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Libby and Max are on a picnic at Cleeve Abbey when human remains are found. They are quickly revealed to be centures old and a ghost hunt ensues. But then one of the ghost hunters is attacked. What is the link between the old bones and the current assault?

Murder at the Abbey is the 8th book in Frances Evesham’s Exham on Sea series of cosy murder mysteries. This is the first book I have read by this author and I hope to catch up on the rest of the series. There are mentions of past events which I assume featured on the previous books.

Libby and Max are both in their fifties. They are a newly married pair of amateur sleuths and private investigators. They are horrified when one of their friends is attacked. I was surprised as I had a hit list of characters I thought might be bumped off! An actual murder doesn’t occur until nearly three quarters of the way through the book although the owner of the ancient bones met a sticky end centuries earlier.

I found myself a little overwhelmed by the number of characters to begin with. However, I soon settled in to the plot and pace. I wonder if this would have been slightly easier if I had read the previous books in the series but it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the book overall.

There is some forensic detail and violence but the descriptions are minimal due to the cosy mystery genre. The plot focus in upon the investigation and the gathering of clues but events do occur at a reasonable pace. I was kept guessing until the very end and enjoyed trying (and failing!) to put the clues together.

Murder at the Abbey is an enjoyable cosy murder mystery and I look forward to reading more from this author.

Murder at the Abbey book blurb

The Brand NEW instalment in the bestselling Exham-on-Sea series.

An unsolved murder echoes down the corridors of Cleeve Abbey for years.

The Exham-on-Sea’s History Society’s annual summer picnic comes to an abrupt end when human bones are discovered in Washford River, beside historic Cleeve Abbey.

Thrilled to find evidence of a possible centuries-old murder mystery, the members of the society organise a ghost-hunting night in the ruins of Cleeve Abbey, despite amateur sleuth Libby Forest’s reservations.

Libby is a woman of many talents, a baker, chocolatier, even a reluctant sleuth. However she’s no fan of the supernatural and her doubts are justified when a friend is attacked under cover of darkness at the ghost-hunt.

Distressed and angry, Libby sets out with her new husband Max and their two dogs Bear and Shipley to uncover the connection between the murder of a sixteenth century monk and a present-day attack in picturesque Somerset.

With friends and neighbours as suspects, Libby and Max close in on the culprit only to find that others are still in danger.

There’s no time to lose as the sins of the past threaten lives in the community.

Murder at the Abbey is the eighth in a series of Exham-on-Sea Murder Mysteries from the small English seaside town full of quirky characters, sea air, and gossip.

Purchase Link – https://amzn.to/3BJyYn1

Author Bio –  Frances Evesham is the author of the hugely successful Exham-on-Sea mysteries set in her home county of Somerset. Boldwood has republished the complete series. Frances has also started a new cosy crime series set in rural Herefordshire, the first of which was published in June 2020.

Social Media Links –

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/frances.evesham.writer/

Twitter https://twitter.com/francesevesham 

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/francesevesham/

Newsletter Sign Up Link https://bit.ly/FrancesEveshamSignUp 

Bookbub profile https://www.bookbub.com/authors/frances-evesham 

Kate Shaw befriends a Polish woman who is shunned by the rest of the community. But is Suzy getting closer to Kate’s husband while they work together? Matters come to a head when Suzy vanishes and Kate’s life shatters…

The Widow is a standalone psychological thriller. The book begins with a police search before moving back to a few weeks earlier. This allows us to see how events unfolded up to the present when Suzy has gone missing, police have opened an investigation into a missing man and personal relationships are entangled and fraught.

The book is written from various third person perspectives but the majority is from Kate’s viewpoint. She has a slightly stormy friendship with Donna who has a husband with a roving eye. The friends bicker and a distance develops expecially as Kate welcomes Suzy and her son Aleks while the other families reject them.

Kate is a likable character: kind, warm but also resilient and determined. Life throws plenty at her over the course of the plot developments. It is tricky to review this book without leaving huge spoilers but obviously there is a clue in the title…

The plot develops quickly. There are plenty of people acting suspiciously and mysteriously, hiding secrets but to what purpose? A host of twists and turns make this an entertaining novel as we try to anticipate and guess what will happen next and why.

The Widow is an intriguing and engaging psychological thriller. I have previously reviewed The Marriage, The Girl She Wanted, Little Whispers, Single, Finding Grace and The Evidence by K.L Slater.

Book Description:

Author Bio:

For many years, Kim sent her work out to literary agents but never made it off the slush pile. At the age of 40 she went back to Nottingham Trent University and now has an MA in Creative Writing.

Before graduating, she received five offers of representation from London literary agents which was, as Kim says, ‘a fairytale … at the end of a very long road!’

Kim is a full-time writer and lives in Nottingham with her husband, Mac.

https://klslaterauthor.com/

https://www.facebook.com/KimLSlaterAuthor/

https://www.instagram.com/klslaterauthor/

https://twitter.com/KimLSlater

Buy Links:

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2015: Anna, moves to Cornwall to oversee as glamping site that is bitterly unpopular with the local community. 1815: a young woman griefstricken on a battlefield is brought to Cornwall to work as a French maid. Two women, two centuries apart, two lives connected…

The Forgotten Maid is a dual timeline book set in Cornwall in 1815 and 2015.

Anna has a mysterious past: she is getting strange messages so there are secrets which overshadow her life. Meanwhile she is dealing with an angry village who reject her attempts at friendships due to her links to the unwelcome glamping site. Anna distracts her mind from the unpleasantness by volunteering at a local stately home, throwing herself into the character of a French maid.

Two hundred years ago, Thérèse’s past is filled with sadness. Orphaned and now her beloved brother is dead on the battlefield. An artist rescues her and she becomes his muse but to save her reputation she is sent to his friends in Cornwall. A stranger is a strange land, surrounded by a language she barely understands.

Both women have an emotional pull for the reader due to the events in their lives. The prologue hints at drama and danger which then sets an underlying tension as we wait for the plot to unfold. The women are uprooted and socially isolated which creates a sadness as they look for solace.

The sweeping Cornish landscape and the grandeur of the stately home help to bring the setting and plot to life. The book develops at a reasonable pace, neither slow not too fast, giving us time to get to know the characters and their situation yet moving the story along.

The Forgotten Maid is an entertaining and emotional book. I enjoyed the mix of historical and present day and look forward to reading more books by this author.

The Forgotten Maid book blurb

A captivating dual timeline romance set in Cornwall! Perfect for fans of Sarah Burton, Stacey Halls, Jessie Burton and Kate Mosse.

Two centuries apart, two lonely women seek a place to call home…

Cornwall, England, 2015

Nomadic project manager Anna Pritchard has arrived in the village of Porthnevek to oversee the construction of a trendy new glamping site. But with many members of the local community strongly opposed to the development, she quickly finds herself ostracised and isolated.

Seeking to ease her loneliness, Anna begins volunteering at a nearby National Trust house in Trelissick, once owned by the aristocratic Daniell family. In her new role, Anna soon feels her attachment to both Porthnevek and Trelissick deepening. And as she spends more and more time steeped in local history, it seems that the past and the present are beginning to collide…

Belgium, 1815

After losing her brother in the Battle of Waterloo, French army seamstress Thérèse Ruguel is taken to London by war artist Thomas Chalmers, becoming his reluctant muse. But with Thomas’s mother unhappy with the arrangement, Thérèse is soon sent to Cornwall as a lady’s maid to Elizabeth Daniell, a kindly relative of the Chalmers family.

Able to speak only a little English — and with the other servants suspicious of her — Thérèse feels lost and alienated. And when she discovers her brother may still be alive, she must decide whether to continue with her new life in England, or brave the dangerous journey back to her homeland…

What became of Thérèse? Can Anna unearth the ghosts of the past?

And has Anna finally found where she belongs…?

THE FORGOTTEN MAID is a beautiful time-shift romance set in Cornwall between the Regency era and the modern day. It is the first book in the Cornish Echoes Dual Timeline Mystery series.

Purchase Link –  http://getbook.at/TheForgottenMaid

Only 99p for a limited time.

Author Bio –

Jane Cable writes romance with a twist for Sapere Books, and The Forgotten Maid her first novel set in her adopted county of Cornwall. She is lucky enough to have been married to the love of her life for more than twenty-five years, and loves spending time outdoors, preferably close to the sea on the wild and rugged north Cornwall coast.

She also writes emotional women’s fiction as Eva Glyn, published by One More Chapter.

Social Media Links –

Twitter: @JaneCable

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JaneCableAuthor

Website & newsletter sign up: http://www.janecable.com

Jonah receives a call from an old friend that he fell out with 10 years ago. He arrives at midnight to a deserted quay to find his friend’s body and others ready for disposal. Then he is attacked. When he awakes he finds himself a suspect and a link to a missing child case a decade ago. His own child…

The Lost is a stand alone crime thriller and the cover suggests this is the first in a new series.

Jonah Colley is a firearms police officer. He is surprised when his former friend Gavin calls hims out of the blue as they have not spoken in years. Flashback chapters to 10 years previously show that their friendship deteriorated after the disappearance of Jonah’s son Theo. He is therefore shocked to discover a link between events of the past with a series of murders that he himself is suspected of committing.

The book throws us straight into the action with a dramatic first chapter that grips the attention of the reader and doesn’t let go as revelations of Jonah’s past are uncovered. I liked the way that we see chapters from the past to show us Jonah’s terrible and terrifying experience of losing his son, every parent’s nightmare.

Jonah’s grief and confusion give him a vulnerbaility that endears him to the reader. Despite his physical strength and police training, it is his human nature which shines through this book due to the personal element to the crimes.

The writing feels brutal at times as the danger and pain of the world is never shied away from. Once again, the personal side to the case increases the tension as well as our emotive reaction to events along the plotline.

The Lost is an intense crime thriller that is relentlessly dramatic from the first page to the last.

The Lost book blurb:

A MISSING CHILD

Ten years ago, the disappearance of firearms police officer Jonah Colley’s young son almost destroyed him.

A GRUESOME DISCOVERY

A plea for help from an old friend leads Jonah to Slaughter Quay, and the discovery of four bodies. Brutally attacked and left for dead, he is the only survivor.

A SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH

Under suspicion himself, he uncovers a network of secrets and lies about the people he thought he knew – forcing him to question what really happened all those years ago…

About the author

After an MA in English, Simon Beckett spent several years as a property repairer before a stint teaching in Spain. Back in the UK, he played percussion in several bands. He has been a freelance journalist since 1992, writing for The Times, The Independent on Sunday Review, The Daily Telegraph, The Observer and other major British publications. In 2002, as part of an article on the National Forensic Academy, he visited the Body Farm in Tennessee. This last commission was the inspiration behind the internationally bestselling The Chemistry of Death, which was shortlisted for the CWA’s Duncan Lawrie Dagger and has been translated into 21 languages. Simon Beckett is married and lives in Sheffield.

Flora Steele discovers another body but at least it isn’t in her bookshop this time! Local girl Polly is found dead at the beach but did she fall from the pier or was she pushed? Flora persuades crime author Jack to help her again to discover the truth behind the death as she is sure that it is murder…

Murder on the Pier is the second book by Merryn Allingham to feature Flora and Jack. There are some mentions of events in the first book The Bookshop Murder but there are no spoilers.

Flora and Jack are a mismatched pair whose friendship teeters on something more romantic. She is much more outgoing while he is a steadying influence. Flora throws herself into the investigation which means Jack has to support and protect her as she gets closer to the killer.

The Sussex village and historical detail of the 1950s brings the setting to life. The tight knit community within the village and their distrust of newcomers comes to the fore when one of their own dies and foul play is suspected by all except the police. Meanwhile Flora is defying the social conventions of the time with her determination and independence.

There is little violence or forensic detail despite the murder plot, in keeping with the genre of cosy murder mystery. As with traditional whodunnits (such as Agatha Christie’s), the focus is upon uncovering motive and weeding out truths from secretive characters.

Murder on the Pier is an enjoyable murder mystery that is cosy and I would like to see it made into a TV drama.

Book Description:

Meet Flora Steele – bookshop owner, bicycle-rider, daydreamer and amateur detective!

Sussex, 1955: When bookshop owner Flora Steele goes for a walk along the pier she isn’t expecting to spot a young woman’s body in the stormy waters below. And she’s shocked to discover the victim is someone she knows…

Convinced the death was not an accident, Flora persuades attractive local crime writer Jack Carrington to help her find out what really happened to poor Polly Dakers, a popular young woman with a complicated love life, who’d been at the heart of village life in Abbeymead.

Jack is reluctant to get involved in another murder case at first but even he can’t deny that Polly’s fall seems fishy. An argument at a party, a missed hairdresser’s appointment and a red woollen bobble found on the wooden boards where Polly last stood provide a trail of clues…

As they grow closer to solving the puzzling mystery, the unlikely pair stumble upon several surprising secrets about those closest to Polly. A number of potential suspects begin to emerge. But who really disliked Polly enough to kill her? Was it Raymond, her jilted first love? Harry, her latest beau? Or Evelyn, Harry’s jealous estranged wife?

As the investigation brings them closer to the truth, Flora is intent on unmasking the killer – but will her stealthy sleuthing lead her down a dangerous path?

An utterly delightful cozy crime novel set in the fictional Sussex village of Abbeymead. Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Faith Martin and Joy Ellis!

Author Bio:

Merryn taught university literature for many years, and it took a while to pluck up the courage to begin writing herself. Bringing the past to life is a passion and her historical fiction includes Regency romances, wartime sagas and timeslip novels, all of which have a mystery at their heart. As the books have grown darker, it was only a matter of time before she plunged into crime with a cosy crime series set in rural Sussex against the fascinating backdrop of the 1950s.

Merryn lives in a beautiful old town in Sussex with her husband and one last cat, Bluebell. When she’s not writing, she tries to keep fit with adult ballet classes and plenty of walking.

https://merrynallingham.com/

https://www.facebook.com/MerrynWrites

https://twitter.com/merrynwrites

Buy Link:

Amazon: https://bit.ly/3wd3wfj

Audio Links:

UK: https://zpr.io/3fvbHexd2JFw
US: https://zpr.io/bYhQQW9XQ5Ln

Listen to a sampe here:
https://soundcloud.com/bookouture/murder-on-the-pier-by-merryn-allingham-narrated-by-charlie-norfolk