You can now obtain a copy of BESPOKE (Book I) at a very special price! So if you haven't had the chance yet to meet Lucy Greenwood and Detective Inspector Ptolemy Deverell, here is your opportunity.
* * *
He's been sent from Scotland Yard to solve a case of blackmail in the Yorkshire Dales; she's just opened her own business in York baking bespoke cakes. He wants a peaceful life; she's aiming for revolution. He likes to keep both feet on the ground; she dreams of scandalizing the neighborhood on a bicycle. He prefers to fade in with the wallpaper; she's proud to be a black sheep that stands out in the crowd.
He's never getting married again—most women ought to be stamped on the forehead with a danger warning and clapped into handcuffs. She thinks men are simply an obstacle to her ambitions and if it's true that the way to a man's heart is through his digestive system, that explains why a great deal of gaseous waste frequently finds its path out of the wrong end.
The two of them might appear to be mismatched flavors in an unlikely recipe, but when blackmail turns to murder, it's the start of a remarkable partnership in crime-solving. And a match made in chocolate.
It's late Victorian England and the world may be on the cusp of change, but is it quite ready for this pairing? They're not even prepared for it themselves. Nevertheless, some wayward kind of chemistry keeps drawing them together and it can't be blamed entirely on the cake.
Or the corpse in the conservatory.
* * *
Will this odd couple find a way to live with their differences and can wedding bells possibly be heard in their future? Along the way, their strange romance will have to compete with many mysteries, a few gruesome murders and much mayhem. But maybe they wouldn't have it any other way, for the enjoyment and satisfaction in solving a tangled riddle is one thing they do have in common.
Also available:
A LOVELINESS OF LADYBIRDS (A Bespoke Novel, part II).
The continuing adventures of Lucy Greenwood, baker and creator extraordinaire, and Detective Inspector Deverell.
Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home…
Ten years ago, at ‘The Brindle Horse’ Hotel, Amarinda Siddaway ran barefoot out of the fog, with a bloody knife in her hand and a children’s rhyme on her lips. Tangled with rumors of lurid scandal, an illicit love affair with a young man a dozen years her junior, and a missing corpse, the mystery of Mrs. Siddaway seemed destined never to be solved. Tried for murder and acquitted, the scarlet woman disappeared from the world just as thoroughly as her alleged victim.
But was she truly innocent, or did she get away with murder?
Now, a decade later, a very similar crime has been committed, once again at the same hotel. Can it be nothing more than simple coincidence that several characters involved in the first incident are present at the scene of the second? Another woman with a bloody weapon in her hand; another nursery rhyme, and another missing dead man.
Some folk might think that old ghosts are to blame. Or is it the ladybirds again?
A spinning weathervane on a boathouse roof points in turn to all four directions of the compass. And four letters, sealed with red wax, stamped with the image of a ladybird, are out in the world, linking both crimes with a curious, winding chain.
And there is only one man with the patience and wisdom to unwind it. Only one man can connect the clues and stop that weathervane spinning.
Detective Inspector Deverell is not fond of coincidences or the supernatural. But whatever is going on at ‘The Brindle Horse’, he’ll get to the bottom of it. Fortunately, he has the eager amateur sleuth and creator of remarkable cakes, Miss Lucy Greenwood, to help him out.
* * *
AND COMING SOON:
How
do you take your tea?
The Beast of Whitherward Fell has been blamed for a great many mysterious events and gruesome murders on that wildest, perilous stretch of the Yorkshire Moors. But what, or who, is the real monster? And can there be only one that has stalked this place since the beginning of time?
Detective Inspector Ptolemy Deverell does not believe in mythical beasts or supernatural phenomena. He’s a quiet, unassuming, pragmatic fellow, who seldom falls prey to emotion. Nobody pulls the fleece over his eyes. So if anybody can shed light on the rampaging fiend behind the bloody history of this place, surely, he can.
But when the detective embarks upon three cases at once, he has no idea how tightly they are entwined, or that this tangle will lead him into the darkest part of Whitherward Fell. To face the Beast head-on.
With a lady in search of vengeance; a gentleman on a mission for truth, and a little girl waiting for justice, the detective already has his hands full. On top of everything, he— the most unromantic fellow in the world—is in love. Will he ever get around to proposing marriage to the very modern, bicycle-riding, baker-extraordinaire, Miss Lucy Greenwood? And, if he does, will she laugh in his face and try drowning him in raspberry jam?
Not only that. A ghost from his own past has returned to haunt his nightmares, and he cannot get on with his life until she’s finally at rest.
Tolly Deverell might not believe in the Beast of Whitherward Fell, but he is preyed upon by a scavenging creature that lurks in the bleakest shadows of a dream, waiting to tear him apart. The great shadow of its wingspan falls from above when he is most susceptible.
It
comes to him when he’s alone in the dark.
It
comes to him when all but his mind is quiet.
It
comes in the deadliest shades of night.
And with words clawed into the wall, it asks,
How do you take your tea?
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