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n BATH LIBRARY BOOK REVIEWS AND NEWS
by bathvoice1
Adult Fiction
A Dangerous Business – Jane Smiley
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From the author of the Pulitzer Prize winner
A Thousand Acres comes this murder mystery set in Gold Rush California.
The story is beautifully written and incredible evocative of the period. It is 1861, we met Eliza, recently widowed (her husband was killed in a bar fight) and she begins a profession that offers her some financial security in the growing town of Monterey. She also meets Jean, and inspired by their reading of Edgar Allen Poe’s detective Dupin, start an investigation into the disappearance of young women in the town. This is wild west America, there are no dedicated police and only a limited “Sheriff” role. But the women try to piece together the evidence to catch the killer. This book has many adult themes, but the characters are excellent, in particular Eliza who displays real frontier courage in an ever-changing California where everyone is trying to make their fortunes or running away from something.
Fortune’s daughter – Dilly Court
Dilly Court makes the top ten of the Sunday Times bestsellers lists and has written over forty novels - a very popular author. This book is book 1 of a series called The Rockwood Chronicles. It begins with Rosalind Carey, the eldest daughter of the Carey family who, after her parents abandon them, has to care for her younger brothers and sister, as well as the dilapidated Rockwood castle.
Determined to provide for her family and keep the estate going she has to cope with one crisis after another. Then Piers Blanchard appears announcing that he is a distant cousin, and that Rockwood is his. Piers wants to clear Rockwood’s
