Two to Tango (Brits in Manhattan #2), by Laura Carter

Boldwood Books, ISBN 9781785135392, September 2023

Brooks Adams owns a very successful gym in New York City, and is an extremely successful personal trainer. Having come up from nothing, he's motivated in part by the need to prove his real worth to those who doubted him--most importantly, to Alice, the high school girlfriend with whom he had a child while they were still in high school. They never married, and their daughter is starting college now, and Brooks still thinks his life will be fixed if he can prove to Alice that he's really good enough.

Izzy is British, a daughter of a mother whose main focus is social success, and a fitness guru with a very different approach than Brooks's. She's just published her first book, and she's in NYC for her first book tour. Sales aren't off to a good start, but egged on by her publicity manager, she slams Brooks and his gym, and every time she does, her book sales jump.

Soon this leads to a challenge that has them working together, each working out, and eating, according to the other's program.

Sherlock Holmes & the Silver Cord, by M.K. Wiseman

M.K. Wiseman, August 2023

As with other Sherlock Holmes tales by M. K. Wiseman, Holmes is his own chronicler. Not, this time, due to Watson's absence, but because this tale is about what's going on inside Holmes's head, as he recovers from the mental and emotional impact of the death of Moriarty, his own three-year absence, and his surprise return to London, 221B Baker Street, and Watson's life.

In the Reichenbach Falls adventure, Holmes always intended to kill Moriarty in their final confrontation, but he had expected to die himself. He saw no way of returning alive.

Holmes berated himself with guilt and self-contempt, for leaving Watson to believe him dead for three years, for perhaps being not much better than Moriarty for his willingness to kill, for blithely accepting Watson's willingness to return to 221B Baker Street and their partnership together after that three-year absence, and for devoting himself to the relatively minor undertaking of mopping of the mostly petty criminals that were what was left of Moriarty's crime empire.

The Wagging Tails Dogs' Home by Sarah Hope.

Boldwood Books, May 2023

Ginny ended things with her fiancé, Jason, a few years ago, after catching him cheating on her. He then kicked her out of their house and moved his new girlfriend in. Ginny then moved from London to the little, seaside village of West Par, giving up her career in real estate.

At the Wagging Tails Dogs' Home, she found Flora, the owner, and a new way of life. First as a volunteer, and then as a valued employee, Ginny devotes herself to giving dogs a new start in life, and finding them new homes. She's an organizer, and very good at some of their most important fundraising activities, including organizing their biggest annual fundraiser, the Family Fun Day.

But as they are coming up on their next Family Fun Day, they realize they haven't either heard from the local reporter who normally includes the fundraiser in his weekly column, nor seen the event mentioned. Ginny heads off to the newspaper offices--and discovers that the old reporter had retired a few months ago. He's been replaced by a reporter from London, who thinks the Family Fun Day story is too minor for him.

The Mystery of the Homeless Man (SeeMS Detective Agency #3), by Gina Cheyne

Fly Fizzi Ltd., ISBN 9781915138088, May 2023 

Miranda is walking in the woods when she finds a homeless just waking up from sleep. He has no idea what he's doing in the woods near the village of Owly Vale. He remembers falling asleep in Billington, and only wants to get back there. Miranda feeds him breakfast, but since he wants nothing else, gives him twenty pounds, and her husband gives him a ride to London, since he's going there anyway.

It's 15 years later when Miranda and her partners in the SeeMS Detective Agency are hired to find out why the cottage called Wild Garlic just won't sell. There are mostly shorter-term leases, a lot of initial offers, but those offers always fall through, for reasons that aren't apparent. So Miranda, Cat, and Stevie set out to investigate the cottage and its history.

The Heart Ladder, by Sibby Spencer

TRM Publishing, March 2021

Faith Anderson arrives in England, six months pregnant, having inherited her aunt's home in a small English town. It's the early 1970s. Her boyfriend, Jacob, was drafted, and and has been declared missing in action in Vietnam. She's a bit lost and confused, missing Jacob, certain she'll never see him again.

Thirty years later, her son Dan is working in a bookstore, when a man walks in and says he's Jacob, Dan's father.

Faith never told Dan much, or really anything, about his father, except that he was drafted, and then lost in Vietnam. Dan has always wanted to know  more, of course, and even though he's very skeptical of this stranger, he's still very, very curious. And there is a resemblance between them. They start meeting and talking.

Love, Loss and Life in Between, by Suzanne Rogerson (author), Sandie Keane (narrator)

Suzanne Rogerson, January 2023

This is a collection of short stories about love, loss, grief, and moving on, in a variety of forms.

"Spirit Song" is about an elderly woman playing her lute for dying residents in the...hospice?..old age home?...where she lives herself. (My uncertainty is due to having listened to the audio, not read the print edition, where I could more easily have checked little details.) She knows when a person is dying, and insists on "playing them out" even when the nurses are worried she's overexerting herself. And she wonders, what is really on the other side? It's a really sweet story.

Love on the Run, by Suzie Tullett

Bloodhound Books, March 2023

Divorced mother of teenaged twins Hannah imagines a blissfully relaxed month on her own, while twins Beth and Archie go on a vacation in France with ex-husband Carl and his new girlfriend, Monica. She's even taken the month off from her job to fully enjoy it.

She spends the first week cleaning and grocery shopping, and has a scarily clean house, more food than she'll be able to use before it goes bad, and nothing to do. Her friends, Liv and Mel, coax her into signing up for a charity "fun run," a 5K. She almost immediately regrets it, but it's not easy to back out.

Her mother bulldozes her into taking her Aunt Dorothy for a few weeks, because she's lonely and depressed with the recent death of her husband, Denis, and Janice (Hannah's mother) currently has her house in an uproar with renovations. Hannah has time on her hands... Hannah flatly refuses.

Where the Water Flows, by Romola Farr

Romola Farr, ISBN 9798366879880, January 2023

The story starts with a natural disaster beginning in the small English town of Hawksmead, on the River Hawk. It then jumps back six weeks, as the primary characters are introduced.

Joel Redmond and Cadence Clearwater are two young American actors, arriving to begin their acting careers by studying at the Undermere School of Dramatic Arts--the USDA. They first meet on the train into Hawksmead, but Cadence isn't interested in getting better acquainted, for reasons we won't understand for a while.

Eleaonor Houghton is a retired opera singer, returned to her hometown to operate a tea shop--but an upsurge of a new coronavirus variant has limited activity. But Eleanor has a guest arriving, her godson, Joel Redmond. Ted and Heather run The Falcon alehouse, and have a few rooms above it. Cadence is staying there.

Gaming Hell Christmas: Volume Two, by Amanda McCabe (author), Kathy L Wheeler (author)

Chisel Imprint, December 2022

It's 1797, and in Georgian England, while women have no more legal rights than they will have in the coming Regency era, they do have somewhat more social freedom. The Girls of Wight, a small circle of friends who attended Miss Greensley's School of Comportment for Young Ladies of Quality, now 29 and all still unmarried, are exercising some of that freedom--still quite limited by modern standards.

One of them is Princess Augusta, a daughter of George III. Another is Alexandra, illegitimate but acknowledged and valued daughter of the Duke of Winsome. There are the twin daughters of an earl, Thomasina and Philomena. Victoria Lanford is an orphan who became the ward of her uncle when her parents died, and was sent to school and Miss Greensley's when she and her cousins, Delphine and Melanie, hated her. She now supports herself writing novels by "A Lady L." 

A Festive Surprise, by Margaret Amatt

Leannan Press, ISBN 9781914575815, October 2022

Farid Al-Karim is a Syrian refugee living in Scotland. He had to flee Syria because of his political activities, snuck across several countries, and finally reached the UK. He speaks good English, and is an experienced computer programmer, but even after getting legal approval to stay, his Syrian qualifications aren't recognized in the UK. So he's in Scotland, where a business connection of his father's, Archie Crichton-Leith, can give him a job. Unfortunately it's as a lumberjack, but it's work, and Archie also gives him a cottage to live in. The island is small, and friendly, and if he doesn't love the work, he does like Archie and the people he's working with.

Holly Devaney is a programmer working remotely, taking on the projects she wants, and living wherever she wants, usually for a few months at a time. Once she wanted to marry and put down roots; now she wants no permanent abode and no long-term relationship. She's in Scotland, on the same island as Farid, because her university friend Georgia, who married Archie earlier in the year, has offered her a cottage to stay in for the month of December, doing her work in splendid isolation. It's the one right next to Farid's.

The Twelve Wishes of Christmas, by Ruby Basu

HQ, ISBN 9780008471361, October 2022

Sharmila Mitra is a young British woman whose parents are from India, and have now moved back. Sharmila is a lawyer, who had been practicing family law. After the death of her fiancé, Hari, who had lied to her about where he would be, she just can't o it anymore. She can't be objective with or about her clients. She takes a leave of absence, after which she is transferred to a different role in the firm--and from Birmingham to London.

But while she was on sabbatical, she visited her aunt and helped out at her café. One day in July, she was working at the café, and had Christmas movies on. Soppy, romantic, Hallmark movies. An older American man came in, seeming rather sad, and she took his order. The movie on at the moment caught his eye, and they started talking--especially about her fascination with American Christmas as portrayed in those movies. Her own family doesn't celebrate Christmas at all, being Hindu.

The Mistletoe Mixtape, by The Christmas Collective

The Christmas Collective, October 2022

Twelve Christmas romance short stories, by twelve different authors. They're set in the UK, Ireland, and the US. Guaranteed happy endings!

We have a woman who ran away from the Irish aunt who raised her to her Indian father's family in England. Having planned to finally return for Christmas before her impending arranged marriage to a presumably "appropriate" man whom she hasn't met yet, she learns her aunt has died. Instead, she's returning for the funeral. But why did she leave? We know as soon as she encounters her old friends, James and Caitlin.

We meet Charlie, a successful and fairly famous musician, in December 2016, December 2017, and December 2018, as this gay man's love life rises, falls, and rises again.

Then and Now, by R.J. Gould

RJ Gould, March 2022

Fifty years ago, four young people, three young men and a young woman, from quite varied backgrounds, started university. They lived in the same housing block, and were all studying geography. 

In the present day, fifty years after starting university, three of them decided to go to their class reunion and meet up again, for the first time since graduation.

Sandy was the only daughter of well-off, upper middle class swingers. This is never admitted to their daughter, of course, but in her teens, Sandy figures it out. She's smart, talented, charismatic, and precariously balanced her own wild teenage life with being a decorous and dedicated student--and finally settles on a new university that isn't at all what her parents or teachers anticipate.

Michael has a childhood troubled by the fact that his father is a kind, loving, gentle parent, and committed but utterly inept thief. His mother is honest and reliable and rigid--possibly understandably. She's certainly not wrong when she finally kicks her husband out for good, but it doesn't make Michael's life easier. School, and ultimately a grant that allows him to attend university, becomes his escape.

A Nose for Mischief (Riverbend K-9s #1), by K.T. Lee (author), Ann Richardson (narrator)

Vertical Publishing Line, ISBN 9781947870192, January 2022

Zoey Butler is a material scientist, and she has landed her dream job. She's involved in working on improved storage batteries that will make a significant contribution to both energy conservation and protection of the environment. Unfortunately, in her testing, she's not seeing the results the development side is claiming. At first she assumes it's her testing that's failing. When she realizes that development is faking their results, it's right before the FBI walks in the door. Soon, she's cleared of any involvement in the fraud, but she's also unemployed. And, it seems, unemployable, anywhere in the industry.

A Plethora of Phantoms (Shades, Shadows, and Spectres #2), by Penny Hampson

Darkstroke Books, December 2021

Freddie Lanyon, eldest son of the Earl of Batheaston, heir to the title and to the beautiful house and estate of Lanyon Park, with a loving family, and enjoying the work of helping his father restore and maintain the old place after the depredations of the generation that preceded his father, has a problem.

Well, actually, two problems.

Lanyon Park is haunted, and Freddie can see the ghosts and sometimes talk to them. Some are friendly; some are not. The problem, though, is that his father is adamant that ghosts don't exist, so he really can't talk about it.

Freddie's other problem is that he's gay, and he's convinced that his loving, kindly, devoted parents will reject him if he comes out. He was badly bullied in school, by boys who sensed he was different. University was better, but not coming out limited his ability to make any really close friends.

Now, though, after several years working in London, he's back at Lanyon Park, enjoying learning about the running of the estate, and has purchased a lovely, antique, men's dressing case at an antique shop in Bath. He soon discovers, of course, that it's haunted.

A Stranger’s Revenge, by K. J. McGillick

K.J.McGillick,January 2022

Abigail Clarke is an attorney in Maine, specializing in art law and representing art collectors in avoiding the purchase of fakes and art works of dubious provenance. One day, a man by the name of Gabriel Waterstone arrives in her office, without the usual referrals and her secretary's expert background check. The secretary, Edna, does a crash background check. Waterstone and Abigail sign an agreement for her to represent him at an art auction at a small Boston auction house, for his intended purchase of two pictures that have seemingly resurfaced after being  out of circulation for a long time. The paintings are withdrawn from sale at the last moment, and they go their separate ways. It's the single most unbelievable part of this novel that's really excellent overall.

 

After she's back in Maine, an FBI agent, Robert McDermot,  who is there on what he thinks is the first step in notification of the family and connections of a woman found murdered in Boston's South Boston neighborhood. The woman had no ID on her, but running her photo through databases the police use for the purpose pulls up Abigail Clarke's driver's license. They think she's the dead woman.

Hunted, by Caro Savage

Boldwood Books, ISBN 9781838895389, January 2022

Detective Constable Bailey Morgan went undercover to get the goods on a major drug dealer in London, and now in just a few weeks' time, she'll be a key witness in his trial. This guy doesn't want to spend the next twenty years in prison, though, so he's hired a hitman--a topnotch hitman, who always gets his target.

Bailey's supervising officer for undercover operations wants to put her in a safe house until she testifies at the trial. Bailey, though, decides, and convinces her boss, Stella, that it's a better plan for her to go undercover to hunt the hitman who's hunting her. A chance to catch the guy!

I wasn't convinced it was actually sensible, but that's the kind of not-quite-sensible decision you can easily accept for the sake of the story.

Hunter's Rules (Edinburgh Crime Mysteries #6), by Val Penney

Darkstroke Books, January 2022

DI Hunter Wilson and Dr. Meera Sharma are out for a romantic evening that comes to an abrupt halt when they leave the restaurant for the hotel's elevator. When the elevator door opens, they find a young woman laying on the floor, bleeding, with her eyes missing--completely missing.

Unlike the two previous women found with their eyes removed, she's not dead. She's still alive, if only barely, and Meera sets to work caring for her, while Hunter calls an ambulance and a police crime scene team.

When she is able to regain consciousness they learn that her name is Eileen Maguire, and her date's name was Frederick. They met on a dating app, and she doesn't know his last name. She can describe, but since she is now blind, she can't look at pictures to help narrow down the possible matches.

Having initially no real lead on the man is one complication. Another is that  Eileen Maguire is the sister of Linda Maguire, the girlfriend of Jamie Thomson, who with his cousin, Frankie, is currently running Thomson's Top Cars, owned by Jamie's father, who is currently doing a rather long prison sentence. Jamie and Frankie are relatively small-time crooks, and oddly friendly and likable, but it's going to be awkward on both sides for them to be effectively the victim's next of kin. And Jamie can be a little hot-headed at times.

Sherlock Holmes & the Singular Affair, by M. K. Wiseman

MK Wiseman, December 2021

With Sherlock Holmes recently deceased, Dr. John H. Watson has received a package left to him by his old friend. In that package he finds a story--Holmes' own account of an adventure he had before he ever met Watson. It involves high society, stage-door dandies, and a young woman wanting to know where the young man courting her has disappeared to.

Miss Eudora Frances Clarke grew up as neighbors and close friends with Mr. Tobias-Henry Price, until when they were twelve years old, his father died, and his uncle, whose heir he now was, took him away to his home. There was little contact, and then Tobias-Henry was sent abroad to oversee some business of his uncle's. Then he returned, proposed marriage, hinted at problems related to his business activities, and disappeared.

Except, as everyone assures her, Mr. Tobias-Henry Price is not missing. He's living the life of a cultivated gentleman in the London society which, due to being of far less prosperous family, Eudora has never been a part of. She contrives to encounter him leaving his club, and--the man is handsome, charming, altogether likeable, but he is not her Tobias-Henry. This man is a stranger. Everyone, including his Uncle, assures her she is wrong. But her Tobias-henry had a scar acquired in their childhood, which this man does not have.

Gaming Hell Christmas, by Amanda McCabe & Kathy L. Wheeler

Chisel Imprint, December 2021

This is the first volume of Gaming Hell Christmas, stories about six women who attended Miss Greensley's School as young women, now older, out in society, and making decisions about the rest of their lives. It includes two novellas, the first featuring Miss Alexandra Blessing, beloved but illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Winsome, and the second about her dear friend, Annabelle, the widowed Lady Ranstruther. 

Alexandra has lived with her father and his family since she was nine, and has six younger siblings. The two sisters still at home give her little peace, including happily disregarding the privacy of her own bedchamber. At 28, she doesn't expect to marry, but does want a home of her own.

Annabelle, after a year of widowhood following the death of her elderly and perhaps not very kind husband, Annabelle is ready for love and a happier life.

The stories take place over the same period of time, the Christmas season of 1796. These are Georgian stories, not Regencies, and while the legal status of women isn't any different, socially, they have just a little bit more freedom than they will in the Regency era. Thus, the ladies can, if discreet and careful, visit the exclusive gaming hell, la Sous Rose. And of course they do.