Murder Under the Observatory Dome and Polite Starlight

A Cozy Regency Mystery of Murder, Love & Ghosts

I am the narrator of this book, which means I am to haul you through every polite disaster inside it and receive precisely none of the credit. Now they have decided I should also sell it, as though I were not busy keeping everyone from lying in the same sentence.

Beatrix Langford arrives at a country observatory to do the sensible work, copy figures, reconcile ledgers, and let titled people feel clever beneath a dome with a slit like a watchful eye. Then Lady Honoria Pemberton falls down her own staircase, very dramatically and quite dead, leaving behind an irritable ghost who refuses to be remembered as a woman who merely “unfortunately slipped.” I sympathise. I have met the staircase.

So I do what I always do, I keep the record straight while everyone else attempts to turn tragedy into gossip, science into vanity, and negligence into “a most unfortunate misadventure.” Beatrix starts taking statements instead of sums, Captain Merrow starts drawing diagrams instead of charts, and the ghost starts editing everyone’s conscience with the kind of precision usually reserved for commas. The stakes are simple and vicious: if Beatrix cannot pin the truth to the page, the observatory collapses, her employment goes with it, and Lady Honoria’s reputation is flattened into a single cheap story for other people’s amusement.

Expect a cozy Regency puzzle with a persnickety ghost, an observatory full of secrets, and a staircase that should be tried at the Old Bailey. You will get a clue-rich mystery with a satisfying, logical reveal, plus a closed-door slow-burn romance with an HFN; the danger is social, the death is non-gory, and the feelings know how to behave in public. Mostly.

Perfect for readers who like smart, dryly funny cozy mysteries, Regency manners with sharp teeth, a nuisance ghost with opinions, and gentle closed-door chemistry that simmers while the kettle boils.

This is a complete, standalone case in the Regency: Ghostly Grievances Society, so you may start here without permission from anyone important. Go on then, click Look Inside, and let me show you what happens when starlight, scandal, and one picky ghost collide with a badly built stair.