Thanks to Sourcebooks I was finally able to read two of Georgette Heyer’s mysteries. These stories, set in lovely English country-homes, feature autocratic masters, meddlesome relatives and a bit of murder. While Heyer may be more well-known for her regency books, these stories are quite entertaining and remind me a bit of the mysteries by Agatha Christie.

The first one I read was The Unfinished Clue, originally published in 1934. In this story several guests are arriving at Sir Arthur Billington-Smith’s home for the weekend. The man is insufferable and rude to his wife, his son’s scandalous paramour, and other guests. But who hated him enough to kill him?

“It was apparent to Miss Fawcett within one minute of her arrival at the Grange that her host was not in the best of tempers.”

As with any good mystery, there are many clues and suspects and it’ll be up to Inspector Harding to figure out if it was the wife, the cabaret singer, the son or any of the other guests.

In Behold, Here’s Poison, originally published in 1936, the opening pages reveal an ordinary morning at the Poplars but soon the Master is found dead in his room. At first everyone blames his high blood pressure or indigestion but once Inspector Hannasyde is on the case a strong case for murder by poison is made.

“He was lying on his back in an uncomfortably rigid attitude, his arms tossed outside the bedclothes, the fingers gripping the sheet as though in a last convulsion. His eyes were open, the pupils contracted. Stella stood looking down at him, her face slowly whitening.”

Was it the maid, the sister-in-law or could it have been the man’s own doctor? Well, you’ll just have to read this delightful mystery to find out.

I enjoyed both mysteries a lot. There was a bit of humor, a dash of romance and of course lots of clues to sift through. I think the only thing though that I would have changed is not read them back-to-back but that’s just a personal preference. No matter if it’s an author I love, I prefer to leave a bit of time between books so I can savor the next one.

How about you? Have you read any of Heyer’s mysteries? Or do you have a favorite Heyer book?

I’ve finished a couple of books lately that are a bit more out of my comfort zone but guess what? I thoroughly enjoyed them.

First, Starfinder by John Marco. This Young Adult fantasy novel is set in the city of Calio where Skynights fly the skies to protect the citizens from the evil beyond the Reach. With an adventurous young boy as its main character you will be in for a thrill with this story. Here’s my full review.

John kindly sent me an ARC of his book and I just found out that he is also doing a book blog tour so stop by the blogs and hear more about the story. I know I can’t wait for the next adventure. Also, I took the opportunity of making this one my first choice for the Once Upon a Time Challenge III.

The next story I read is The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov. My very first Asimov! I read this one for my mystery book group and as you can imagine at first I wasn’t too excited because I kept thinking it is a science fiction book.

Well, yes, it’s set in the future and on a very changed Earth but it does have a mystery, a detective and a murder. I can’t believe how much I enjoyed this (here’s my full review) and what a great discussion it generated. I guess we started questioning how feasible some of these future aspects seemed. I did get a kick out of the book reader mentioned in the book which I can only assume is sort of like a Kindle.

Anyway, you know what else was out of this world? My birthday! My husband got me a gorgeous silver necklace, Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea (which I mentioned I wanted!) and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

Not only that but we went out for some delicious veggie burgers and to see Star Trek. Can you believe I’ve never seen a Star Trek episode before? Well, it was a wonderful day and now I’m off to catch up on some reading and who knows may be I’ll sneak in another bite of cake. Ha.