D. E. Ireland

Mayhem, mystery, and hilarity ensue when you mix four weddings, a couple of murders, and an old Indian curse together under the English sun. Get Me to the Grave on Time is just delightful!

The storyline moves along quite quickly, though it’s not so fast that you get lost with what’s going on. I didn’t figure out who the villain was until just before it was revealed which I really enjoy. It makes a book seem rather lackluster when I’m able to figure out ahead of time “whodunit”.

It’s wonderful to see Eliza and Henry interacting on more of an equal’s level. I’ve always enjoyed the storyline of Pygmalion, though I can never tolerate Audrey Hepburn’s portrayal of Eliza long enough to watch the whole movie. This provides more of the illustrious Eliza and Henry without the horrible voice! In this book, Eliza & Henry’s banter is engaging and pleasing. They are definitely more suited for each other than Eliza and Freddy. Freddy is simply a bore and life is far better in the story when he’s not around! Thankfully, in this new installment in the series, we meet up with the possibility of a new suitor for Eliza in Detective Ramsey. Here’s hoping Eliza will dump Freddy or vice versa and we can see if it works out for Eliza and Detective Ramsey.

The side characters that we meet in this book are also enchanting and entertaining. I really enjoyed the couple from India and Clara’s husband-to-be, the Baron. They were all very well-rounded for only being “side” characters and were a pleasure to read about.

All in all, if you like cozy mysteries, if you like Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, and/or if you like historical mysteries set in the early 1900s, you’ll like this book. It was witty, entertaining and utterly delightful! Go buy it/borrow it and read it today!

** I received a free ARC from NetGalley. All opinions and conclusions are my own. **

Originally posted on: Valerie's Musings… (altro)

Mayhem, mystery, and hilarity ensue when you mix four weddings, a couple of murders, and an old Indian curse together under the English sun. Get Me to the Grave on Time is just delightful!

The storyline moves along quite quickly, though it’s not so fast that you get lost with what’s going on. I didn’t figure out who the villain was until just before it was revealed which I really enjoy. It makes a book seem rather lackluster when I’m able to figure out ahead of time “whodunit”.

It’s wonderful to see Eliza and Henry interacting on more of an equal’s level. I’ve always enjoyed the storyline of Pygmalion, though I can never tolerate Audrey Hepburn’s portrayal of Eliza long enough to watch the whole movie. This provides more of the illustrious Eliza and Henry without the horrible voice! In this book, Eliza & Henry’s banter is engaging and pleasing. They are definitely more suited for each other than Eliza and Freddy. Freddy is simply a bore and life is far better in the story when he’s not around! Thankfully, in this new installment in the series, we meet up with the possibility of a new suitor for Eliza in Detective Ramsey. Here’s hoping Eliza will dump Freddy or vice versa and we can see if it works out for Eliza and Detective Ramsey.

The side characters that we meet in this book are also enchanting and entertaining. I really enjoyed the couple from India and Clara’s husband-to-be, the Baron. They were all very well-rounded for only being “side” characters and were a pleasure to read about.

All in all, if you like cozy mysteries, if you like Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, and/or if you like historical mysteries set in the early 1900s, you’ll like this book. It was witty, entertaining and utterly delightful! Go buy it/borrow it and read it today!

** I received a free ARC from NetGalley. All opinions and conclusions are my own. **

Originally posted on: Valerie's Musings… (altro)

After making a sensation at the Embassy Ball, Eliza Doolittle has moved on from 27A Wimpole Street and is working as a teaching assistant to Henry Higgins’ archnemesis, Emil Nepommuck. Nepommuck is a rude and arrogant blackmailer and womanizer. When Eliza discovers his murdered corpse, there is no shortage of suspects. However, since Prof. Higgins had a very public beef with Nepommuck, Higgins becomes the police department’s primary suspect. In order to keep Higgins from going to prison for a murder he didn’t commit, Eliza, Higgins, and Pickering must investigate and uncover the real culprit themselves.

Most authors who attempt to appropriate other writers’ creations for their own benefit usually end up making a huge debacle of the whole thing, and this book is no exception.

None of the characters bear even a fleeting resemblance to their original selves. Narcissistic bachelor Henry Higgins is now incredibly sensitive and awash with love…what? Street-wise urchin Eliza is a burbling mess after a few hours in a police holding cell. None of it makes any sense.

The writing itself is atrocious. The authors make a painful spectacle of inserting well-known bits from the musical into the narrative at every tiresome opportunity: “She may not have liked him, but over the past two months she’d grown accustomed to his smug little face.” & “All they needed was a little bit of luck.” Urgh. It couldn’t possibly get any worse, could it?

Well, yes, unfortunately it can. It seems the authors couldn’t be bothered to research common idioms used by London’s Edwardian street hawkers in order to add some realism to Eliza’s speech, so they just took the phrase ‘blooming arse’ and had her say it repeatedly…over & over… throughout the entire book…the ENTIRE book. It’s almost as though it were a game to see how many times they could write ‘blooming arse’ before their editor put a stop to it; it appears there was no editor, so things ended up getting way out of hand…& it’s the reader who suffers

The ending is even more embarrassing. The story concludes with a third rate Three Stooges slapstick routine in which Eliza hijacks a stage production of Hamlet, knocks down the sets, spouts random quotations in her Cockney accent, and ends up slicing through Hamlet’s tights so he moons the audience. Throw in a transvestite actor and Prof. Higgins’ secret love child and you’ll realize what a low-brow bastardization of Pygmalion this atrocity really is.

I feel so sorry for George Bernard Shaw as he turns over uncomfortably in his grave.… (altro)