{"id":3712,"date":"2020-07-13T05:36:52","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T12:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=3712"},"modified":"2020-07-13T05:36:52","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T12:36:52","slug":"dianne-freeman-a-ladys-guide-to-mischief-and-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/dianne-freeman-a-ladys-guide-to-mischief-and-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Dianne Freeman: A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This delightful series continues to enchant.\u00a0 The first book introduced the widowed Frances, Lady Harleigh, rich and on the loose in 1890\u2019s London for the first time.\u00a0 By this third installment, she\u2019s engaged, is busy with her daughter, Rose, and is supervising the wedding plans for her sister Lily, who is inconveniently pregnant.<\/p>\n

Frances is nothing if not practical, and she and her fianc\u00e9e George quickly arrange for Lily to be married from George\u2019s family seat while George\u2019s brother is abroad. The wedding party is smallish, but for a house party \u2013 and a pool of murder suspects \u2013 plenty big enough.\u00a0 Combining the classic British house party whodunnit with a lighter, funnier version of an historical cozy, Freeman is a deft hand with both narrative and character, and she keeps things percolating.<\/p>\n

As the house party arrives there are a series of accidents and the death of an unfortunate footman (I will say Freeman seems to have it in for footmen), and as the threats accelerate and move from outside to inside the house, Frances and George are desperate to figure out what\u2019s happening and who is responsible.<\/p>\n

They are also juggling a house party of Lily\u2019s bristly future sisters in law, Frances\u2019 judge-y mother, and a smattering of friends, all of which make both investigating and carrying on a romance more than challenging.\u00a0 Frances, in classic amateur fashion, investigates without seeming to do so, and she\u2019s ably assisted by George, who has some kind of shadowy arrangement with the crown and is a legitimate investigator with ties to the police.<\/p>\n

The characters reveal themselves throughout the story and there\u2019s a really classic scene involving a maze, an archery contest and a very misplaced arrow.\u00a0 I love the humor in these books.\u00a0 It\u2019s never mean, it\u2019s just kind of light and joyful, like the books themselves.\u00a0 As Frances becomes a more established and confident British matron, I\u2019m sure the series will continue to evolve.<\/p>\n

Like Tasha Alexander\u2019s Lady Emily series, I haven\u2019t felt that any tension was diminished by having Frances and George get together so early in the series.\u00a0 They definitely form a partnership that\u2019s stronger as a sum of its parts.\u00a0 The book winds up with another classic scene \u2013 a wedding.\u00a0 This series couldn\u2019t be a more delightful addition to your late summer reading pile.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This delightful series continues to enchant.\u00a0 The first book introduced the widowed Frances, Lady Harleigh, rich and on the loose in 1890\u2019s London for the first time.\u00a0 By this third installment, she\u2019s engaged, is busy with her daughter, Rose, and is supervising the wedding plans for her sister Lily, who is inconveniently pregnant. Frances is … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[369,368,6,39,10,162,367],"class_list":["post-3712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1890s","tag-a-ladys-guide-to-mischief-and-murder","tag-british","tag-dianne-freeman","tag-historical","tag-kensington-books","tag-lady-harleigh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3713,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3712\/revisions\/3713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}