This is actually book 8 in the Aunt Dimity series, but it's the first of them I've read. I'm usually a bit of a stickler for reading series in order, but a friend gave me a copy of this one, and I figure with most mystery series it probably doesn't matter all that much where you start. And, indeed, I had no trouble jumping in here, although I do kind of wonder whether I might have found the characters a little more interesting if I'd already known them going in.

The series appears to involve a woman who solves minor mysteries with the help of the ghost of an old lady who communicates with her by making words appear in a journal. In this installment, an aristocratic family gets together in their stately English home to work out some inheritance issues, and someone is making anonymous threats towards one of the family members.

It's a readable enough novel, I guess, and I find the fact that there's no actual murder involved a little refreshing, but mostly it just kind of bored me. The ghost gimmick sounded potentially interesting, but it's actually completely extraneous here, and could easily have been left out entirely. The mystery was mildly interesting for a while, but it's solved in a very unsatisfying way, with a third party basically coming in and telling us the answer, rather than the protagonist working things out herself. And the family issues are all resolved in a really pat and unbelievable way.

Oh, well. At least it was short. And I do suppose that someone who's a bigger fan of cozy mysteries than I am, or who is less tired of English aristocrats in stately homes -- I think watching Downton Abbey met my quota of those approximately forever -- might find it at least a little less dull. Still, I don't really think I'll be bothering with any of the rest of the series. ( )

Not bad for a simple non-murder mystery. Lori Sheperd has just learned that her best friend Emma's husband Derek is a real English earl, estranged from his family. Derek has been called back to his childhood home. Emma asks Lori to accompany them. But, as luck would have it, Lori's husband Bill has also been summoned to the estate, as unbeknownst to Lori, Bill is a lawyer to Derek's father, the current earl. Intrigue abounds. Topiaries are burned, poison pen letters are written, horses are throwing riders, old family relationships are renewed, and newer relationships face rough water. Lori, doesn't head to the estate alone with Bill, she also brings Dimity, her homestead's ghost. A cute short read. Nothing deep, cardboard characters, generic settings, and simple plots. ( )

Another fast reading Aunt Dimity, no one got killed, mystery. ( )

Nancy Atherton is the queen of the cozy mysteries. This is a fun and light series that keeps you guessing. And you always get a new recipe out of the deal! What an added surprise! ( )

I am one of the people who finds the main character Lori's roving eye rather annoying. She is married to Mister Perfect as it is, and she keeps running into and almost falling for another fabulously attractive man every book for the last few books! This is a less than charming plotline that isn't improved by being overused. It struck me in this book that one of the reasons that it is so jarring is that so much of the series is a tribute to people who are faithful to their One True Love, even after death. There are exceptions, but Dimity never married after her fiance's death, Lori's mother never married after being widowed. Aunt Dimity asserts someone's integrity by stating: "he remained faithful to his first love until his own tragic death ... ." It seems particularly shoddy then that Lori can't stay focussed on her own happy marriage.

In this volume, Lori accompanies her friend Emma Harris as she meets her husband's estranged family. ( )