Curses Are For Cads (An Eleanor Wilde Mystery Book 3)

Author:    Tamara Berry

Genre:     Mystery

Hardcover; Digital Book

ISBN #:    9781496729330

Kensington Publishing

288 Pages

$18.79; $13.26 Amazon

October 27, 2020

⭐⭐⭐⭐

As Sussex's resident witch and pseudo psychic, Eleanor has grown accustomed to somewhat strange requests for supernatural aid.  So when Nicholas's university pal, Sid Stewart, writes from the family's remote castle in Scotland, begging for Ellie's services as a medium, Ellie is only delighted to help.

Apparently, the recently deceased patriarch of Sid's family, Glenn Stewart, died before divulging the whereabouts of an important cache of family heirlooms.  The Stewart clan hopes a clairvoyant can contact him from beyond the grave.  Of course, Ellie can't actually commune with the dead.  But faking it is the name of the game.  She's not worried, until...

Aboard the train for Oban, Ellie discovers that fellow medium Birdie White is also heading to the Outer Hebrides to assist the Stewarts.  Birdie is a master in the art, serving as a spiritual consultant to royalty and even assisting Scotland Yard on occasion.  Ellie might not trust the woman's motivations, but Birdie's skills are unquestionable.

But while Birdie is busy speaking with the dead, Ellie plans to talk to living suspects -- namely, the other residents and employees of the spooky Stewart estate, who know a lot more than they're letting on.  Amid swirling rumors of cursed treasure, whispered tales of ghostly pirates, and a recent spate of preternatural murders, in order to catch the killer Ellie must confront the most terrifying possibility of all -- her gift may be real...

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

Eleanor Wilde is the resident witch in Sussex.  While the townspeople are still getting used to her and speculating all the way about her motives, one thing is sure: her beau Nicholas is truly smitten.  He wants to take her on a two-week vacation to Malta, and she's excited to go.  That is, until Nicholas shows up telling her that plans have changed: they're going to Scotland to help an old university chum of his.  Ellie's on board with the plan until she shows up at his castle the next morning, all packed and ready to go...and there's no Nicholas.  He had to leave on business, but bought her a train ticket to her destination.

Not happy about the train, she still has a job to do for the Stewarts, who want her to find their missing heirlooms -- the ones that their father forgot to tell them the location before he died.  But she's stunned while aboard and a woman comes barging in her train car and plops next to her, telling her that she's also a medium and on her way to the Stewarts.  Yet when they arrive, no one expected Birdie White, and even Eleanor wants to know what she's doing there.  It doesn't take long before Ellie figures it out, and she finds herself attempting to stay one step ahead of the flamboyant fake.  But will she be able to, when Birdie seems to know everything Ellie is doing?...

This is the third book in the series, and I really wanted to like it as much as I did the previous one.  However, Birdie herself kept me from doing so.  She was heartily dislikable in my opinion.  I dreaded every scene she was in; and discovering some of the things she did to Eleanor made me dislike her ever more.  I do wish Ellie had given her a big bop in the nose...

Nicholas was mostly absent from most of the book; and I would have liked to have seen their relationship prosper, but it appeared (to me, at least) that Ellie was thinking of ways to keep him at arms' length.  None of her reasons made sense; it was obvious he loved her, and she should have just reciprocated or left him.

The mystery itself was very well done, and I did like the resolution that Ellie brought to everyone.  It was thoughtful and believable, and that's the idea all along of what a conclusion should be.  While this was not my favorite book, I do look forward to the next in the series and hope it will be better.  Still, it is a very good read and I recommend it.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher but this in no way influenced my review.

https://www.amazon.com/Curses-Cads-Eleanor-Wilde-Mystery-ebook/dp/B085LTWQX6/ref

Goodreads:    https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4749969543

More on Tamara Berry's Books:    https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/tamara-berry/

Potions Are For Pushovers (An Eleanor Wilde Mystery Book 2)

Author:    Tamara Berry

Genre:     Mystery

Hardcover; Digital Book

ISBN #:    9781496719638

Kensington Publishing

288 Pages

$12.99; $16.46 Amazon

November 26, 2019

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Selling mystical elixirs and tantalizing tonics is a pretty good way for a fake medium to earn a living.  Or at least it's Ellie's main source of income -- until a villager turns up dead.  The cause?  Murder by poisoning.  And though Ellie's concoctions don't include anything worthy of a skull and crossbones, suddenly she's the prime suspect.  Her only recourse is to find the culprit who did do away with Sarah Blackthorne.  No one liked the mean old battle-axes.  But did anyone hate her enough to kill her?

It's enough of a mystery to make Ellie hang up her witch's hat and take millionaire beau Nicholas Hartford up on his offer to keep her afloat.  Except Ellie is not the kind of woman to lean on a man -- least of all a man she adores whose place in her life is uncertain.  Besides, Ellie's taken on two young witches-in-training -- apprentices if you will -- and both of them are convinced a werewolf is the murderer.

Just as Ellie's wondering if there really is something otherworldly going on, animals suddenly begin to disappear -- including her beloved cat, Beast.  Now Ellie's on the warpath to uncover the wicked truth about the people and the place she's only just begun to call home...

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

Eleanor Wilde is a fake psychic who's taken to making potions and tonics for the villagers around her, becoming the village witch, living in a cottage on the estate of her beau, rich Nicholas Hartford.  But Nicholas travels and isn't always around, and she refuses to live on his largesse, rather trying to make it on her reputation, such as it is.  But one morning she's conscripted to act as emissary for the Hartfords by Nicholas's mother.  She's to attend in her place on the committee for the annual village fete.  Not all the people attending are happy about it; and one elderly woman, Sarah Blackthorne, accuses Eleanor of giving her 'the evil eye' just before Sarah drops dead of a suspected heart attack.

Now Eleanor is out to prove her innocence, and is determined to find out who killed the woman.  Hindering her efforts is the daughter of the village physician, Lenora, who insists that apprenticing with Eleanor is the place she wants to be for her school project.  When Nicholas's niece Rachel hears of this, she decides she wants to apprentice, also.  And when the remains of a man's beloved pet pig is found mutilated, the girls have decided it's the work of a werewolf.  Well, keeping them occupied reading about the history of werewolves can't be bad, right?  Wrong.  Especially when Eleanor starts wondering if the girls might be on the right track...

This is the second book in the series and I have to say that I enjoyed it much more than the first (sorry).  The characters are given a chance to flesh out better, and we're getting a much better idea of the way that Eleanor thinks.  This is a young woman who has not had the easiest time in life; she's had to care for her permanently injured -- now deceased -- sister, and recently moved to England to begin her new life in the village and decide just what her relationship with Nicholas is.  But she's worried that the villagers don't really accept her, and she wants to become a part of this place that she's taken to her heart.

She also feels the need to watch over the two girls in her care, even though Lenora's mother isn't happy about the arrangement; and she's worried about her cat Beast, who recently disappeared, wondering if she's been a victim of the person -- or animal -- that has been capturing and killing pets throughout the village.

The mystery itself is done very well, and we're wondering who could possibly be a killer in their midst.  She's sure it has to be one of the people who were at the meeting, which makes the murderer a local villager.  But she has no idea who it might be, at least until she discovers a major clue -- one even others have missed, and she's sure she can find a way to get a confession.  That is, until Ellie herself is thrown off her game and may just find herself in danger of being the next victim...

All in all, when the murderer is discovered, it comes almost as a surprise, and a pleasant one at that, since it's always nice to have time to figure it out along with the protagonist.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book so much that I look forward to the next in the series.  Recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Potions-Pushovers-Eleanor-Wilde-Mystery-ebook/dp/B07PCHV2KP/ref

Goodreads:    https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4714832451

More on Tamara Berry's Books:    https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/tamara-berry/

Seances Are for Suckers (An Eleanor Wilde Mystery Book 1)

Author:    Tamara Barry

Genre:      Mystery

Hardcover; Digital Book

ISBN #:    9781496719621

Kensington Publishing

323 Pages

$26.00; $9.99 Amazon

October 30, 2018

⭐⭐⭐

Ellie has an ailing sister to care for, and working as a ghost hunter who doesn't believe in ghosts helps to cover the bills for both of them.  When she's lucky, it also pays for the occasional tropical vacation.  Her brother doesn't exactly approve, but Ellie figures she's providing a service.  On her latest job, though, she may be in for some genuine scares.

The skeptical, reserved, and very rich Nicholas Hartford the III has flown her all the way to his family's ancestral estate in England -- supposedly haunted by a phantom named Xavier.  Nicholas thinks it's all just as much a crock as Ellie's business is, but the fact remains that something is causing the flashes of light, mysterious accidents, and other apparent pranks in the chilly, eerie castle.  His mother is sure that Xavier is real, and he's willing to employ Ellie if she can get to the bottom of it and put a stop to the nonsense.

While the food and accommodations are somewhat disappointing (dorm-room furniture?  Really?), Ellie is finding it an adventure to get to know this eccentric family and their house guests, and to poke around in the nearby village for clues.  But when an actual dead body appears -- and subsequently disappears -- at Castle Hartford, she'll have to apply her talent for trickery and psychological insight to solve a flesh-and-blood murder.

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

Eleanor Wilde is a con artist who gets people to believe that she can find ghosts and eliminate them, all the while masking as a ghost hunter.  She uses cameras and other equipment to find out the truth, and then fakes a séance where she shows them everything is going to be fine.  She does this because it's the only way she can afford her sister's health care.  Sometimes she even makes enough for a vacation or two.

While her brother hates it, Ellie doesn't care, as long as the paychecks keep coming.  But what comes one day is one Nicholas Hartford III who wants her help -- his mother thinks a ghost is haunting them, but he knows it's all a crock -- just like Ellie's business -- but still insists she help them, at her own price.  Unable to resist, Ellie accepts the offer, and when she arrived in England, walks into the strangest family she's ever met.  Still, she's made a commitment, and she's bound and determined to find out who's staging the haunting, and why...

At first this sounded to be an interesting book, but unfortunately it fell flat almost immediately.  I did not like the main character at all.  As I stated above, she's a con artist, and doesn't even have a home of her own, preferring to leech onto the people she's working for so she can sleep in a bed.  Just lovely.  How endearing a person she must be to not only take money under false pretenses (even if she does admit it to some people) but to use them for room and board also.  I would have had more respect for her if she had her own place.  Ah, well.

At any rate, she goes to Nicholas's family home and meets his odd mother, who serves inedible food for a ridiculous reason since they do have money, after all; his clueless niece, and his extremely vain sister who refuses to realize that she's aging; and her sister's beau, who is loud and boisterous, but is the only person who shows selfless kindness to Ellie.  

But in the end, it's the reason for the fake "ghost" that I found implausible.  Also kind of gross, but I won't explain more of why I said that.  The plot also devolved into a romance more than mystery, and the clues were leading in an entirely different direction all along.  How unfair.  But the ending gives us a clue to what the next book will be about, although I don't know if I will read it or not.  The reason I gave it three stars is because this is a new series, and sometimes the author needs another book or two to hone their characters, so I didn't ding her for that.

https://www.amazon.com/Seances-Suckers-Eleanor-Wilde-Mystery/dp/149671962X/ref

Goodreads:    https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4087569872

More on Tamara Berry's Books:    https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/tamara-berry/