Historical Romance Women Sleuths

Lacey Elliot has been a woman without a past since the day her mother whisked her off to Charlottesville, refusing for 30 years to speak of her father, her family or her history. But when Lacey intercepts a desperate letter from an aunt in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, she sees her chance to confront the past that has terrified her mother and to fill in the gaps in her own life. Against the charm and the colorful, turbulent history of the picturesque town, the violent history of Lacey's own heritage is about to repeat itself.

Whispers of misconduct swirl around Grace Penrose, when a prominent surgeon has a fatal seizure on their moonlit stroll together. Grace and the victim are on opposing sides of a feud over hospital services for women. How could she refuse his invitation to resolve their differences in private? When he dies despite her attempts to save him, and his unusual symptoms further implicate her, it’s not only her personal and professional reputation at risk. As the case becomes ever more baffling, the only thing Grace needs more than Charlie Pyke’s sleuthing skills is his uncanny knack of ...

On a freezing Christmas Eve in 1879, a forensic psychic reader is summoned from her Baker Street lodgings to the scene of a questionable death. Alexandrina Victoria Pendlebury (named after her godmother, the current queen of England) is adamant that the death in question is a magically compromised murder and not a suicide, as the police had assumed. After the shocking revelation contained by the body in question, Alex must put her personal loss aside to uncover the deeper issues at stake, before more bodies turn up.

Ten years ago, Penelope Paiget promised she’d wait for Samuel Black. But she was only a genteel, impoverished paid companion, forced into service after her father’s death revealed his insurmountable debts. Now she’s a successful novelist, posing as secretary to the Earl of Wickshire to hide her identity. Ten years ago, Samuel Black chose his own path instead of upholding his family’s legacy as spies. But having fought for the formation of the Metropolitan Police Force, echoes of his past and his true origins remind him how unworthy he is to call himself detective inspector.

Within just a couple of days, detective Leo Schultz’s life unravels. His son Rick is kidnapped and horrifically murdered. The very next day, Schultz’s car runs over a little girl, and he is identified by witnesses as the driver. Only his partner, PJ Gray, believes in his innocence. For city officials, this is not the end of it, as key members of the law and order systems are successively taken down.

CHAPPELL AND LILY WHITE LIE ARE RECIPIENTS OF COMMENDATION FROM OHIO HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FOR LITERARY ACCOMPLISHMENTS "Simply brilliant. Descriptiveness around every turn." --The Baltimore Sun In Lily White Lie, engravings on a pocketwatch, cryptic messages, Easter lilies, and sidelined spy Bret Kilmore combine to thrust historian Wrenn Grayson into the mysterious world of symbolism. A worried Wrenn connects the messages to her longtime love Gideon and his father. Contact is impossible. Gideon deer hunts deep in the West Virginia wilderness. His father, a prominent banker, vanished ...

A woman and her young son flee to a convent on a remote island off the Breton coast of France. Generations of seafarers have named the place Ile de la Brume, or Fog Island. In a chapel high on a cliff, a tragic death occurs and a terrified child vanishes into the mist.

From the creator of Falco comes Falco: the new generation, featuring her unforgettable heroine Flavia Albia in her fourth novel. Life is sweet for Flavia Albia and her soon-to-be husband Faustus. But his new job as a building contractor runs into a problem: At the Garden of the Hesperides a barmaid went missing years before; now the workmen start unearthing her bones. Albia takes on the task of finding out what happened.

It’s never easy keeping secrets...Only her desire to crush the Crown’s enemies could induce Lady Lucille Stanford to endure another Season. For years she has worked secretly for the Home Office, and she has come to London with one purpose: Foil the attempted kidnapping of a highly valuable target, identity unknown. Inconveniently, Lord Harrington - Lucy’s brother and guardian - has other plans. He won’t be satisfied until she is at long last married.

Called to the home of her fiancé's former mistress late one night, Francesca finds her curiosity piqued. But upon arrival, she is shocked to find Daisy Jones's bloodied body…and even more devastated when the evidence points to one suspect—her fiancé, Calder. Francesca cannot—will not—believe that Calder is capable of such an act. Still, she is unable to shake her instinctive sense that Calder is lying about something. The police are far less inclined to believe his innocence, and Calder is arrested for Daisy's murder.

Downton Abbey meets Agatha Christie in this witty whodunnit. 9-Book Series! 1917. Vienna. Can Fiona catch a killer AND find a decent cup of tea? File clerk turned British agent, Fiona Figg, is more comfortable wearing a fake mustache than a ballgown. When a royal ball ends with a royal body in the middle of the dance floor, Fiona trades her dancing slippers for practical oxfords and sets out to investigate. As she tracks her nemesis, Fredrick Fredricks, from Vienna to the Austrian countryside, a hunting accident makes her rethink her loyalties. Can Fiona prevent Fredricks from striking ...

Sometimes the past won't stay hidden, it demands to be uncovered. The Forgotten Life of Arthur Pettinger is a moving story from best-selling author Suzanne Fortin. Arthur Pettinger's memory isn't what it used to be. He can't always remember the names of his grandchildren, where he lives or which way round his slippers go. He does remember Maryse though, a woman he hasn't seen for decades, but whose face he will never forget.

The year is 1873, and Sybil Ingram has come to a crossroads. Once she was the toast of the London stage, but now that she's 28 years old - very well, nearly 30 - her draw isn't what it used to be, and her theater troupe is foundering. When her trusted mentor asks her to take the blame for his financial misdeeds, Sybil sees no choice but to retire from the life she loves and move to America to marry New York City hotel magnate Alcott Lammle.

Bruce Douglas is finding a dead cow a week – with the heart removed – in the mountains of his Kohala ranch. Is this a bizarre homage to long dead King Kamehameha, or something closer to home? Private eye Daisy Williams travels to Hawaii to help her sister and brother-in-law solve the mystery. When another cow is taken, the entire ranch races out to hunt down the rustlers. Daisy, the last to leave, gets lost and is captured. Will they find her body with her heart removed, too?

Eli Hunter needs a woman who can act her way onto any Covent Garden stage. He needs a woman with steely determination and a cunning mind. A woman who can help him recover a stolen artifact owned by a secret society. But he encounters a problem. The only detective available stirs a passion that could soften the hardest heart - a terrifying prospect for a man who’s survived the worst kind of betrayal. Can Rachel and Eli work together and suppress their obvious attraction? When thrown in the midst of danger, will they find something infinitely more precious than a stolen artifact?

Daisy Gumm Majesty, spiritualist to folks with more money than sense, can scarcely believe that her best client wants her to get her spiritual control, Rolly, to appear at a séance in a speakeasy. Bad enough that Daisy made up Rolly when she was ten, but now Rolly has to perform at a séance for a bunch of murdering gangsters?

On the morning of her wedding to Calder Hart, amateur sleuth Francesca Cahill is lured away to a private viewing of a portrait that could destroy her entire family: the nude Hart commissioned of her. Her desperate quest to recover the scandalous portrait leads her into a dangerous trap with no way to escape - until it's too late. And when Francesca finally arrives at the church, it's vacant. She has unintentionally jilted Hart at the altar.

In 1920s Pasadena, California, Daisy Gumm Majesty caters to the rich and famous as a medium who puts the "con" in conjurer. When she's blackmailed by Detective Sam Rotondo into spying on the wealthy Kincaid family, Daisy isn't quite sure what he's trying to sniff out. When Daisy gives Sam his own private reading, she tells him the spirits have a lot more in store for him. Original.

Orphaned as a child, Hortense has had to fight her way to becoming the ton’s favorite private investigator. But for a woman who lives on the edge, the past is never dead. When her former spymaster asks her to find his wastrel brother Jamie, the Marquess of Clare, she thinks it’s just one more job uncovering the ton’s dirty secrets. She has no idea that she’s about to find her future…

Twenty-three-year-old Katy Speed is fascinated by the house across the street. The woman who lives there, Gloria, is the most glamorous neighbour on the avenue, owning a fashionable dress shop in Bexhill-on-Sea. But who is the woman who arrives in the black car most Saturdays while Gloria is at work? Sometimes she brings women to the house, other times they have children. Hilda, Katy's mother, disapproves of Gloria. She wonders if these mysterious visitors have just been released from prison. Is Gloria secretly bringing criminals, or worse, into the heart of the community?