The Echo of Twilight, by Judith Kinghorn

Berkley, ISBN 9780451472106, January 2017

In London in the months leading up to the start of World War One, Pearl Gibson is a young woman with ambition--ambition to be a lady's maid, the most genteel occupation available to a young woman of her background. Her great-aunt Kitty taught her everything she could, and told her that it took "a very superior sort of girl" to be a lady's maid, and after years of work, moving repeatedly to advance herself, Pearl is interviewing with Lady Ottoline Campbell, who is looking for a new lady's maid.

It's the start of a new life for Pearl, and she has no idea just how much change this position, this particular lady, and the war will bring into her life. We see the strains and cracks already appearing in the old class system, and the hard rock it runs into with the war and all its death and destruction. But this is also a deeply romantic story. Pearl works out an unexpected friendship with Lady Ottoline, uncovers secrets of her own past, and finds love someplace wholly unexpected.

Best Left Buried (A Darcy & Flora Cozy Mystery #3), by Blanche Day Manos (author), Barbara Burgess (author), Michelle Babb (narrator)

Pen-L Publishing, May 2016

Darcy Campbell and her mother, Flora Tucker, have finally started the work of building Flora's new house on the land left her by her mother--Darcy's Granny Grace. Both women know that Flora was adopted, but this fact has never been a concern in the family.

Then safely burying the old dug well on the property, long since replaced by a more modern well, unearths an old package wrapped in sheepskin. What's inside that sheepskin is a gun far too valuable to have just been tossed away casually, and the remains of what appears to be a wedding announcement.

Girl of Fire (The Expulsion Project #1), by Norma Hinkens

Dunecadia Publishing, January 2017

Trattora and Velkan are two teenagers, each of mysterious background, but who clearly have a common origin, even though they've never met.

Trattora has grown up a chieftain's daughter on a rather backward and isolated planet, while Velkan has grown up a serf--essentially a slave--on a trading ship whose owner-captain, Sarth, is not overly concerned with the law.

Trattora has always known she was adopted, brought to the planet Cwelt by the last trading ship that reached them before Sarth's. It doesn't take the two young people long to discover that they each have one item from their unknown parents: bracelets identical except for the name engraved on it.

The Letters (The Inn at Eagle Hill #1), by Suzanne Woods Fisher (author), Amy McFadden (narrator)

Brilliance Audio, August 2013

Rose Schrock has lost a lot over the past couple of years. Her husband's previously successful, respectable investment business adopted riskier strategies to remain successful in an economic downturn, and ended by sinking into bankruptcy and ruin, with the SEC asking pointed and unpleasant questions. When they could no longer continue financially, her husband's mother takes in their whole family, in the farmhouse he grew up in--but with a condition. This Mennonite family must return to the Old Order Amish faith in which he and she were both raised. They do it, and have a level of security, but then he abruptly dies in circumstances that might or might not be suicide.

Patchwerk, by David Tallerman (author), Tim Gerard Reynolds (narrator)

Macmillan Audio, January 2016

Meddling with reality is dangerous.

It's especially dangerous when your enemy has gotten possession of your device and doesn't understand important aspects of it, has removed all safety features--and intends to use it as a weapon.

And when the device itself has its own opinions on what's "harmful" and what's not.

Florrian is traveling with the device that will prove all his scientific theories when a rival organization attempts to steal it. The drastic action he takes can potentially threaten the fabric of reality unless he--or some alternate version of him--or is it her?--can come up with a way to set things right.

I had no idea where this was going at first, and it's a wild ride, but it's a lot of fun.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

The Blue Coyote (Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mysteries #2), by Karen Musser Nortman (author), Michelle Babb (narrator)

Karen Nortman, June 2016

Larry and Frannie Shoemaker are off on another of their camping adventures with friends, and their two grandchildren, Sabet and Joe, are with them. All seems well except for a little girl who rides her bicycle with very noisy training wheels that drive Larry crazy--until that very girl disappears, right after complaining to another camper that Larry frightened her.

Suddenly Larry, a grandfather and retired police officer, is in the minds of many of their fellow campers the prime suspect in a child's disappearance.

Dead Man's Hand, by Tim Lebbon (author),

Appears in Tor.com Season 2 Collection, Macmillan Audio, August 2016

A young storekeeper in a town in the American west sees a one-eyed man ride into town, and knows there's trouble coming. How much, he has no idea, because Gabriel is no ordinary gunslinger. He's hunting Temple, the man who killed his family--and has been for eight centuries. What follows is a game of chess with Doug as a pawn. Can a pawn survive this game?

This is horror, and that makes it hard for me to give it a fair shake. Doug is a decent enough young man, though, if still callow and unformed, and he does grow over the events of the story. Gabriel and Temple are every bit as distasteful as they are meant to be. The other figures of proper American frontier town are here, and reasonably well-done, if briefly presented.

Probably worth a read or listen if you like horror. I can't really say more than that.

Muddy Mouth (Lia Anderson Dog Park Mysteries #5}, by C.A. Newsome (author), Jane Boyer (narrator)

Carol Ann Newsome, December 2016

Lia Anderson is back with another murder mystery about to absorb the intelligence, nosiness, and human concern of herself and her dog park friends.

A local author has disappeared from a literary convention in Texas, just as Lia is building a float in his honor for a parade at home. It appears that he's been kidnapped, but there are no real clues leading the police anywhere. And obviously it has nothing to do with the Cincinnati police or the Mt. Airy Dog Park gang, right?

Except that Lucas Cross, bestselling author, is really Leroy, a local man, not at all literary, acting as the front for Fiber and Snark.

Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, From Missiles to the Moon to Mars, by Nathalia Hold (author), Erin Bennett (narrator)

Hachette Audio, April 2016

In the first half of the 20th century, the word "computer" meant a person who did heavy-duty computation. During the Second World War and the years following, this included doing the computation for missile development. When the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was created, computers were in great demand there.

And at JPL, something special happened.

Many of the early computers hired there were women.They were working closely with the engineers, who were all men; women were simply not hired as engineers, no matter what their qualifications. The woman who became head of the computer department decided she would only hire women.

Grave Shift (Darcy & Flora Cozy Mystery #2), by Blanche Day Manos (author), Barbara Burgess (author), Michelle Babb (narrator)

Pen-L Publishing, February 2016

Darcy Campbell, newspaper reporter on leave from her Dallas job following the death of her husband, is staying with her mother, Flora Tucker, in her home town of Levi, Oklahoma. She came here for peace and recovery, but she and her mother have already solved one murder that they accidentally become involved with, and got a lot of news coverage because of it.

Now her mother has received a letter from Sophie Williams, of Amarillo, Texas. Her daughter Andrea married Gary Worth, of Levi, but disappeared without a trace two years ago.

Sophie wants the pair to investigate her daughter's disappearance.