Still enjoying this series -- love the unexpected plot twists and turns, and the Norman setting of this installment of the adventure. Colin is a chump. I hope he gets his crap together -- after the last couple of books, I'd be happy enough for Kallista to return to widowhood. ( )

From Goodreads: "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 château 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."

This held my interest and with the exception of Emily's mother-in-law, who was rude & condescending, and two young people of the victim's family (both more than obnoxious), I liked the characters (even the bad guy).

This was certainly better than the previous one I read..... This author just isn't an even writer, maybe if she took more time between books rather than writing to meet deadlines her work would be more copacetic. I am not giving up yet. ( )

More of a 2.5 star rating. I'm getting tired of Lady Emily's moping around and feeling that everyone is against her. Also, the villian's motive seemed to come out of nowhere. Still, this book was better than the previous one in the series, Tears of Pearl. ( )

I know this series is historical fiction and thus the fact that the sleuth being a woman from the aristocracy is a bit unusual already, but her husband still really bugs me. Lady Emily was a widow already and could have been just fine on her own, so while I understand that she thinks she loves her second husband, I have to wonder if she needs him. He seems to understand that she is an independent, intelligent person who does not need him to control and discipline her, but then it also seems that he has simply taken all that under advisement and might change his mind at any time and take away all her freedom as if she is a pet, not a human being. Being treated as inferior would already be annoying for a woman like Lady Emily, but never knowing from one day to the next where you stand with your husband and which of your freedoms are most illusory because of him would be even more annoying, the uncertainty that amounts to being unable to really trust your husband thanks to his well-demonstrated preference for retaining full dominance over you. I kept wishing throughout the book that Emily would get fed up and divorce him or at least leave him, scandal or not. Still, the murder mystery was good in this book, and the bad guy was in the story, not just thrown in at the end (I consider introducing a brand new bad-guy character at the end cheating on the part of mystery writers). I'd give this book 3.5 stars, but it was decent enough aside from Emily's husband that I rounded up to 4 for this site. ( )

I liked this book the least of all 5 books so far. The series presents a heroine with modern ideas in Victorian times. She's rich of course, smart, independent and has a husband who supports these scandalous ideas of equality. They investigate mysteries together, along with one or two friends they've made along the way. It's been fun, mostly.

Until this one. This book would have been about 30% shorter and less irritating if someone had just given Emily a flog at the beginning of the book and told her to have at herself. Events in the previous book have given her a rude awakening about what equality might mean–rightly enough–but she positively wallowed throughout this book and didn't begin to resemble the character I'd enjoyed previously. Colin too was something of an ass.

So, the story lumbered and dragged for me. I disliked pretty much everybody, and I was certain who the killer was. But then, towards the end, the last 25%, the story got exciting. I still pretty much disliked everyone, but events picked up pace dramatically and I was quite swept away in the excitement of it all. Add to that I was totally wrong about who the killer was (although I get points for proximity) and the book raised itself up to 3 stars instead of the two I had planned to give it.

Here's hoping everyone pulls their sticks out in book 6. ( )