The first book in the Victorian Village series is a great start.
   Kate Hamilton's former classmate, Lisbeth invites her to come back to their hometown to see if she has any ideas to help save their dying town, hoping that in her job in the hospitality industry, she'd know how to help.
   Shortly after arriving an old nemesis of Kate's is found dead...by Kate, and she believes the murder must be solved before they can go forward with revitalization ideas.
   Told with plenty of suspects with various motives to rule out as the victim was not very nice.    Learning things she didn't know about the town and the old mansion there piques her interest. With the help of her friends, local and former business, she cobbles together information faster than the police and fills them in...mostly as some is speculation. She does figure out the killer, and pick up a love interest.  I won't spoil the ending, but rest assured, it's well worth the read to find out. It's easy to picture the settings with the great descriptions 
  I requested and was granted an ARC from NetGalley to peruse.

Having just received the news that the hotel she was running has been purchased by a large conglomerate and they wish to install their own personnel, Kate finds herself able to consider a proposal brought to her by her high school best friend.  Her home town of Asheford, Maryland is slowly dying.  The city council has purchased the large Victorian mansion once owned by Henry Barton.  The same mansion where Kate was humiliated by the clique queen and high school nemesis, Cordelia.  Now Cordy wants to take over the mansion and turn it into a high chrome, flashy hotel by ripping out the historical charm that has been painfully maintained with funds left by Barton.   As Kate is finishing up her tour of the mansion with the caretaker, they find the troublesome Cordelia, dead on the front steps.  Can Kate figure out what Cordelia was up to and why she was so interested in the mansion?

Books with storylines that deal with historical treasures hidden in basements and attics are a big draw to me.  Kate’s story moves along though clues and ideas do not come easy.  Connolly does not give Kate a smooth and effortless path to figure things out.  She stumbles and trips like a ‘regular’ person would.  Fans of Connolly’s Museum Mysteries will be happy to see Nell Pratt featured.  My one whine is against reading this book on an e-reader.  It abruptly ended.  I was so engrossed in the story that when the last line came up and I turned the page, I was agog that the book had ended.  I was not prepared.  Needless to say, that last line leaves it wide open for more installments. I will be waiting patiently.

I’m a sucker for small town mysteries and when you have a mysterious mansion at the center of it all, well, you’ve got my attention. And this was an enjoyable read, with a likable main character in Kate; she’s a level-headed and unflappable sleuth and romantic interest Josh made for a good sidekick and added a sprinkle of romance. I liked the plot, surrounding a remarkably well-preserved mansion built a century ago by the mysterious Henry Barton and a very unlikable local woman who is found dead on the front steps. The intrigue kept me turning pages, although I feel like the endless rehashing that happened in every chapter killed the pace a little; with a bit of editing, this book would be a lean, mean intrigue machine. As it is, I’m completely sucked into the whole Henry Barton mystery, so I will be back for the second book and can’t wait to watch Kate’s vision for the town evolve into a reality.

What a surprise to see a book set in my own state, so fun to recognize places in the book. The author catches me every time no matter what she writes, this a interesting mystery with a touch of history and I am looking forward to more in this series.

This is the first book in this authors new series.  I did enjoy the story line.   I was hooked and wanted to know more about the secretive owner of the factory and the history of his story.  Guess I will have to read the next book in this series

Katherine Hamilton is a damn good hospitality manager at a large hotel in Boston. When a friend of hers from high school asks her to return to their hometown to help see if she can use the old house just outside town to revitalize the now failing town. Katherine decides to give her opinion but is going to leave it at that... until her job is suddenly made redundant. As she starts to think more about what saving the Barton mansion could mean for her town, she gets more and more excited. Too bad her high school nemesis is still in town. And doubly too bad same nemesis is found dead on the front porch of the mansion.

I liked the world building in this book though there was a somewhat forced effort to cross paths with Connolly's other series. The ending though was... less than satisfying. I mean, the reason for the murder, really? We haven't seen this is in SO MANY books in the past. It's a sad, overworn stereotype. It dropped the book a full star for me.

Regular Sheila Connolly readers probably won't be disappointed.



Two and a half stars

This book comes out June 26

As a fan of Sheila Connolly's apple orchard and museum mystery series, I was happy to see that she has started a new one.  This is an exceptionally interesting series, a mystery with a history lesson thrown in.  Kate has just been downsized from her job as a hotel manager when she is asked by her friend Lisbeth to come back to her small hometown in western Maryland which has fallen on hard times and see if she can figure out how to get the town back on its feet.  The jewel of the town is a  Victorian mansion formerly owned by Henry Barton, a local factory owner.  Kate gets the idea to turn the whole town into a Victorian themed village but when she visits the mansion she finds the murdered body of her former high school enemy Cordelia.  Kate also finds another mystery, in the form of letters from Henry Barton to his cousin Clara which allows the author to bring in some of the characters from her museum series when Kate goes to Nell to have the letters authenticated.  The history lesson comes in the discussion of Clara Barton and her fascinating work trying to uncover what happened to missing soldiers after the Civil War.  There is mystery, history, and a touch of romance in this wonderful story and I highly recommend it.