I love mysteries! Finding a mystery series that I enjoy is always a joy. A while ago, I had the opportunity to read and review A Child Lost by Michelle Cox. This week, I had the opportunity to review an earlier novel from the series: A Veil Removed. This time, rather than reading, I have listened to an audiobook. What did I think of A Veil Removed? Read my thoughts, learn about the book and the series--and the author and narrator--and be sure to enter for a chance to win a prize in the book tour giveaway at the end of this post.
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Narrated by: Jayne A Entwistle
Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
Category: AdultFiction (18+)
Genre: Historical Mystery
Publisher: Michelle Cox
Audiobook Release date: April, 2020
Content Rating: R: Books 1-2 do not have any sex scenes, though there is sexual reference, Books 3-5 do have explicit sex scenes (tasteful). There is periodic swearing and violence, but not a lot. There are some dark themes (though not graphic examples) of suicide, prostitution, mob involvement, rape, drinking, homosexuality.
Murder is never far from this sexy couple . . . even during the holidays! Their honeymoon abruptly ended by the untimely death of Alcott Howard, Clive and Henrietta return to Highbury, where Clive discovers all is not as it should be. Increasingly convinced that his father’s death was not an accident, Clive launches his own investigation, despite his mother’s belief that he has become “mentally disturbed” with grief. Henrietta eventually joins forces with Clive on their first real case, which becomes darker―and deadlier―than they imagined as they get closer to the truth behind Alcott’s troubled affairs. Meanwhile, Henrietta’s sister, Elsie, begins, at Henrietta’s orchestration, to take classes at a women’s college―an attempt to evade her troubles and prevent any further romantic temptations. When she meets a bookish German custodian at the school, however, he challenges her to think for herself . . . even as she discovers some shocking secrets about his past life.
A Veil Removed is well written and well narrated. I am not always a fan of audiobooks as I prefer to assign character voices from my own perspectives and experiences. Since I had met the series characters in another book--I had my own ideas about them and their expected roles. I found the narration was in perfect keeping with the author's setting and character development--and the novel kept its historical placement and strengths.
A Veil Removed is stand-alone--but readers should read from the beginning.
I have read the last two books of this series--out of order and, even in reverse order from each other. I found that the author did more by way of "catching readers up" on past events in her later book than she did in this one. The author launches characters into this novel without much introduction or explanation. It took a bit of time for the storylines to connect and the character relationships to sink in! I would definitely read this series as a series. It will make the characters and their motivations much more relevant and realistic to the story.
Would I recommend A Veil Removed by Michelle Cox?
I enjoy historical fiction and mysteries in almost any time and place--but I find that this author can take readers back in time while making the characters and their interactions realistic and relevant to modern readers. The novel moved a little slowly at first--and it took some time for me to fall into the narrated story--but, once I did, the author's story and character development created another excellent mystery and human drama. I do need to backtrack and read these books in order--and I hope that there are more in the future continuing from the ones I have read/listened to already! I would definitely recommend to historical mystery fans--and audiobook lovers.
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Category: AdultFiction (18+)
Genre: Historical Mystery
Publisher: Michelle Cox
Release dates: November 2017; April 2017; April 2018; April 2019; April 2020
Content Rating: R: Books 1-2 do not have any sex scenes, though there is sexual reference, Books 3-5 do have explicit sex scenes (tasteful). There is periodic swearing and violence, but not a lot.
Narrated by: Jayne A Entwistle
Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
Category: Adult Fiction (18+)
Genre: Historical Mystery
Publisher: Michelle Cox
Audiobook Release date: November, 2017
Content Rating: R: Books 1-2 do not have any sex scenes, though there is sexual reference, Books 3-5 do have explicit sex scenes (tasteful). There is periodic swearing and violence, but not a lot. There are some dark themes (though not graphic examples) of suicide, prostitution, mob involvement, rape, drinking, homosexuality.
Henrietta Von Harmon works as a 26 girl at a corner bar on Chicago’s northwest side. It’s 1935, but things still aren’t looking up since the big crash and her father’s subsequent suicide, leaving Henrietta to care for her antagonistic mother and younger siblings. Henrietta is eventually persuaded to take a job as a taxi dancer at a local dance hall—and just when she’s beginning to enjoy herself, the floor matron turns up dead. When aloof Inspector Clive Howard appears on the scene, Henrietta agrees to go undercover for him—and is plunged into Chicago’s grittier underworld.
Meanwhile, she’s still busy playing mother hen to
her younger siblings, as well as to pesky neighborhood boy Stanley, who
believes himself in love with her and keeps popping up in the most
unlikely places, determined to keep Henrietta safe—even from the
Inspector, if need be. Despite his efforts, however, and his penchant
for messing up the Inspector’s investigation, the lovely Henrietta and
the impenetrable Inspector find themselves drawn to each other in most
unsuitable ways.
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Narrated by: Jayne A Entwistle
Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
Category: AdultFiction (18+)
Genre: Historical Mystery
Publisher: Michelle Cox
Audiobook Release date: May, 2020
Content Rating: R: Books 1-2 do not have any sex scenes, though there is sexual reference, Books 3-5 do have explicit sex scenes (tasteful). There is periodic swearing and violence, but not a lot. There are some dark themes (though not graphic examples) of suicide, prostitution, mob involvement, rape, drinking, homosexuality.
In this second book of the series, Henrietta and Clive delightfully rewrite Pride and Prejudice―with a hint of mystery! Newly engaged, Clive and Henrietta now begin the difficult task of meeting each other’s family. “Difficult” because Clive has neglected to tell Henrietta that he is in fact the heir to the Howard estate and fortune, and Henrietta has just discovered that her mother has been hiding secrets about her past as well. When Clive brings Henrietta to the family estate to meet his parents, they are less than enthused about his impoverished intended. Left alone in this extravagant new world when Clive returns to the city, Henrietta finds herself more at home with the servants than his family, much to the disapproval of Mrs. Howard―and soon gets caught up in the disappearance of an elderly servant’s ring, not realizing that in doing so she has become part of a bigger, darker plot. As Clive and Henrietta attempt to discover the truth in the two very different worlds unraveling around them, they both begin to wonder: Are they meant for each other after all?
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Narrated by: Jayne A Entwistle
Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
Category: Adult Fiction (18+)
Genre: Historical Mystery
Publisher: Michelle Cox
Audiobook Release date: February, 2020
Content Rating: R: Books 1-2 do not have any sex scenes, though there is sexual reference, Books 3-5 do have explicit sex scenes (tasteful). There is periodic swearing and violence, but not a lot. There are some dark themes (though not graphic examples) of suicide, prostitution, mob involvement, rape, drinking, homosexuality.
This third book in the Henrietta and Inspector Howard series provides a
delightful romp through the English countryside and back. Anxious to be
married, Henrietta and Clive push forward with their wedding plans
despite their family differences, made worse now by Oldrich Exley’s
attempts to control the Von Harmons. When the long-awaited wedding day
arrives, there is more unfolding than just Clive and Henrietta’s vows of
love. Stanley and Elsie’s relationship is sorely tested by the presence
of the dashing Lieutenant Harrison Barnes-Smith and by Henrietta’s
friend Rose―a situation that grows increasingly dark and confused as
time goes on. As Clive and Henrietta begin their honeymoon at Castle
Linley, the Howards’ ancestral estate in England, they encounter a whole
new host of characters, including the eccentric Lord and Lady Linley
and Clive’s mysterious cousin, Wallace. When a man is murdered in the
village on the night of a house party at the Castle, Wallace comes under
suspicion―and Clive and Henrietta are reluctantly drawn into the case,
despite Clive’s anxiety at involving his new bride and Henrietta’s
distracting news from home. Delicately attempting to work together for
the first time, Clive and Henrietta set out to prove Wallace’s
innocence, uncovering as they do so some rather shocking truths that
will shake the Linley name and estate forever.
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Narrated by: Jayne A Entwistle
Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
Category: Adult Fiction (18+)
Genre: Historical Mystery
Publisher: Michelle Cox
Audiobook Release date: June, 2020
Content Rating: R: Books 1-2 do not have any sex scenes, though there is sexual reference, Books 3-5 do have explicit sex scenes (tasteful). There is periodic swearing and violence, but not a lot. There are some dark themes (though not graphic examples) of suicide, prostitution, mob involvement, rape, drinking, homosexuality.
A spiritualist, an insane asylum, a lost little girl . . . When Clive, anxious to distract a depressed Henrietta, begs Sergeant Frank Davis for a case, he is assigned to investigating a seemingly boring affair: a spiritualist woman operating in an abandoned schoolhouse on the edge of town who is suspected of robbing people of their valuables. What begins as an open and shut case becomes more complicated, however, when Henrietta―much to Clive’s dismay―begins to believe the spiritualist's strange ramblings. Meanwhile, Elsie implores Clive and Henrietta to help her and the object of her budding love, Gunther, locate the whereabouts of one Liesel Klinkhammer, the German woman
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Jayne Entwistle was born in the North of England and lived in a myriad of places (Vancouver, San Francisco, Tucson, Sequim, Seattle) before landing in Los Angeles. She is an avid improviser who hitched her space-work wagon to Patrick Bristow’s company, Improvatorium, where she studied, taught, directed and performed improv. She is an award-winning audiobook narrator best known for her narration of the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley. She also received the 2015 Odyssey Honour Award for The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry and the 2016 Odyssey Award for, The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. When not inhaling books for work or pleasure, Jayne works in film, television and commercials. The biggest star she has ever worked with is Shaquille O’Neal. He is quite literally THE biggest star she has ever worked with. Ever. He’s really big!
Michelle Cox is the author of the multiple award-winning Henrietta and Inspector Howard series as well as “Novel Notes of Local Lore,” a weekly blog dedicated to Chicago’s forgotten residents. She suspects she may have once lived in the 1930s and, having yet to discover a handy time machine lying around, has resorted to writing about the era as a way of getting herself back there. Coincidentally, her books have been praised by Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and many others, so she might be on to something. Unbeknownst to most, Michelle hoards board games she doesn’t have time to play and is, not surprisingly, addicted to period dramas and big band music. Also marmalade.
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Thanks so much, Angela!! I'm glad you were able to enjoy the book despite being read out of order, though hopefully you will someday find time to go back to the very beginning of the series! Really appreciate your kind comments!
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