Death Down the Aisle by Verity Bright

Lady Eleanor Swift has really gotten herself into it this time. Her good friend Constance is getting married on Saturday but Ellie has just promised to help organize and lead a suffragette march to the police station with a petition to let women onto the force on the same day. And she has to go to the wedding. Poor Constance is already withering under her soon-to-be-mother-in-law's constant disapproval. But Eleanor can't let down the ladies of the village either. It's especially complicated that the wedding might not go off since the groom-to-be, Lord Peregrine Davencourt, was just discovered over the body of his dead former fiancee. Or maybe not so former after all. 

On a timeline, Eleanor has to figure out how to juggle the march, preparing to be in the wedding, solving a murder and doing it all without un-endearing herself to her beau, Chief Inspector Hugh Seldon. 

Not a lot of character development in this one but Hugh and Eleanor's relations does progress a bit. 

Three and a half stars

This book comes out August 31, 2022

Follows The French for Murder

Followed by Murder in an Irish Castle

ARC kindly provided by Bookouture and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Death in Disguise by Emma Davies

Francesca Eve is a caterer extraordinaire but her life is pretty normal: husband, daughter, work. She caters a murder mystery party and, while avoiding one of the guests, meets Adam a shy game designer who is also avoiding the party. Life goes on until a few days later when one of the guests dies. Adam comes to Fran terrified that his mother, the host of the party, is going to jail for murder. From there, the two of them work to find out the answer to this strange mystery.

The writing of this book was smooth and I would probably read another series by this author. It is the main reason that I kept reading this book because, this whole book, I kept wondering why Francesca was involved. She met this guy once, has no romantic interest in him, and really no other connection. I think she's supposed to feel bad for him in some way but she starts neglecting her job and lying to her husband which would have been fine if she had been set up as needing some excitement in her life or SOMETHING but that reason is unclear and nagged at me the whole time. I did like some of the flipping of scripts in secrets people were apparently hiding and what they were actually hiding but the ending was also just a little too convoluted for me.

Three stars

This book comes out February 9, 2022

ARC kindly provided by Bookouture and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

The House Swap by Jo Lovett

Cassie is a children's book writer with writer's block. Her editor suggests that she come to live in London and see if new scenery can shake something loose. Cassie is hesitant because she's built her life in America for the last five years. Returning overseas might help her write her last few books but it also might bring up all of the feelings for the reasons she left. But it will be closer to an in vitro clinic and she wants a baby terribly. So she lists her house on a swap site.

James has been dating a woman for nine months but doesn't think it's very serious. She, however, does. And has created all sorts of expectations around that assumption. Expectations that, when not fulfilled at her birthday, cause her to become The Vengeful Ex. It's time for James to get out of town. So he lists his house on the same swap site and they come to an agreement for the course of several months.

During that time, they don't see each other in person very often but they do exchange emails and phone numbers and slowly grow closer together. However, there are large jumps in time that make it hard to really see any true connection between the two with most of the relationship being off-page.

I very much appreciated that the h/h were a little older (in their mid- to late-thirties.) It's more believable that they could be so successful in their jobs. I wish there had been more in the description about Cassie's search to have a baby. That is a HUGE plot point and takes over most of the back half of the book. There were also a number of smaller plot points that, had there been fewer, they could have been explored better making the book richer. Things like Jame's dead sibling and parent, his failing relationships with his only remaining family, Cassie's friendships on both sides of the ocean,  James's friendships (or lack there of), Cassie's struggles with her writing, the difference between James and Cassie on listmaking the man James had made redundant, his ex-girlfriend's apparent in ability to let go, etc. Each of these was brought up and I thought "This will be a fun plot point later" and then it was resolved in almost buried single sentences. Even James's aversion to children which was built up and built up was resolved really quickly. If plot moppets could be anything other than children, these were all plot moppets, introduced solely to show one aspect of a character or relationship then moved quickly off page.

Overall a fast read but so much concentration was put on having children (with most of the "interesting" plot points going to that) that any other development for characters, place, relationship, or literally any other plot point was left behind.

Three stars

This book comes out April 18th, 2021

ARC kindly provided by Bookouture and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Murder at Enderley Hall by Helena Dixon

In the first book of the series, Kitty Underhay discovered that she had more family than she knew. Now, she's been invited to go visit. And the family lives in a grand estate and have several people other than Kitty visiting. Kitty meets many of them on the first day, including Nanny Thomas who was her cousin Lucy's nanny and is now companion to Kitty's aunt. She is a dithery sort of old woman who is ruthlessly bullied by the lady of the house. But she doesn't know much of anything about anything. So why, after a set of papers relating to the Ministry of Defence go missing, is Nanny the one who ends up dead?
Kitty calls Captain Matthew Bryant, who now has his own investigative agency, to come down and investigate. He is able to come down to help her figure out exactly what is going on.
It took a bit for me to get into this book and I wish there had been more development between Kitty and Matt. Also, the ending was a bit flat but overall a nice book that, when it moved, moved quickly and I'm looking forward to the next.

Four stars
Follows Murder at the Dolphin Hotel
This book came out March 19th
ARC kindly provided by Bookouture and NetGalley
Opinions are my own