The Duke, the Ghost, and Murder By Entirely Mortal Means

A Cozy Regency Mystery of Love and Murder

Miss Elinor Gresham makes ghosts for a living. It is the living men who cause trouble. Fake ghosts, real corpses, deeply inconvenient feelings.

Hired to stage elegant terrors in a ruined cliff top chapel, Elinor arrives at Wynthorpe Castle with her lenses, her invoices, and very little patience for talk of curses. The duke needs his houseguests terrified of a fashionable White Lady and impressed by his proposed harbour, not whispering about bad luck and walking away with their money. Unfortunately, once the lights are arranged and the gauze is hung, someone obligingly provides a very real body in a place that ought to be safely boarded up, and the list of people with motives is longer than the dinner table.

To keep a fishing village from ruin, Elinor must untangle superstition from sabotage, outthink a barrister who smiles too much, a coal magnate who shouts too loudly, and a rector who sees omens in loose mortar, all while maintaining professional indifference to a duke who talks about drowned sailors instead of legends. If she fails, men will go on dying at sea, the harbour will never be built, and her own reputation, livelihood, and reluctant heart will be thoroughly wrecked.

Perfect for readers who love cozy historical country house mysteries, fake hauntings that fall apart under inspection, grumpy duke plus practical mechanic slow burn, and dialogue sharp enough to draw polite blood. Expect a fair play mystery with clue rich investigations, dry, deadpan humour and non gory on page violence, plus a closed door slow burn romance with a happy for now ending that leaves room for future cases.

Slip into Wynthorpe Castle and see whether the ghosts or the guests are more dangerous.