Well I'm just a doofus. This rarely happens, but I got my books confused. For some reason I kept thinking Tasha Alexander's DANGEROUS TO KNOW was one I had already read in ARC but it was Deanna Raybourn's DARK ROAD TO DARJEELING I had read. Doh!
So now I'm reading DANGEROUS TO KNOW by Tasha Alexander. This is 5th of 5 in series featuring Lady Emily Ashton, a young widow in Victorian London. The first book was fabulous and the rest have been okay. Here's a description:
Set in the lush countryside of Normandy, France, this new novel of suspense featuring Lady Emily Hargreaves is filled with intrigue, romance, mysterious deaths, and madness. Returning from her honeymoon with Colin Hargreaves and a near brush with death in Constantinople, Lady Emily convalesces at her mother-in-law's beautiful estate in Normandy. But the calm she so desperately seeks is shattered when, out riding a horse, she comes upon the body of a young woman who has been brutally murdered. The girl's wounds are identical to those inflicted on the victims of Jack the Ripper, who has wreaked havoc across the channel in London. Emily feels a connection to the young woman and is determined to bring the killer to justice. Pursuing a trail of clues and victims to the beautiful medieval city of Rouen and a crumbling chateau in the country, Emily begins to worry about her own sanity: she hears the cries of a little girl she cannot find and discovers blue ribbons left in the child's wake. As Emily is forced to match wits with a brilliant and manipulative killer, only her courage, keen instincts and formidable will to win can help her escape becoming his next victim.
It was published in October 2010 and has 320 pages. I'm reading it on the Kindle. Here is an excerpt:
Although a stranger to the Norman countryside, even I knew a dark pool of blood under a tree was not something a tourist should expect to see during an afternoon ride. Sliding down from the saddle, I put a calming hand on my horse’s neck, then bent to investigate more closely. Had I been able to convince myself the congealing liquid was something less nefarious, the sight of a pale hand, blue fingertips extended, would have changed my mind at once. Without stopping to think, I rubbed my abdomen, the remnants of dull pain still present after my own encounter with violence, and took a step towards the body.
Only a few months ago, during what was meant to be a blissful honeymoon, I’d been trapped in a cavernous cistern deep below the city of Constantinople with the villain who shot me in an attempt to keep quiet my discovery that he was guilty of murder. His efforts were, of course, in vain. But although I succeeded in exposing the odious man and saving the life of the sultan’s concubine whom he’d held as a hostage, I’d lost something more dear. I did not know when I stepped into the gloomy bowels of the city that I was with child. Now, instead of preparing for an heir, my husband and I were no longer sure we could ever have one.
Colin Hargreaves was not a man to be daunted, even in the face of such tragedy. He insisted that nothing mattered but my recovery and packed me off to France the moment I was well enough to travel. His intentions were the best. His choice of location, however, fell something short of perfection. Not Normandy itself—the lush countryside was stunning, the rich, cream-laden food magnificent—but our lodgings at his mother’s house left something to be desired. Although that, too, is not entirely precise. There was nothing wrong with the manor, a sprawling, comfortable building constructed primarily in the seventeenth century by an aristocrat whose descendents did not fare well during the revolution. Rather, it was I who was the problem. At least so far as my new mother-in-law was concerned.
I’d heard nothing but complimentary words about Mrs. Hargreaves, who had fled England after the death of her husband some ten years before. Her own father had been left a widower early, and encouraged his daughter to remain at home—not to take care of him, but because he, not much fond of society, felt she should be allowed to lead whatever sort of life she liked. His fortune ensured she would never need a husband for support. Free from the restraints of matrimony, Anne Howard passed nearly twenty years traveling the world while her girlhood friends married and had children. It was only when she reached her thirty-sixth year that, halfway up the Great Pyramid at Giza, she met Nicholas Hargreaves. By the time they were standing again on terra firma, the couple were engaged. Three days later they married, and afterwards, never spent a single night apart.I had hoped Mrs. Hargreaves would shower me with the warmth she showed her son—that she would rejoice to see him so happily matched. But after a fortnight of her cool detachment, I determined to spend as much time as possible away from the prickling discomfort of her disapproving stare, and it was this decision that led me to the unhappy resting place of the girl sprawled beneath a tree, her blood soaking the ground.
Yay, it's Friday! And we don't have to be in the Christmas Parade tonight! It has been warmer today, in the 30s, but the wind has been nasty. I would not want to be out there this evening.
I don't think there's anything on tv for me tonight so I may cuddle with Steve-the-Nonreader for a bit and then do some reading. Tomorrow, I'm finishing the December issue -- it is basically done except to check for details but I'm waiting on two excerpts from Severn House which won't be sent until Monday. Then I'm tackling the big closet downstairs, cleaning out junk, moving in supplies as best I can until I can make some shelves. I'm also going to go through the downstairs bookcases and continue the Second Purge -- J through Z are down there. I also need to find the first book in Nora Roberts' bridal quartet because I'm going to hook a young co-worker back onto reading. Yes, I'm an enabler but it makes me sad to hear that some people don't read because their parents never did and school turned them off. I'm on the case.
Much love,
PK the Bookeemonster
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