Mostrando resultados por autor "Marisa Paxon" en Todas las categorías

I am the narrator of Murder, Marmalade, and Other Ballroom Disasters, which means I have already carried you through candlelight, gossip, and a man expiring on polished floorboards, and now they want me to sell it as well. Splendid. Nothing says “romance” like administrative labour. Here is what you are walking into: Bath’s Assembly Rooms, terrible music, and Miss Julia Amberley sitting very still at the edge of society because a certain Mr Jasper Fenton once spoke a few convenient sentences and left her to choke on the consequences. Then he has the decency to die at her feet in a ...

I am the narrator of this book, which means I will haul you through every humid corridor, every polite lie, and every outrageously starched cravat; first they insist I must sell it as well. Splendid. Welcome to Marshwood Grange, where the pineapples are treated like visiting royalty and the staff are expected to perspire with gratitude. Miss Elinor Strickland has been hired to illustrate Lady Agnes March’s prized fruit, which is a respectable way to earn a living if you overlook the small matter of the hothouse manager dropping dead at her feet. Naturally, Mr Barnabas Quill’s ghost ...

I am the narrator of this book, which means I have already carried a duke, an entire art institution, and one extremely punctual corpse from sentence to sentence without anyone so much as offering me a restorative sherry. And now they have decided I must also entice you into the mess. Splendid. A corpse behind a curtain, an unfinished Renfrew portrait, and a duke who treats paintings like evidence should have been more than enough excitement for one morning at the Royal Academy. Then Mr Edwin Larke, critic, creditor, and professional ruin of pleasant conversations, takes a pinch of snuff ...

I am the narrator of this book, which means I have already carried an entire parish through one public poisoning, three private arguments, and a heroic quantity of moral certainty. Now they want me to sell it as well, as if I have not done enough emotional lifting for people who think “misadventure” is a respectable substitute for “someone did this on purpose.” It begins on a perfectly ordinary Sunday in Redfield, with a sermon about idle tongues, a viscount with an inconvenient reputation, and Mr Ambrose Pritchard taking his usual sip from a small glass bottle, right up until the ...

This season, death comes in your size. At Montague’s Emporium on Regent Street, the Christmas window is meant to display gowns, not corpses. When junior window dresser Hester Linwood reaches in to straighten a mannequin and finds cold flesh and a very real bruise, she ruins the unveiling, horrifies the crowd, and earns the focused attention of two men: her impeccably tailored employer, Julian Montague, and an inspector who distrusts both instalment plans and spectacle. With Montague’s reputation on the line, a rival store smirking across the road, and half the staff hiding awkward ...

I am the narrator of this book. I have already carried every footstep, every whispered aside, every inconvenient corpse, and now they have decided I should also persuade you to read it. This is what happens when one proves reliable. What I carried was a cozy Regency murder with a ghost who refuses to mind his own death. Bath’s Assembly Rooms are polished, candlelit, and brimming with manners, until the dancing master collapses mid-figure and immediately reappears floating above his own body, deeply offended and tethered to Miss Adelaide Finchwick, a woman whose greatest social crime is ...

I am the narrator of this book, which means I have already hauled you through an entire country house full of ringing bells, bruised dignity, and people lying to my face about tea, and now they have decided I must also sell it. Apparently murder is not labour enough, I must do marketing too. Bramblewick belongs to a marquess who prefers not to notice how his own house runs, which is a charming hobby until the morning the stillroom key goes missing and the butler turns up dead beside a tray meant for His Lordship. Prudence Ashdown, head housekeeper, keeper of keys, and the only person here ...

I am the narrator of this book. I carried the whole affair, the mud, the manners, the deaths, the inconvenient feelings, and now they have decided I should stand at the door and coax you in as well. Welcome to a Regency posting inn on the north road, where the fog behaves like a locked door and the road behaves like a threat. Meg Allerton runs the place with brisk competence, a sharp tongue, and a lost property cupboard that could host a small, cheerful civilisation. Into this domestic miracle rolls Miss Celia Bristow, velvet-cloaked, wedding-bound, and announcing that her father’s jewels...

I am the narrator of this book, which means I have already shepherded an entire Regency Christmas through gossip, manners, and one extremely inconsiderate death, and now “they” have decided I should also sell it. Naturally. I assume the mince pies were too busy. In Murder, Mince Pies, and Other Acceptable Christmas Expenses, the carols are loud, the smiles are sharper than the carving knife, and the seasonal goodwill lasts precisely until a corpse appears at the worst possible moment. Our heroine must pick her way through drawing-room alliances, whispered grudges, and the kind of ...

I am the narrator of this book, which means I have already hauled you through foggy London, French trimming, and the exact number of pins required to keep society stitched together. And now they have decided I must also persuade you to buy the privilege of watching it all unravel. At Madame Follet’s modiste on Bond Street, Lydia Hart’s mornings are meant to involve court satin with a temper and ladies with opinions, not a viscountess collapsing mid-curtsey and refusing to breathe ever again. Unfortunately, Viscountess Dalrymple chooses to die in the fitting room, in her unfinished court...

Christmas at the Albion Grand is meant to sell railway shares and hot punch, not watch Father Christmas lie very still at the bottom of the stairs while the staff Christmas fund quietly fails to add up. Miss Agnes Trelawney, temporary governess and full time collector of inconvenient details, was only hired to keep Jasper Melbury’s children from alarming the shareholders. Instead she notices an over polished bannister, a missing seventy eight pounds six shillings, and a dead accounts clerk who had been asking the wrong people the right questions. When the company sends Hugh Ashcombe, its ...

I am the narrator of this book, which means I have already dragged everyone through an entire Cheltenham Season without so much as a thank you; now they have decided I should also persuade you to join in. Splendid. Do you have any idea what spa towns do to a person’s patience? Here is the problem, neatly served with lemon and a smile: Lady Dowager Barham has gathered society into her improved parlour, and one of her improved guests obligingly dies behind the pianoforte. Miss Verity Sedgewick, the dowager’s overqualified secretary and keeper of the calling cards, notices the sort of ...

I am the narrator of this book, which means I have already hauled you up a windy tower, kept several wealthy egos from falling into the evidence, and listened to a chronometer sulk in real time. Now they have decided I must also sell it, as if I have not done enough carrying. On a cliff-top observatory in Devon, Cassia Fenwick tries to do the only respectable thing available, namely: insist that numbers mean something. Unfortunately, the sky has manners and arrives on time, while humans immediately do the opposite. A comet appears, patrons crowd the stair, Dr Julius Crowthorne takes a ...

If anyone insists Christmas at Drury Lane is wholesome, do not look above the scenery. Miss Sybil Merriweather, wardrobe mistress and sworn enemy of insolent seams, can mend a sagging stocking in three stitches and silence a chorus with one look. She cannot, however, persuade the theatre’s fake snow to stay in its sack, or its leading man’s waistcoat buttons to stop tattling. “Buttons are honest creatures. They told the truth when men did not.” The season, naturally, takes that as a challenge. Enter Gideon Ashe of the Society for the Improvement of Public Morals, armed with ...

I am the narrator of this book, which means I already dragged everyone through Brighton’s wind, pebbles, and social spite, and now they want me to sell it too. Fine. Have your little summary. Try not to drip on the carpet. It begins with Brighton’s finest nuisance, a gossip columnist, washed up dead in full dress, as if the sea itself has finally taken offence at being reviewed. Miss Honoria Finch, companion to the Duchess of Wrexham and long-suffering handler of shawls and ankles, finds herself far too close to the corpse and far too interesting to the Prince Regent’s private ...

Lights, camera, corpse; Primrose Studios is meant to uplift the nation’s morals, not leave a patron strangled in the wardrobe between the sackcloth and the velvet. Respectable pictures are hard enough to sell without a moral reformer dying in the costumes and threatening to ruin the box office from beyond the grave. Clara Ashcombe, junior scenario writer and reluctant conscience of London’s most improving picture house, spends her days trimming sins for the censors and adding railings to staircases. When Miss Temperance Vale of the Society for the Improvement of Modern Amusements turns ...

I am the narrator of this book, which means I have already carried you through every lamp lit folly, every sharp tongued conversation, and one extremely public corpse, and now “they” have decided I must also sell it. Naturally. Vauxhall Gardens is meant to provide music, fireworks, and the comforting illusion that London can behave itself for an evening. Instead, it hands Charlotte Penbury a borrowed gown, a borrowed name, and the sort of trouble that clings to ink. Charlotte draws for a living, mostly by recording the city’s most ridiculous men in lines they do not enjoy seeing ...

I’m the narrator of this book, which means I’ve already hauled everyone through every damp plank, every polite insult, and every self important man who thought electricity was beneath him. Now, apparently, I’m meant to sell it as well, because “they” are nothing if not ambitious with other people’s labour. Welcome to Westcliff, a seaside town clinging to respectability with both hands while the Majestic Pier flirts shamelessly with modern electric light, suffragette banners, and a charity tableau designed to make everyone feel noble and look expensive. Edith Fairleigh arrives to...

I am the narrator of this book, which means I carried every bonnet, bruise and bad decision across the finish line, and now they have decided I must sell it too. Fine. Welcome to the duke of Wescott’s private theatre, where the curtains are crimson, the manners are impeccable, and the main prop is in a temper. Lady Arabella Sorrell arrives engaged to Lord Crispin Fallowmere, dressed for a betrothal celebration and braced for the kind of conversation that kills the spirit slowly. Instead she gets a sulking black cabinet built to make a gentleman vanish, a manager named Draycott who looks ...

I have already dragged a full evening of Drury Lane vanity, hot footlights, and damp wool through your the entire novel without so much as a thank you; now they have decided I must also persuade strangers to volunteer for it. Marvellous. I do adore unpaid encores. Welcome to Regency London, where a government censor is found neatly flattened by a fallen backdrop during the interval of a fashionable new comedy. The audience is still demanding laughter, the investors are still demanding profit, and Miss Eliza March is still trying to behave like a quiet, respectable ward in Lady Hartley’s ...