Daggers at the Country Fair follows Martha Miller who has been invited to the Winteringham country fair as the guest of honour. A dead body is found and naturally Martha and the Vicar Luke Walker cannot help but get involved in the case.

In this story there’s a lovely cast of characters, and I like that they have unique backstories which differentiate them from other cosy mysteries. The author has done a great job creating a scenario where there are many suspects. There’s nothing more enjoyable than a classic whodunnit set in a small village with a likeable amateur sleuth and their endearing sidekick and other traditional secondary characters.

The mystery itself is a good one. I enjoyed trying to work out who actually committed the murders
as the author masterfully includes background information without overloading the narrative. We discover and analyse the significance of the clues step by step in a very engaging journey. I enjoyed reading about life in 1947, a more moral and simpler time, and how the book's characters conducted their lives within that setting.

If you’re looking for a historical cosy crime Daggers at the Country Fair is the book for you. It’s full of interesting lovable characters, full of potential murderers, and a really enjoyable read. I loved reading this story. It is easy to read, is well-written and well-plotted with likeable characters.

In this the second of the series, Martha gets to travel out of her village to Winteringham. Her fame as a solver of mysteries has started to grow! Accompanied by the Vicar Luke Walker, she meets another group of local characters and stumbles upon a shocking murder. Enjoying all the features of a cozy crime novel, I was able to settle into the story and particularly appreciated the gathering of all the suspects for the grand reveal.

The growing relationship between Martha and Luke moved on a little but theirs is a complicated friendship, hampered by her marital status and his status as the vicar. They make a great double act but at times, Martha gets frustrated at how she, as a woman, is perceived. The story captures the feel of the times and has a lovely period, nostalgic air. This is a series which can run and run and is well worth investing your time.

In short: clues and red herrings abound!
Thanks to the publisher for a copy of the book
#blogtour

Thank you #Boldwoodbooks, #netgalley and #rachelsrandomresources for letting me read this book.

Book 2 set in 1947. We encounter Luke Walker, the Vicar and Mrs Miller aka Martha who solved the previous mystery, still working together under an awkward energy.
Stan Martha's Husband is missing, her dog Lizzie is still cute.
The appearance of a toddler called Janet causes a lot of chatter and confusion. Martha is still sad at not being a mother herself, and quite notably has a crush on the vicar.
It's a very cosy read, I learned a new word: Fastidious!!!! It's amazing what can happen in a weekend at the Winteringham County Fair, especially when a young lady is killed.
I really enjoyed this read and fully recommend it as an easy mystery.

A second cosy mystery, set in a rural village in 1947, Daggers at the Country Fair is another opportunity for Martha Miller to use her amateur detective skills yet again.
Martha has been asked to open a local village fair, what everyone doesn’t bank on is someone being murdered and the whole villages secrets start becoming public knowledge. Everyone is in the frame for this murder with most men having some connection to the victim.
I felt this book was a little more to the point than the previous one but contained more red herrings and some interesting twists along the way. I enjoyed seeing how the mystery was solved and it took me a while to piece the clues together.
I really enjoy seeing Martha’s character development from book one, she’s becoming more confident and her relationships/friendships are developing. She is making headway in getting locals in her own village she understand her and see her as Martha and not the woman with her husband buried in her garden (he ISNT, he walked out).
I’d love a little more romance with Luke, but as the story is very in keeping with the era I think we need to solve the missing husband mystery.
A charming read, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I will look forward to the next visit.

I enjoyed this story as it's well written and I loved the details of the historical background as the author did an excellent job in developing a realistic, vivid, and well researched setting.
The mystery is solid, full of twists and kept me guessing. I liked the solution and how Martha and Luke interact during the investigation.
I think it's becoming an excellent series and there's a lot of potential for developments and new exciting mysteries.
My only note is about Martha and Luke relationship as sometimes takes the scene and it's a bit repetitive. I think that some developments in any direction (love, friendship, etc) would help and make the next story more exciting.
I read this story in one setting and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I recommend it, it can be read as a stand alone but better read the books in order.
Many thanks to Boldwood Books, Rachel's Random Resources, and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Daggers at the Country Fair has got everything you need in a cosy mystery.

There’s a great cast of characters, a village full of secrets, multiple suspects and a fabulous dog.

Martha and Luke are great detecting team. Martha is clever and perceptive. She reads people well and can tell when they ate keeping secrets. As a Vicar, people trust Luke and are willing to talk to talk him. So between them they manage to get people to open up and reveal all sorts of interesting information. They are both also really persistent and not afraid to ask a difficult question.

Helen Kennedy is a tragic young woman with a lot of secrets. At just 17 she is seen by some as a husband stealing femme fatale out to cause trouble. Others seem to think she is a sweet young girl with a bright future ahead of her. Interestingly no one, including her own aunt and uncle seem to be sorry that she is dead.

As Martha and Luke start investigating it is very clear that there are lots of well hidden and not so well hidden secrets in the village and gossip is rife.

I really enjoyed this mystery. It absolutely kept me guessing right until the end and the final resolution was really satisfying.

Martha and Luke’s friendship is really starting to grow and and their feelings are getting deeper. But with Martha still married they have to tread so carefully. The politeness of village life in 1947 means is risky for them even to call each other by their first names. I really want to see how this relationship develops in the future.

Catherine Coles has created a great series and I will definitely be reading more of Martha’s adventures in the future.

Husband Stan is still missing, whereabouts unknown (but definitely not buried in the potato patch) which leaves Martha Miller and the vicar Luke Walker she adores as having to observe propriety and remain just friends. Of course that doesn’t stop them joining forces in a bit of sleuthing again! Martha has become a bit of a local celebrity after solving two murders in her home village of Westleham in Berkshire and has been asked to open the most prestigious country fair in the county at Winteringham where one of Luke’s old university chums Freddie is the vicar. Along with sister Ruby, Lizzie the dog and gossipy neighbours Ada Garrett and Maud Burnett, Martha and Luke head off full of excitement. However Luke has a funny feeling something is very wrong there and it’s not long before he is proven horribly right. As the villagers enjoy the stalls and side shows, a young woman is discovered cruelly stabbed to death. With a crime scene totally compromised by a bungling doctor and an incompetent fool of a local constable, and despite the fact that the very capable (and Ruby’s beau) Inspector Ben Robertson is actually in charge of the case, Freddie asks Luke and Martha to solve the murder. They soon discover a collection of selfish, uncaring and quite unsavoury characters, any of whom are perfectly capable of being a ruthless killer. All their suspects are keeping secrets about their relationship with the dead girl but will the pair be able to untangle all the lies in time to save another life?
This is a lovely cosy story, full of very engaging characters, intrigue and a little romance for good measure where, despite being set in a bygone era where people had different worries and a slower way of life, the dark side of human nature still prevails. Perfect for a reader to lose themselves in a little bit of nostalgia and gentle crime solving. The whole “will they, won’t they” question lingers on for Luke and Martha, hopefully leading into another charming murder mystery. 4.5*

There’s nothing more enjoyable than a classical whodunnit set in a small village with a likeable amateur sleuth and their endearing sidekick and other traditional secondary characters.
Daggers at the Country Fair is the second book in a series of cozies set in rural Britain in 1947. Martha Miller is still considered a newcomer in her village of Westleham. Why, she’s only been living there for ten years and has only recently been able to make a few friends. The rest of the village still suspect that Martha isn’t an abandoned wife (her husband Stan Miller left for work one day and never came back), but is a cold-blooded murderess herself with Stan’s remains lying under Martha’s potato patch. No-one is surprised more than Martha when she receives an invitation to open a Village Fair in another village. Martha’s sister Ruby suspects it’s all due to Martha’s fame after the events described in book 1.

You can read Daggers at the Country Fair as a standalone or start from the second book, as the author masterfully includes background information without overloading the narrative. Still, the first book is so entertaining that I would definitely recommend starting from there. If nothing else, you’ll meet Martha’s adorable sidekick- the dashing vicar Luke Walker and see the evolution of their relationship from the beginning.

When Martha and Luke discover a body behind their tent at the Fair, they cannot help getting involved in the case given the fact that the teenage victim was the niece of Luke’s old friend, the vicar of Winteringham. It quickly transpires that the seventeen-year-old wasn’t universally loved in the village and had a bit of a reputation. We don’t have all the elements from the beginning, which would allow us to use our deductive powers to see the solution to the puzzle. No, we discover and analyse the significance of the clues step by step in a very engaging journey.

In this book we see Martha come into her own. She has always been independent and resourceful, but now there's more- she isn't afraid to stand up to more more powerful and more privileged who routinely shift blame and responsibility for their own shortcomings and selfish (and sometimes even criminal) behaviour onto those less fortunate instead of helping them. For Luke, this investigation is going to test whether he really knows his friends as well as where the line between him being a vicar and just an ordinary, decent human being.

I loved all the small and big details that set the narrative in the post-war rural Britain e.g the mention of Princess Elizabeth and the road signs which used to be covered during the war in case the enemy troops invaded the country. The role and position of women in society and attitudes towards unmarried mothers were very different. Crimes too, of course, as well as methods for solving them- no DNA analysis to mention just one type of forensic evidence we see so often in contemporary police procedurals. On the other hand, good old-fashioned information gathering was as important then as it is now, if not more so.
I really enjoyed this second book in the series and can’t wait to read the next installment!

This was a delightful cozy mystery. It featured Martha Miller, an amateur sleuth and her friend, Vicar Luke Walker, as they try to solve the murders of a young woman who was residing with her aunt and uncle and the aunt and uncle's housekeeper. This mystery was enthralling from the first few sentences. I look forward to reading more Martha Miller mysteries. I highly recommend this mystery to other cozy mystery readers.

In her village, Martha Miller helped solve a murder mystery
She assumed that was it, something for her history.
However, this leads to an invitation to the Winteringham Country Fair,
As guest of honour, officially opening it there!

She travels with the vicar, her sister and friends
Never foretelling how that fateful day would end.
She's anticipating eating cream teas and having fun,
Not another murder requiring sleuthing to be done.

Finding the body of a young girl is such a shock
Though it seems even more so for the Doc.
What happened to this young girl, why don't her family care
What are the secrets they're reluctant to share?

Get ready for murder and secrets concealed,
With blackmail, betrayal and affairs revealed.
There's also a potential illicit romance,
Though neither seem prepared to give it a chance.

For my complementary copy of this book, I say thank you,
I throughly enjoyed reading it and this is my honest review.

I do love a cosy mystery and as this one is set in the 1940s, I thought it sounded really interesting. I did enjoy the authentic 1940s feel to it, the language and the lack of modern technology. Of course, World War II was over by 1947, but still had a big impact on everyone and this is reflected in the novel.
The book begins in Berkshire in September 1947. We meet Martha Miller and her friend Luke Walker. Straight away, we discover Martha is technically married, but doesn’t know where her husband is. Also Luke is a vicar, so people have criticised their friendship/relationship. Early on, we also meet Martha’s sister Ruby and Martha’s dog Lizzie (a red setter), so we are taken straight into Martha’s world and seeing important figures in her life. Martha, Ruby and Lizzie live in a cottage in the village of Westleham.
Due to events in Book 1, Martha has been asked to open the Winteringham and District Country Fair. It seems a pleasant thing to do, the weather is nice, the locals friendly – but then tragedy strikes. The local doctor and policeman seem quite incompetent. Can Martha and Luke solve another mysterious death?
Martha is such a brilliant character, I loved her straight away. Luke is also a really good character as are so many others in the book, they all come to life brilliantly under Catherine Coles’s talented writing style. There is a gentle humour to the book too, which I really appreciated. The setting is very well-created and it’s easy to imagine everything in the village – the shops, the pub and so on.
Although this is Book 2 in the series, it works perfectly well as a standalone. I hadn’t read Book 1, but was soon updated with events from that book early on here, so I felt fully informed.
Overall, this was an absolute delight and I look forward to reading more in this series!

Martha Miller is back................................
A beautiful cozy mystery thriller surrounding a small village. A perfect book for beginners as the story cuts the unnecessary drama and comes to the point straight away. The plot is developed around some curious characters. All the characters have their own footing and story. Tertiary characters acted as the iron pillars of the plot. In short, the plot focusses on how people can change with time and can be so mean and jealous that they would not even think twice before ruining someone's life. But do not expect any kind of action in the plot.

I would definitely give the book 5 stars. Thanks to Boldwood Books, Rachel's Random Resources and Netgalley for providing me an opportunity to read and review the book.

Martha Miller has been asked to open the fair at the Winteringham Country Fair after she solved the murder at her own village fair. But just after the fair opens Martha finds the body of Helen, the niece of the local vicar's wife, and also happens to be the people Martha, her sister, Ruby, and their vicar, Luke Walker are staying with. Helen seemed to be a femme fatale, carrying on with several married men in the village. Martha and Luke had seen her take a large sum of money from an unknown man just that morning. It seems that EVERYONE in the village had a motive, including the vicar and his wife.
Martha and Luke keep asking questions of everyone and as admission follows admission, Martha figures out the unlikely person who could have done the murder, but she has no proof. She gets the detective in charge (who is seeing her sister Ruby) to call a meeting of all the suspects at the pub and lays out what happened hoping for a confession. The murderer is a surprise to everyone, Luke most of all.
I am enjoying watching Martha blossom as a person with the encouragement of Ruby and Luke. She is also making friends in her village. If only, she could find out what happened to her husband, Stan, who disappeared a year ago. SHE knows he isn't buried under her garden as some in the village have whispered.
I am looking forward to the next installment of Martha's story.

Book two in this enjoyable cosy mystery set in rural Berkshire in 1947 features the engaging amateur sleuths Martha and Luke, the village vicar. Martha's newly acquired celebrity status after solving the murders at her local village fair gets her the top job of opening the village fair in a nearby larger village. Finding a young woman's body, she shies away from investigating it, but circumstances and Luke conspire to ensure she does

I love the murder mystery and the main protagonists in this story. The hint of forbidden feelings between Martha and Luke adds a little romance and the mystery of her husband's disappearance remains unsolved.
The author weaves a realistic post-war setting into a poignant mystery with many unsavoury suspects. It's addictive reading, and the conclusion. whilst not a total surprise, is satisfying.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

September 1947 Mrs Martha Miller is invited to open the country fair in the neighbouring village of Winteringham. Unfortunately it is not long before she discovers a body. The investigation leads to several suspects. Can she and the vicar Luke Walker solve the crime before Detective Ben Robertson.
An entertaining and well-written historical cozy mystery with its cast of varied and likeable characters. A good addition to this series which can easily be read as a standalone story.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Martha is invited to be the guest of honor at the Winteringham Country Fair for having solved a murder. However, another murder happens at the fair and Martha needs to investigate. Plenty of story and plenty of red herrings and twists. A good mystery for the second book in this series.

Dagger's at the Country Fair is a historical mystery set in a small village in England in 1947. It's the second Martha Miller cozy mystery. The story is told in first person from Martha's perspective. Someone has been murdered at the Winteringham fair that Martha has been asked to open.

The mystery was pretty good. I didn't figure out who the killer was. The author did a good job of providing a wide variety of incredibly unlikable suspects.

The side story of Martha and her feelings for Luke was a bit repetitious.

I do enjoy a gathering of the suspects at the end of a mystery. I didn't understand why Martha felt she needed to keep her conclusions a secret from Luke and the Inspector though. I also didn't understand why the Inspector allowed that.

All in all, it was an enjoyable historical cozy mystery. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book (and the previous) is hilarious. Old biddies saying some of the most savage things. My gosh. Need to know when the 3rd is coming out bacause the Luke/Martha tension is *there*. There were a few times that they had some very nice eye contact and it least once I put my kindle down, "that was hot" Ruby and Ben are adorable and Maud was less involved than the last book, but I love her and wanted to mention her.

A well written mystery which moves along a pace as it;s quite a short book with vibes of Poirot with the big reveal at the end and Granchester. The character's are interesting and varied although she does seem to bring some with her that don't have a lot of involvement except for gathering gossip she could have got from the contact in this village. I do prefer the Tommy and Evelyn series over this one but overall a nice old fashioned easy read cozy mystery. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4

Pretty is as pretty does - someone should have told Helen Kennedy that. But it may not have been her fault that men fell in love with her being that she is beautiful, but the rest of the villagers found it really hard to have a good word to say about her, being that she was not exactly beautiful inside. But no one deserves to be murdered, no matter how ugly she may be inside.

I regret that I did not get the opportunity to read book 1 but Book 2 works very well as a standalone. intriguing enough to hold my attention and sweet enough for me to find it very enjoyable. The village vibes are very much in evidence as is the dated small town thinking, which may eb annoying in this day and age, for me it adds authenticity. Good read.