{"id":4478,"date":"2022-06-22T05:39:43","date_gmt":"2022-06-22T12:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=4478"},"modified":"2022-06-22T05:39:43","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T12:39:43","slug":"dianne-freeman-a-brides-guide-to-marriage-and-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/dianne-freeman-a-brides-guide-to-marriage-and-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Dianne Freeman: A Bride’s Guide to Marriage and Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I knew from Dianne Freeman\u2019s first book that this was a special series, and the subsequent books have done absolutely nothing to change my initial opinion.\u00a0 In this installment, she manages to carry off the wedding of the main character without destroying the interest and tension in the novel.\u00a0 I can think of other series where a wedding can prove to be a disaster for the characters and only one other historical series, Tasha Alexander\u2019s Lady Emily books, where that was not the case.\u00a0 So, bravo to Ms. Freeman right off the bat, before I even got to the heart of the book (the wedding happens at the very beginning).<\/p>\n

These books are nice historicals \u2013 set in 1900 London, the details of houses, clothing, social rank \u2013 all add to the stories.\u00a0 But they are the back drop to Freeman\u2019s true gift, which is assembling and telling a good mystery story.\u00a0 Because of the time period the detecting has a golden age feel. There\u2019s a small circle of suspects, and the fact the main character, Lady Frances and her now husband George, are amateur sleuths is completely believable as the police force was still kind of a work in progress.<\/p>\n

The body that kicks off the murder mystery, Mr. Connor\u2019s, is unfortunately found right next door, disrupting the tail end of the wedding as Frances\u2019 brother Alonzo becomes an immediate suspect.\u00a0 Frances and George put off their wedding trip to Cannes (in a Romanov villa no less, and I think I was as disappointed as they were) to help clear Alonzo.<\/p>\n

Alonzo had been attempting to court the Connor\u2019s daughter, but he is unfortunately being thwarted in this desire by an available future Marquis.\u00a0 Penniless, but titled, an American heiress like Miss Connor is just the ticket as far as the future Marquis is concerned, and Miss Connor\u2019s father apparently agreed.\u00a0 Miss Connor herself seems to lean toward Alonzo.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a feud going on between the Connors and another wealthy American family, the Bainbridges.\u00a0 Both patriarchs are aggressive and unpleasant \u2013 no one seems to be mourning Mr. Connor too much, least of all Mr. Bainbridge.\u00a0 There\u2019s plenty for Frances and George to unpack as they attempt to unravel the mystery.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but they are supposed to be on their honeymoon, and at all hours of the day and night members of Frances\u2019 family appear demanding her help or looking for her to call on someone (often the grieving widow Connor) to see what information she can glean.\u00a0 Because George is serving as Alonzo\u2019s legal advisor, he\u2019s able to extract some information from the police, and between the two of them \u2013 especially with Frances\u2019 excellent deductive reasoning skills \u2013 they are of course able to eventually solve the murder.<\/p>\n

Freeman\u2019s tone is light and often funny, and she has a truly deft hand with character, from her mainstays down to some sidebar characters in this outing, thugs named Sidney and Archie, who make a couple of appearances and further the storyline when they do appear.\u00a0 They were the cherries on this particularly delicious cupcake.\u00a0 I very much hope they make a return appearance.<\/p>\n

I am also awaiting the honeymoon.\u00a0 I know it won\u2019t go smoothly, but I am sure it will be a happy one.\u00a0 Frances and George are that rare couple in literature that work in sync, are happy together, and make the stories better by simply being a unit.\u00a0 These books are funny, well plotted, and filled with characters I have grown to love.<\/p>\n

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I knew from Dianne Freeman\u2019s first book that this was a special series, and the subsequent books have done absolutely nothing to change my initial opinion.\u00a0 In this installment, she manages to carry off the wedding of the main character without destroying the interest and tension in the novel.\u00a0 I can think of other series … 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":[853,852,39,10,484,162,367,854],"class_list":["post-4478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1900-london","tag-a-brides-guide-to-marriage-and-murder","tag-dianne-freeman","tag-historical","tag-humor","tag-kensington-books","tag-lady-harleigh","tag-wedding-gone-wrong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4478","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=4478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4480,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4478\/revisions\/4480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}