the Commissioner, Jepson, a horrible boss determined to get him out but is protected by the Inspector-General, Wilson, who appreciates his abilities. Le Fanu, aka LF, and Jepson clashed at another location over an Indian sergeant. Carstairs' best friend Virginia Campbell came with her to India as part of the fishing fleet, seeking husbands - both are nearing 30 in the early 1920s. Indians have been seeking independence from Britain since before WWI, the Presidency's Governor wants to liberalize, but the financiers are very conservative & want to turn the political clock back at least 40 years. Carstairs & Campbell had been staying with Sir Roland Wark, a most prominent local businessman, and his wife, while fishing in the unattached British male pond, going to several parties every night. LF is vulnerable: his wife returned to England several years ago & wants a divorce, & he has taken up with his Anglo-Indian very beautiful & intelligent widowed housekeeper, supposedly very quietly & discretely, but the other servants notice & talk. The British community shuns anyone who goes “native” and would refuse to speak to him even in the course of his duties.
Dora Bruder - Patrick Modiano 7/14/16 Modiano's attention was caught in 1988 by an entry in a Paris newspaper about a missing person advertisement - 15-year-old Jewish girl in 1941 sought by her parents, not at that time by the police or Gestapo. Modiano is also Jewish, and the parallels are striking.
Enemies at Home - Lindsey Davis 7/14/16 Flavia Albia #2 A newlywed couple is strangled in their bed, their 10 slaves all deny having heard anything, a magnificent silver wine set is missing. The slaves claim burglars stole the wine set & killed the couple & seek asylum at the Temple of Ceres. The aedile for that area is Tiberius Manlius Faustus, stuck with proving their innocence or guilt, so he hires Albia to get the evidence. He has worked with her and Falco before. The newlywed husband was divorced 20 years before & has an ex-wife and 3 grown children - the ex-wife is determined to get as much possible for their son and is hard enough to have paid for assassins. Or did the burglars do it? Albia sets off a gang war - the Temple of Ceres is in another part of Rome than the murders, and the vigiles there were paid off, but not Faustus, who is too honorable to be paid off, and doesn't release the suspect, whose family, shall we say, resents that the gang leader failed him.
Flesh & Bone - Jefferson Bass 7/12/16 Dr. Bill Brockton, forensic anthropologist, professor, & chief scientist at The Body Farm, helps getting Garland Hamilton, the Knoxville medical examiner suspended. Unfortunately the ME didn't lose his state license to practice medicine. The ME from Chattanooga, Dr. Jessamine Carter, covers Knoxville while Hamilton is on suspension, she starts to fall in love with Brockton & he with her. They work together on a case in which a man is found mutilated, another police officer finds evidence that man was a pediphile, and Jess is murdered. Now whodunit? One of the pedophile's victims or a relative, some other criminal who Carter and/or Brockton helped convict, a fundamentalist in revenge for Brockton's teaching that creationism is baloney, or someone yet other?
Primates of Park Avenue - Wednesday Martin 7/10/16 Very entertaining. Martin's memoir/anthropological study of trying to fit in on NYC's Upper East Side, for her son's benefit in school, then help coping with the miscarriage of her daughter at 6 months.
Yes, Mr. Darcy - Joy Dawn King 7/7/16 P&P Elizabeth is instructed by her father to marry Mr. Collins to secure hir mother & sisters' future, is unwilling, goes to Derbyshire with the Gardiners as a last pleasure jaunt, meets Georgiana & consoles her after Wickham's betrayal, Darcy tries to find her & fails but sees her while visiting Netherfield & comes up with a scheme to save her from Collins and get Lady Catherine off his back.
Mrs. Jeffries on the Trail - Emily Brightwell 7/2/16 A flower seller, the illegitimate daughter of a rich shipbuilder, is bludgeoned on the Strand. Papa. Once he was sure she was his daughter, he wanted to take her to San Francisco & start over. Lots of motives: his business partner, his (deceased) wife's nephew & nephew's wife, his widowed sister-in-law with designs on him, his solicitor, the man who loved the flower seller. Mrs. Jeffries organizes the household staff to solve the case and drops hints to Inspector Witherspoon to keep Scotland Yard headed in the right direction.
Accusing Elizabeth - Jennifer Joy 7/5/16 While Elizabeth & Maria Lucas are visiting Hunsford, Anne de Bourgh's diamond earrings go missing. The parsonage is searched, finding nothing, but another search near the end of the book finds the earrings, prompting a revelation of a number of things.
Mayhem in Christmas River - Meg Muldoon 7/4/16 Arsonist dressed as Santa torches ornament shop, then the florist, trying to disrupt the Xmas in July tourist draw, but that's not all. Cinnamon Peters takes the role of Mrs. Claus to ease her best friend Kara's mind - Kara owned the ornament shop that burned. Cinnamon's boyfriend Daniel, a deputy sheriff, gets upset that she can't stay out of the investigation, especially after she can't answer yes or no when he proposes.
Shadows Over Longbourn - Jann Rowland 7/4/16 Widowed Mr Bennett dies too quickly, leaving the girls to Darcy as wards - his mother was Darcy's aunt. His cousin Thadeus Collins inherits, determines to marry Jane to his son William, but is foiled by Darcy's arrival. Uncle Phillips and Uncle Gardiner are trying to fend off Thaddeus, bu he is illiterate and stubborn, doesn't believe Darcy can take the girls to live at Pemberly. Some idea of revenge via them on their father. Jane & Bingley marry as soon as mourning is over, as do Major (not Colonel, in this book) Fitzwilliam and Mary. Lizzie & Darcy take about 4 years. Caroline Bingley is even more horrible, Wickham's attempt to elope with Georgiana is foiled by Lydia, who writes Lizzie at Bingley's house in London - she has moved there in frustration that Darcy doesn't have a clue about her feelings, much less his own. Lizzie is nearly trapped by Thaddeus, who says he'll get another heir on her since his son declines to force her, William gets into a brawl with his father & burns the house down - log rolls out of the fireplace, they both are killed in the fire. Fortunately. Jane inherits the remains of the estate as there are no more Collinses.
The Blood Spangled Banner - Barbara Schlichting 7/3/16 Olivia Anderson lives in Minneapolis and owns/runs a doll house shop. The specialty is models of the White House, during each presidency, complete with dolls of the Presidents and First Ladies. She sews the costumes of the women, the men's are purchased. She is descended from Dolley Madison's sister. Her parents were killed in a car accident when she was four. Raised by her mother's parents, she still lives with them. They have been keeping certain inherited treasures secret. A NYC collector also descended from Dolley's sister comes to the shop examines the dolls closely and asks if Liv knows the family secret, Liv doesn't even know that there is a secret. Murder and mayhem follow, to get possession of Grandpa's cufflinks, which had been James Madison's, but the cufflinks are only another clue to a bigger secret.
Mr Darcy's Secret - Barbara Silkstone 7/1/16 Mr Darcy & Georgiana live in a Major Real Estate high rise development with enormous security. Wickham is about to inherit the small hotel next door and has taken payment to tear it down and build another high rise, funded by Russian mafiosi. Bunbury is an architect who has ethics about building where the foundation is insufficient. The land beneath is too marshy and tunneled to support great weight. Someone tries to eliminate Bunbury to foil Darcy's attempts to get planning permission refused.
Aunt Dimity & the Buried Treasure - Nancy Atherton 7/1/16 Lori finds a piece of jewelry in her/Aunt Dimity's attic, asks her about it: Badger, a young man Dimity met in London, post-war, post-her fiance Bobby's death, who was a dear friend but wanted more and ran off when she couldn't get over Bobby. Lori is to find him & explain; Dimity knows somehow he isn't dead yet. There are also new residents in Finch, former schoolteachers who are metal detectorists. The village goes nuts with the detector, find lost things that became sources of argument and bad feelings, of course resolved by the end of the book.