Murder at Crossways by Alyssa Maxwell

First-person narrator Emma has accepted a job as the acting editor-in-chief for her friend/love interest, Derek's, paper, the Newport Messenger. She is proud to have the position but all is not well. She is dealing with a series of setbacks that may actually be sabotage. Who doesn't want her working at the newspaper? Is it because she is a woman?

And in her personal life, the book opens with a stunning beach rescue and then the discovery of a dead body. Emma is shocked to see the face of her brother, Brady. But after her shock fades, she realizes that it is someone else. But is it who she suspects?
Combining both her personal and professional life, Emma's society reporter is unable make it to the Harvest Festival held by Mamie Fish so she has to go in his stead. Though the guest of honor, Prince Otto of Austria, never shows up, and, thought it breaks the hearts of all of the debutantes and their mothers who had hoped to snares prince, it seems he has a very good reason. Earlier in the evening, Otto was killed just like the man on the beach. Can the two deaths be connected? And what will the answers mean to Emma and her brother?

Three stars
This book comes out July 30th
ARC kindly provided by Kensington Books and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Murder at Rough Point by Alyssa Maxwell

Emma Cross is delighted when she is requested to come and cover an artists' retreat at her Vanderbilt cousins' "cottage." What she doesn't realize is that she will be covering people from her past. People like Edith Wharton. And her own parents who she hasn't seen for four years. But she doesn't know about the latter when she's invited to stay at Rough Point to better observe the party.
And what Emma really doesn't understand is the strange undercurrents invading the retreat. Even as early as the first lunch, there seem to be silent conversations happening that she can't understand. And artistic temperaments that she can't even begin to relate to.
Then there's a murder. And another. What exactly is going on at Rough Point? How will the storm exacerbate tempers? And why are her parents acting so strangely?

Three and a half stars
This book comes out August 30

Murder at Beechwood by Alyssa Maxwell

I read the first book in this series but not the second so I can only assume that it was in that book that our heroine, Emma Cross, picked up the reputation as being someone who helps wayward souls, including a (former?) prostitute (which does NOT endear her to the upper crust family of one of Emma's (former?) admirers). It's this reputation that is probably the reason that Emma wakes up one morning to find a baby on her front porch, apparently abandoned. Does the death of a man dressed in groom's clothing have anything to do with the baby? Does the apparent murder of one of the upper crust, one of the people that Emma suspects might have been connected to the baby have an any significance? 

The historical notes and the way that Maxwell works her information into the stories is so seamless, I didn't even think that it might be based on fact.

A wonderful addition to the series and I can't wait to start Maxwell's new series as well, the snippet in this book starting out so well.