Emma Love – Carol's Notebook

I love the Ruby Vaughan series. The 1920s setting, the characters, the touch of the paranormal, along with well plotted mysteries, keep me engrossed. This time around Ruby and her employer/father-figure, Mr. Owen, are spending the holidays in Oxford at a a meeting of antiquarians. In addition to her duties for Mr. Owen, Ruby is spending time catching up with an old friend, Leona. When local curiosity museum owner Julius Harker doesn’t show up for a planned presentation of Egyptian artifacts and is instead found murdered, Ruby gets pulled into the investigation. Leona, it seems, was close to both Harker and the man arrested for his murder, his business partner Herr Mueller. The mystery was good enough. We have several possible culprits, and since we didn't know a lot of these cast of side characters from the previous books, we don't know who to trust. Ruan is in town too, at Ruby's (written when drunk) invitation, but his support is of course...

The Curse of Penryth Hall is engrossing. Ruby, our protagonist, is a disgraced heiress living in exile in Exter. There she works for her landlord, Mr. Owen, who sells rare books. Ruby is jaded, drinks too much, and is rather reckless. She's also generous and stubborn. As the book opens, Mr. Owen sends her with a box of books to a small village in Cornwall. The books, it turns out, are for Ruan Kivell, the town's Pellar, a wise man/witch/folk healer character. After making her delivery she stops a Penryth Hall to visit Tamsyn, an old friend with whom she has a complicated history. It's clear at dinner that Tamsyn's husband is not a good man. The reader is not surprised when he ends up dead the next morning, a victim of "the curse" according to the locals. Ruby doesn't believe in curses, but she does believe in protecting her friend and uncovering the truth. Cornwall is a superstitious, suspicious place still...

Narrator: Emma Love

The Devil in Oxford by Jess Armstrong

The Curse of Penryth Hall by Jess Armstrong