Dear friends, I am thrilled to share the news that Myrtle Hardcastle Mysteries #4, In Myrtle Peril, has received a starred review from Kirkus! As my publisher keeps reminding me, it is beyond rare for the fourth book in a series to receive an institutional review at all, and to get a star alongside it is all the more exciting!
Here is what Myrtle’s friends at Kirkus Reviews had to say!
Another thrilling mystery from our young Victorian sleuth.
All the members of Myrtle’s household are suffering from malaise at the lack of crimes to investigate. Myrtle; her father, the Prosecuting Solicitor; and her brilliant governess, Miss Judson have no villainies to uncover, and it’s so dull. It’s exciting when Father gets pulled into the case of a long-ago shipwreck—is Sally, a White girl about Myrtle’s age, an heiress or a fraud? But the case of Sally-the-possible-heiress will have to wait; Father needs his tonsils removed (a dangerous surgery in 1894, even in a “marvelous specimen of modernity” like the Royal Swinburne Hospital). When Father witnesses a murder in the hospital, is it real or a delusion? Only Myrtle and Miss Judson, ably assisted by Sally and Peony, Myrtle’s talkative cat, can expose the truth. Myriad secrets all come back to the central mystery, and though some tertiary subplots are lightly developed, the mystery as a whole is charming. How can it be otherwise when solved by “a cat, a dog, two doctors, a journalist on crutches, an unemployed law clerk, a solicitor in pyjamas, a nurse with a cricket bat, a governess, an off-duty housekeeper, and one small frantic Investigator”? Myrtle’s family is White; multiple characters of color are present, including biracial French Guianese Miss Judson.
Enthusiastically, chaotically delightful. (Historical mystery. 9-12)
An awesome review! Congratulations! Can’t wait to read it!
Three, I mean Four Book Cheers for Myrtle and her sleuthing team. Great review and very representative of all your books with a medley of characters on both sides of the mystery! Quite a unique feat and so deserved. I love this series and tell everyone about it from my historian siblings to my tween grandkids. Thanks!