Sunday, February 1, 2009

A Dead Bore

Sheri Cobb South is high on my list of obscure authors who deserve a wider audience. Her books are published by Five Star, a small publisher that focuses mostly on the library market. You're unlikely to find them in bookstores, but your local library may well have them, and of course they're available on Amazon.com.

A Dead Bore (2008) is the second in a series of Regency mysteries featuring Bow Street Runner John Pickett and Lady Fieldhurst, the newly widowed viscountess he cleared of suspicion for her husband's murder in In Milady's Chamber. In this story, set a few months after the first one, Lady Fieldhurst accepts an invitation to a house party in Yorkshire to escape London gossip about her husband's scandalous death. When the local vicar dies in what looks to be a fire started by a lightning strike, she senses something is off and invites Pickett to come investigate, and naturally he's eager to comply.

The mystery is good, and the developing attraction between Pickett and Lady Fieldhurst is even better. I love a good slow-blossoming romance, and I've always had a thing for cross-class pairings in historicals where the woman is the aristocrat. I'll be looking forward to the next entry in this series, and I hope I won't have as long a wait between volumes!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Susan, thanks for your kind words on A Dead Bore! My current work in progress is an unrelated novel, but I do have plans for John Pickett in the future.

Sheri Cobb South