A Seaside Holiday is Filled With Murder
This is the first book in an English classic mystery series. The series begins in 1932 with all of the glory of the roaring twenties still intact. The mystery is laid out in a classic manner. I had no idea who the culprit was until the glorious climactic scene. The fun part is the couple who are the center of the story. He is somewhat of a ladies man and she thinks that he no longer loves her. Together, they are quite the pair. I have read more books in the series and I do think that they would be better read in order. I received this ARC book for free from Net Galley and this is my honest review.

Amory Ames and her husband Milo have, to all appearances, a fabulous life.  Good looking, wealthy and living a care-free life.  But sometimes appearances aren't completely true.  Milo spends a lot of time away, most recently in The Riviera.  Amory fell really hard for Milo, but now she wonders what his feelings are.    to complicate things, Gil Trent, the fiance she left for Milo, visits and asks her to help him convince his younger sister Emmeline that her new fiance Rupert is not good husband material.  Gil and Amory travel to the coast and will join a party at The Brightwell, a luxury hotel near Brighton.  After they arrive things get complicated, then there's a murder, then another murder and attempted murder.  Then Milo shows up.  Amory's feelings are conflicted, can she and Milo make a go at their marriage?  When Amory is surprised by the murderer while snooping, she may not survive the encounter.  In true, Agatha Christie tradition, the murderer is taken away by the police, the amateur sleuth (Amory) discovers which man she loves.  This is a satisfying "cozy mystery" in the classic tradition, I can't wait for the next book featuring Amory.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

I admit that I'd read the first in the series after reading a later Amory Ames novel.  I'd enjoyed Ashley Weaver's writing and her depiction of the wealthy, privileged and discontented Amory Ames as an amateur sleuth.  In Murder at the Brightwell, Amory is young, beautiful and disillusioned with her gorgeous and glamorous husband Milo. They've been married for five years and her husband's escapades and adventures with other women has filled the society pages and scandal sheets.  Amory has been holed away either in their luxurious London flat or their large estate but largely on her own while Milo travels to expensive locations to gamble, party, socialize, etc.

After the romance cooled, Amory has been left to wonder if she'd made the wrong choice and if she should have married her longtime friend and fiance Gil.  Amory had ended the engagement soon after she met Milo and feels guilty about the way she treated Gil all those years ago. Gil comes to Amory to ask for her help in dissuading his younger sister from marrying a beautiful young man much like Amory's Milo.  Gil has seen the different articles and photos of Milo with glamorous women and still holds a torch for Amory.  Though he doesn't expect Amory to leave Milo for him, he hopes that spending time together will rekindle their old love or at least to help persuade his beloved sister of the danger that comes with marrying the dangerous society playboy type. 

For Amory, it seems strange that just as she is talking to Gil again, her husband returns from his own adventures in Monte Carlos. Amory resents Milo's adventures and welcomes the chance to take some time away, to help Gil after having hurt him in the past and to help his younger sister that she knew. So, Amory joins Gil's group of friends at the luxury hotel resort the Brightwell.

At the Brightwell, Amory finds a mix of characters, many catty society women, some staid and socially ambitious couples, the younger sister with her glamorous and cold fiance, a respected theater actor, Gil and, unexpectedly, Milo Ames. There are various delicious meals, awkward moments, flirtatious men but there is also the sudden and violent death of the young fiance.  Amory is desperate when Gil is arrested and she finds herself working to find the identity of the killer.  

Milo and Amory dance around each other while Gil hovers in the picture.  As Amory tries to sort through her emotions and balance what she wants and needs, she is quite easy to like. I found myself enjoying Murder at Brightwell very much! I'm determined to read all of Ashley Weaver's Amory Ames mysteries.  The language and characters are a delight!

#MurderattheBrightwell #AmoryAmes #AshleyWeaver #NetGalley

Nothing beats a tightly woven mystery with memorable characters on a stormy evening.  This book fit the bill perfectly and was an enjoyable read.

Cute little mystery.  I loved the time period that it was written for.  It reminded me of Murder on the Orient Express.  Amory Ames is your typical rich women who loves to get involved in helping solve murder cases.  Plus through in an ex lover and a current husband with certain motives and you have a fun mystery.  I didn't realize who the killer was until the very end.  Loved the writing, how the characters developed and I loved seeing a women taking care of herself while investigating a murder.  Easy read and would recommend it especially after you just finished a very intense book.

Absolutely loved it! Murder & mayhem among the very rich at a coastal hotel in 1930s England. Went on to read the second book in this series, Death Wears a Mask + the short story with the same charming husband & wife characters, Milo & Amory. 
Highly recommended!


Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press Minotaur Books and NetGalley for an advance copy.

This first book in the Amory Ames historical mystery series was fantastic. Introduces an intelligent, likeable heroine, an intriguing heroine, and the two men in her life. I absolutely loved it and recommend it to all my mystery loving customers!

This is a delightful 30s murder mystery - a group of acquaintances meet each other at a seaside hotel, tensions arise, and then Rupert fatally falls from a balcony. An accident, or murder? Amory Ames is drawn to investigate (while she also works out her complicated feelings about her old friend, Giles, and her often absent husband, Milo - it's always awkward when one goes on a trip with an old flame and then one's husband unexpectedly turns up). Amory is delightful, and this is a wonderful Christie-esque story.

"It is an impossibly great trial to be married to a man one loves and hates in equal proportions."

This is how the book opens, y'all. Sentence one of page one and already we have dived headfirst into the reason I adore this cozy mystery: Amory's conflicted, resentful, and passionate feelings for her rakishly handsome husband, Milo.

Within the pages of Murder at the Brightwell I discovered a penchant for witty women of the 1930s, scenic hotels situated on British bluffs, and tropes involving a husband and wife fighting to reconnect with the blinding love they once felt for each other. Five years of Milo's playboy jaunts across the Continent have left Amory's once unshakable infatuation with him rather, well, shaken. And it's an utter delight seeing these two play their games with each other, especially with the undeniable chemistry that still flares between them.

There isn't anything particularly splashy or spectacular about this novel, but I love it nonetheless.

I would rate this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.

I thoroughly enjoyed this!

I really enjoyed the relationship dynamics between Amory & Miles, the mystery was not super predictable and overall the story just had really fun vibes.

One of my favorite mystery series!!!  Do you like the Miss Fisher mysteries? You will love Amory, she is a glamorous, smart, inquisitive lady living in 1930s England.  This is a re-release of the first book in the  series before the seventh book, Deception at Thornecrest, is released in September.  

Amory is tired of reading gossip column rumors about her jet-setting husband, Milo.  Amory accepts a plea for help from her former fiance, Gil, to help find out the dirt on his sister's fiance. Emmaline is enamored of a man named Rupert Howe but Gil has a bad feeling about the man.  Gil wants Amory's opinion and help to break the couple up.  While at the Brightwell resort, Rupert is murdered and Amory finds herself in the newspaper just like Milo.  

Milo arrives after reading about Amory and her ex-fiance being at the Brightwell and murder.  Amory must figure out who murdered Rupert and why before someone else dies and try to figure out if her marriage to Milo was a mistake or not. 

Fans of Miss Fisher and Agatha Christie will love these books.

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin's Press for the chance to read and review this book. This is my first book by Ashley Weaver and I really enjoyed it. This is the first book in the Amory Ames series. Amory is invited to help her former fiancé Gil at a resort. While she is there, another guest Rupert is murdered. With her husband Milo's help, Amory solves the murder. I like this type of book because it is a mystery, but it also has some Victorian elements-my favorite type of mystery! I want to read the rest of this series!

I was excited to discover this delightful new cozy historical mystery series set in England in the 30's. This book is the first in a series featuring Amory Ames and her husband Milo. They are well to do aristocrats who married roughly five years earlier and have spent much of the time apart with playboy Milo flitting here and there.  

Milo has just arrived home from a stint in Monte Carlo, when Amory's ex fiancé Gilbert unexpectedly arrives and asks a favor-that she accompany him to a seaside resort outside Brighton (The Brightwell) and appear to be with him-to give the impression that she has left her husband. Gil's sister, Emmeline has fallen for a charming, handsome man in the same vein as Milo as Gil thinks Amory can talk some sense to her as a woman who has lived through a similar situation and has come to regret it.  At this point, Amory comes to realize that she is unhappy with her life and her marriage and thinks the trip will help her feeling of malaise.

We meet the rest of the party and then one of them is murdered.  And Milo shows up at the hotel.  Amory inadvertently implicates someone , who is then arrested and feels she needs to discover the murderer to help them.  

What follows is a mystery that kept me guessing.  And I enjoyed the romantic tension between Amory and Milo.

Loved this series so much that I have subsequently read the other books in the series.

I received an ARC from the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Sometimes you chose book by its cover, and I was very lucky and pleased with my decision.
Modern writing set in 1930s with Agatha Christie's atmosphere. Very nicely put together with good detective work.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my digital copy of this book.

Sometimes all you need is to discover a new cozy historical mystery series! This really hit the spot during these current dreadful times. I fell in love with the time period, the setting, and with the protagonist, Amory Ames. Shhh, I also really liked her playboy rogue of a husband, Milo, and can't wait to read more of the installments -- which I intend to do directly.

The synopsis provided here on the book page describes the premise and plot quite succinctly and I'll give no spoilers. This was entertaining and well-written even as it was fairly predictable. I enjoyed all of the period detail and description and had fun guessing which of the many suspects would prove to be the killer. I'll probably begin the second book later today as this was a very quick read.

Thank you to NetGalley and At. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books for this e-book ARC to read and review. I also have the 8th book in this series from NetGalley and will work my way there.

My second Amory Ames mystery, and though just as entertaining as the first one I read, the characters still weren't as interesting. Amory is likeable enough, but there is so little to describe her, or to really infer of her personality, than say her husband, Milo. It became more annoying than anything, that he kept being referred as so handsome and that he could, basically, get away with anything when it came to women. Add to that, he didn't seem to have a personality aside from being a ladies' man and charming; no emotions to speak of, just sort of...monotone in description. Nothing more to him than his looks and charm. I found very little to like about Milo as there was nothing really to know, he wears a mask and no one ever knows what he thinks or feels, he seems to be the most handsome man ever, and he can charm a lady. I didn't see much in the way of character development, especially between Amory and Milo. 

The mystery was interesting enough, the denouement was less exciting than I had hoped though. My assumption on who the killer is turned out correct, but I was disappointed in how it unraveled. Like Milo, the murdered had little to no personality to speak of, until the end when the motive came out. 

All in all, the book kept my attention. I quite like the two Amory Ames novels I've read and will read the others in the series. I hope the author will continue with the series as well, hopefully with a bit more character development, if not, it will still be an entertaining read nonetheless.

This was an intriguing book of who did it. Love the characters and the love stories. It had me stumped up to the end.

The problem with being someone like me--who falls in and out of genres as often as I blink--is that when I fall into a genre I immerse myself so far into it that I have trouble coming up from it. My old standbys--historical romance, fantasy and paranormal--I can find my way out of easily enough, but sporadic genres like this one, a historical "cozy" mystery, makes it much tougher.

I wanted to read about the 1920's/1930's, something that I usually appease by just re-reading Poirot unto death, but I wanted something different. This came along at BEA this year and I thought 'yes, that sounds delightful'. And it is, mostly. I read it while on the plane to Texas, but it didn't leave me with much impression beyond the fluff it provided.

Part of it was that it always felt...off to have the main character, Amory, alternately plotting whether she should leave her husband for her ex-fiancee or if she should trust that her husband is being serious when he says he wants to make another go of it. I don't go in for romances that feature cheating/adultry as the basis for the leads getting together and while nothing is as easy at it seems by the end, I still felt a bit meh.

The murder itself is fairly easy to unravel, though the motivations are murkier and get tangled even more since there's about 200 different subplots running around that could have easily turned to murder. For those who are going in for the "flavor" of the 1930's this does a good job of creating that atmosphere. You only really see this small selection of folk, most of whom have lived similar enough lives that they don't bring anything new to their gathering.

Overall this is a fluffy read for the beach or pool side. It won't shock or surprise anyone, but it will help to divert the mind from the duller pursuits of real life.

3.5 / 5.0 stars

This first book in series was a delicious introduction to the Amory Ames mystery series by talented author, Ashley Weaver. There is depth to her very human characters, each one a bit flawed in their own special way. The interplay among characters is quite believable, as emotions run high throughout the story. One gets a strong sense of  time, place, and the glitz and glamour of the Bristish aristocracy on holiday at the seaside. It doesn't take long for a corpse to appear on scene. Then it's off to the races to figure out who had it in for the poor soul.

England, Summer of 1932
Amory Ames, is a delightful young aristocrat whose errant husband of five years, Milo Ames, has caused pure embarrassment to her and brought shame to their marriage. In her frustration and sorrow, she is at a crossroad in her life. She tires of hearing the tawdry gossip concerning Milo and his playboy exploits all over the continent. Shortly after he returns home to Kent, Amory is visited by Gilmore Trent, the fiancé she jilted when swept up into the vortex of Milo's exhilarating and thrilling existence. Gil seeks out Amory on the pretense that he needs her assistance in shepherding his sister, Emmeline, away from a disastrous engagement to Rupert Howe. Would she please consider joining them at the seaside and advise Emmeline away from a marriage which would 
problably become too much like her own. Sure, why not get away and head for the seaside? What's good for the goose is surely good for the gander. And off they go, leaving Milo behind, or did they? 

That first night at the Brightwell, dinner was awkward and a bit stiff with all the posh friends of Gil's and Emmeline's. It didn't take Amory long to size up the members of the group and determine who was friend and who should be avoided at all costs. By the next morning, it appeared that one of their party had taken a spill over the hotel balcony and wouldn't be joining them for breakfast or any subsequent meals. As it was Amory who spotted the body, she decides to take on the sleuthing work to figure out who really is friend and who is foe. Then enter stage right, Milo Ames, just to stir things up and provide fodder for the gossip rags. 

This was a fun story with a bit more depth than most cozy mysteries. This seems to be the way of most historically set mysteries. With six books already out in this series, it would appear that this reader has some catching up to do and they're looking forward to it.
 
I am grateful to author Ashley Weaver and her publsiher, Thomas Minotaur Books for having provided a free uncorrected digital galley of this book through NetGalley. Their generosity, however, has not influenced this review - the words of which are mine alone.

A refreshing and atmospheric murder mystery set in the 1920's at an English seaside resort, the Brightwell Hotel.  The author has captured the mood and atmosphere of this nostalgic time period and has eloquently and skillfully woven this into the depths of the character development.

The central character, Amory Ames, attempts to solve this delightful murder, along with struggling personally with her philandering husband, Milo.  Milo just happens to arrive at the hotel after the murder has taken place, only to complicate things further for Amory.

Ashley Weaver has delightfully established her protagonist, Amory Ames, and as we learn this is just the first in many stories to follow.  I look forward to reading her future novels.

I want to thank St. Martin's Press and Net Galley for this advance copy.