Lady Claire Is All That by Maya Rodale

Lady Claire Cavendish is all that is unfashionable, the glasses, the intellect, the gall to be an American. That is why Lord Mowbray chooses her in a bet with Lord Fox to be the woman that Fox can transform her. 
Fox has just suffered a Set Down. He was involved with the most popular woman in the ton, Arabella Vaughn, who jilted him for an actor. An actor. So he decides to salvage his Male Pride (annoyingly in all caps, mentioned frequently) by accepting a bet to make Claire the most popular woman in the ton. But as he gets to know Claire, he stops thinking about Arabella and starts concentrating on what he's learning about this bluestocking. Mainly what he's learning is that he'd very much like to get to know her more.
I mostly enjoyed this book. The Male Pride thing, as I mentioned earlier, was a bit annoying and there was just a teeny bit too much going on so that parts didn't get quite as developed as one might hope. But I'm still looking forward to the story of James and (I hope) Meredith Green, the girls' chaperone.

Three and a half stars
This book comes out December 27

In The Market For Murder by T E Kinsey

The book opens with Lady Hardcastle and Florence, "Flo," going slowly as Lady Hardcastle recovers from the gunshot wound she sustained at the end of the last book. Then they're attend a local market where they  meet a man who is later to die under suspicious circumstances. But that's not the only suspicious thing happening in town. There's a ghost, a medium who may or may not be a fake, and the theft of a trophy from the local rugby club.
All of the mysteries are woven together pretty nicely... until the end. Then it feels a little choppy. But overall a fast and enjoyable read.

Three and a half stars
This book comes out December 20
Follows A Quiet Life in the Country
Followed by Death Around the Bend

Something Foul at Sweetwater by Sandra Bretting

I thought I had read the first book in this series but actually had not. So it was a little interesting jumping into the series mid-stream but it was fairly easy to catch up.
Missy Dubois is a hat designer, specifically wedding hats. I had no idea that someone did that still so it was an interesting premise there. She is very interested in the local mansions and is ecstatic to discover that one is on the market for only $250,000. And the realtor is an old sorority sister. Unfortunately, an old sorority sister who ends up dead. Missy is determined to solve the mystery.
I really liked that there was no ridiculous love triangle in this book. There are two men but one is firmly in the friend category and even encourages Missy to go after the other guy.
Interestingly, Missy is encouraged in her investigations by the main cop, something you don't normally see.
Overall, it was an okay series. But there was a lot going on. A LOT. Especially for a book under 200 pages. I'm not sure if I'll read the rest of the books in this series but I definitely believe there are people who will like this book more than I did. Those who like sweet contemporary cozies set in the South will for sure like this book.

Three stars
This book comes out December 20

Completely Yours by Erin Nicholas

Zach and Kiera would appear to be opposites. She's a certified nerd, a designer for a popular MMOPG called Leokin, and would prefer to spend her days and nights holed up working on the game.
Zach, on the other hand, is a hero. An EMT who is working not only to save the lives of others, but to try and keep his family together after the loss of his sister. His mother's alcoholism has gotten worse and all his youngest sister does is mope around playing online. He knows that can't be healthy.
But Zach and Kiera meet when her friends drag her out (they promise anywhere she wants to go so she chooses the local gaming Con) and the ceiling of the roof collapses. When Zach sees Kiera, she's literally sparkling from gold paint. And then... it gets a bit ooky. He's described as wanting to be "in the center" where all the action is (this is a real EMT feeling, especially for those who go in because they want to "save lives" rather than help people and fits in with Zach's personality) but then he gets distracted  from his job, his job to save hurt people, by Kiera. Yes, I get that EMTs can't be laser focused the whole time, but most of the ones I've worked with are. At least the good ones and that's what I think Zach is supposed to be set up as.
Don't get me wrong. I liked that he was flawed. And I liked that even though he was trying to save his sister, he was doing it in a wrong way that he didn't see. I also liked that she was trying to save him right back. But the whole way that Zach and Kiera's relationship started was... not good. And I liked that Nicholas included the notion that not always being online is bad because you can form real relationships with people. But Oh. My. God. It was repeated over and over and over again. A lighter touch might have made the message more powerful.
Overall, I really did like this story and appreciated what Nicholas was trying to do. I'm looking forward to reading about Kiera's roommates.

Three stars
This book comes out December 20

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

I really wanted to like this book better. I've been on a great kick of autobiographies and I love Carrie Fisher IRL so I was looking forward to this story. It was hyped as a book about Fisher's time filming Star Wars but was mostly vague comments about the affair she had with Harrison Ford and some touches of what it was like growing up as the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. There are some excerpts from her journals but, as a nineteen-year-old, Fisher had not yet developed the wit that she has today and a lot of it was more of the vague sighing over a love affair that, the way she writes it, was mainly sex with very little else.

Three Stars
This book came out November 22

The Lake District Murder by John Bude

Inspector Meredith is up against a doozy of a case. A young man, who seems to have everything to live for (a lovely fiancee, a thriving business) is found dead in his home, apparently of suicide. But it doesn't appear that way to Meredith and it turns out he's correct.
This is an interesting story that shows all of the work that Meredith has to go through to get to the solution. We also get to see all of the wrong answers he goes through which is nice, he's not just an omniscient detective.
A decent story that I actually made it through pretty quickly. Nothing fantabulous but just a nice story.

Three stars
This book is re-issued tomorrow

The Miss Silver Mysteries by Patricia Wentworth

I've heard a couple of podcasts from the Classic Mysteries podcast about Miss Silver so I was excited to have a chance to get an ARC from the publisher.

Grey Mask
Charles has been exploring the world after a rather nasty breakup and has just now returned home. Only his caretakers aren't there. But someone else is. It's a man in a grey mask. Charles is able to watch the man unobtrusively and sees and hears what sounds like a plot for murder. And one of the people he sees is his ex-fiancee, Margaret Langton. He follows her and is soon involved in a plot involving an heiress, who may or may not be legitimate (if she's not, her horrible cousin Egbert will inherit), secret societies, and blackmail. He applies to Miss Maude Silver for help.
You might assume that Miss Silver would be similar to Miss Marple. And she is; an older woman, quiet, unassuming, unobtrusive. But she starts the series as a detective. And she is not in most of the book. Instead, the main character is Charles and he's the one our omniscient third person narrator follows around as he tries to figure out what is going on.
It was a nice book; fast, fun, and fluffy with just a touch of the overdramatic. The women in it were rather silly but a lot of that was because they were only being told parts of the story which was incredibly frustrating.

The Case is Closed
An interesting story in which a large part is given through transcripts of a court case.
The book opens with Hilary sitting on the wrong train, fuming because the sight of her ex-fiance put her there. Seeing Henry again threw her off so much that she entered the wrong carriage. Then the woman across the way starts talking and it turns out she was the housekeeper whose evidence went a long way toward putting Hilary's cousin's (Margaret) husband, Geoffrey Grey, in jail for the murder of his uncle. Hilary isn't quite sure why the woman is talking to her but it does send her to the house she lives in with her cousin to read the inquest and try to decipher what Mrs. Mercer was trying to say.
While she start this deciphering, she begins to have hope that Geoff might still be proved innocent. And when Geoffrey's cousin and Mrs. Mercer's husband start trying to make the woman seem mad, it lends credence to this hope.
Ugh. Henry is definitely a symbol of his times, overbearing and rather paternalistic toward Hilary. I was glad that she seemed to stand up to him in the beginning but was wondering how their marriage would actually turn out in the end.

Lonesome Road
Acceding to a promise made on her father's deathbed, Rachel Treherne has changed her will every year. Only this year is a little different. This year, it appears that someone is trying to kill her so Rachel has come to Maud Silver for help. Maud tells Rachel to do two things: go to the police and change her will. Rachel doesn't want to do either since it might hurt her family. Yes, even though it is someone in the family who is probably trying to kill her.
There are several suspects, her sister and brother-in-law and their children, three cousins, and her long-time companion. It will be up to Maud to untangle this tangled  web.
Like the other books in this series, the prevailing attitudes about women are frustrating and the ending is overwrought but it is a nice example of the books of the time.

Three stars
This book came out in June