Author Archives: Eleanor Kuhns

About Eleanor Kuhns

Librarian and Writer Published A Simple Murder, May 2012

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The first book I read this week was Book Four of the Jane Yellowrock series, Raven Cursed.

Jane is working security in Asheville, N.C. for a vamp parley. The vamps in Asheville want to set up their own territory. Evangeline Overheat, Molly’s older sister, has agreed to facilitate the parley. But a group of campers are attacked by something supernatural, and Jane realizes the two werewolves she didn’t kill have followed her to North Carolina and are on the hunt.

Then Lincoln Shaddock does not turn up at the parley and Evangeline begins changing, growing younger and prettier. What is going on?

Action packed and fun.

The second book I read was A Truth to Lie For by Anne Perry, the fourth Elena Stands mystery.

Elena is called into service again, tasked with pulling a scientist working on German warfare out of Germany. Elena calls upon her old friend for Jacob and they successfully find the scientist. But when they try to take him out of Berlin, traffic jams and roadblocks send them south to Munich. Just in time for the Night of the Long Knives; Hitler’s strike against Rohm’s brownshirts.

At the same, a young Gestapo officer, Hans Beckendorff is trying to navigate the politics of working for the Reich, and for an increasingly unhinged Hitler. In the end, he is forced to make a life-changing decision.

I had a few criticisms. The ending seems rushed. Perry relies on a few phrases over and over (I really got tired of ‘surprisingly good coffee’.) It is not really a mystery, more a thriller.

But here’s the thing. Despite the absence of blood and gore (a constant feature of the Yellowrock novels), A Truth to Lie For is absolutely terrifying. Maybe because the reader knows what is coming in the next few years, but I felt a sense of dread throughout. I was truly scared at several points in the book.

Murder, Sweet Murder Review

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So pleased to receive this wonderful review from Missi Stockwell Martin.

Murder, Sweet Murder (Will Rees Mysteries #11) by Eleanor Kuhns

Will Rees accompanies his wife to Boston to help clear her estranged father’s name in this gripping mystery set in the early nineteenth century.

January, 1801. When Lydia’s estranged father is accused of murder, Will Rees escorts her to Boston to uncover the truth. Marcus Farrell is believed to have murdered one of his workers, a boy from Jamaica where he owns a plantation. Marcus swears he’s innocent. However, a scandal has been aroused by his refusal to answer questions and accusations he bribed officials.

As Will and Lydia investigate, Marcus’s brother, Julian, is shot and killed. This time, all fingers point towards James Morris, Lydia’s brother. Is someone targeting the family? Were the family quarreling over the family businesses and someone lashed out? What’s Marcus hiding and why won’t he accept help?

With the Farrell family falling apart and their reputation in tatters, Will and Lydia must solve the murders soon. But will they succeed before the murderer strikes again?  (Summary via Goodreads)

Readers of the Will Rees Mystery series by Eleanor Kuhns are going to go crazy, in a good way, when they start reading the eleventh book, Murder, Sweet Murder……Rees and his wife Lydia along with two of their children are heading to Boston to visit Lydia’s family.

In Murder, Sweet Murder Lydia, who left home many years ago when her father had tried to marry her off to a gentlemen that she did not love, is returning after receiving a letter from her younger sister asking for help.  It seems that their father Marcus was accused of murder and Cordelia, Cordy, knows that Will and Lydia have helped solve crimes in their hometown in Maine so they are the obvious choice to clear Marcus’s name.  Unfortunately when they arrive at Lydia’s old home, they are not as welcomed as they had hoped.  First no one other than Cordy wants an investigation, it seems the case has somehow been swept under the rug, and second the family is not so warm to accepting Will into the family.  When Lydia left she didn’t keep in touch with anyone other than Cordy so they are not aware of Will as her husband and of her children.

Will and Lydia are not deterred and begin their investigation into the young man’s death.  It is known that he is from Jamaica, a plantation that Marcus owns, but not much more is known. He was killed in the middle of the night outside a tavern that was closed, no witnesses that they are aware of and not much to go on…so Will decides to start at the place of death and go from there……

Every time that they think they have a clue or a fact to the murder, something happens that changes their minds.  Once they start investigating they learn of more people that could possibly have committed the murder and when they find out that the person killed isn’t who everyone thinks, they are lead down another disturbing road.  And when someone else is murdered in exactly the same way as the first person, Will and Lydia are more determined to find the killer !!

Readers will be drawn into the story immediately !!  Readers will love that Will and Lydia are traveling to Boston allowing us to get to know Lydia’s family and the secrets that have kept her away for all those years.  There will be members of the family you will fall in love with instantly and there will be some you will hate as soon as you meet them….but you will enjoy the time that you spend in Boston and will be just as glad as Will is when they leave.

Review by Missi M.

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I went back to two of my favorite series this week: the Hannah Ives series and the Jane Yellowrock series.

Through the Darkness by Marcia Talley starts out with a scary premise: Hannah’s ten month grandson is kidnapped. No ransom demand arrives and the family is left to imagine the worst.

It comes at a particularly terrible time: Hannah’s daughter Emily and her husband Dante are in the process of opening their own luxury spa. As their marriage begins to fall apart, Hannah begins to investigate on her own, despite the resistance from the cops and her own brother-in-law.

This part of the mystery was great. Very captivating. BUT, the death towards the end seems tacked on, as though Marcia was told to add 50 pages. Although this was less than perfect, I enjoy this series and will continue.

The story continues almost immediately after the previous book. Campers in North Carolina have been found slaughtered. Although it appears the murders were done by the vampires, Jane scents the werewolves. The fact that only the males have been killed, while the women have been taken convinces Jane that the weres are still trying to turn females for mates.

At the same time the grindylow is tracking the wires, Turning humans is forbidden so the grindy is tasked with killing the malefactors.

Riveting as usual. I can only wonder that Faith Hunter is able to continue this series with every book exciting and fascinating.

Diseases

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I am fascinated by the diseases that have stalked humans since they began walking on two legs and have blogged about some of these pathogens. TB: scarring on the fossilized bones of ancient bovines, diabetes: described in Egyptian and Greek writings, polio: pictured on ancient Egyptian stele. My point is that many of these diseases have been with us for a long time until better sanitation and vaccines pushed them back.

Cancer, a disease that seems to be a scourge during modern times, and a disease that still resists easy treatment, has probably also been with us for millennia. Well, many cancers probably escaped detection since they were inside the body and not visible unless an autopsy was performed. (The history of autopsies is a whole other fascinating topic since they have been permitted, or not, depending on the culture.) Breast cancer is the exception since it is visible. Evidence of breast cancer dates back 4200 years to ancient Egypt. Remains from that period display classic symptoms of the disease. For thousands of years, there was no treatment but cauterization and/or mastectomy. If the discovery of the remains is any indication, these treatments were not successful ones.

What about the so-called lifestyle diseases? Type II diabetes is one and, I suspect, present even in ancient times. Present perhaps, but not prevalent, as most people struggled to find enough to eat.

We know that apoplexy was present, and probably high blood pressure. But what about cholesterol? Although mitigated by exercise, it is not a cure. The effects of cholesterol is a fairly recent discovery.

Why do so many people now seem to develop these ‘lifestyle’ diseases? We all live longer. In Rees’s time, the average life span was in the forties. (This is skewed by maternal deaths during childbirth.) There were always people who lived longer, to the sixties and seventies. And sometimes much longer. The risk factors for developing choldesterol, hypertension, heart disease and so on increase with age.

With increased lifespans comes increased risk for disease. It doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?

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The first book I read last week was The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves.

Vera Stanhope and her team are back. In this mystery, five friends bonded since high school, meet for their five year reunion. One of them is found dead, an apparent suicide although Vera quickly determines it was murder staged as a suicide,

Since Vera is convinced that the answer to this murder lies in the past, she questions the friends and all those who were connected, no matter how tangentially. As expected, Vera solves the mystery , resulting a shocking twist at the end.

Beginning writers are told to place the murder within the first chapter. Ann Cleeves, however, spends several chapters exploring the characters. And still, her mysteries are captivating.

The second book I read was the third Jane Yellowrock book, Mercy Blade.

Werewolves are coming to New Orleans and threatening to wrest control from Leo Pellisser. The seeds of this enmity lies in the past, 1916 to be exact. Jane’s boyfriend, Jake LaFleur is missing. When Jane searches for him, she quickly discovers he is in serious trouble.

And who or what is the Mercy Blade. Jane can see he is a magic creature but exactly what is he?

I really enjoy this series as I do the Marcia Talley Hannah Ives. The two series could not be more different but both are so fun.

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Since last Thursday, I have read only one book: Blood Cross, the second Jane Yellowrock.

Jane is still in New Orleans, searching for the vampire who is creating new young rogues. (In this world, the newly risen have be controlled i.e. chained in a basement, for ten years until they regain their sanity. The young and newly created are attacking humans and vamps indiscriminately.

After Jane’s friend Molly is attacked and her children kidnapped, Jane realizes she is dealing with something new: witch vampires.

Another exciting read.

Currently Reading

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Because I blogged about the Albany Book Fair (tremendous fun) on my usual day, I will do my review of my most recent books now.

The first book I read was John Dedakis’ Bullet in your Chamber.

I unfortunately read this series out of order so I already knew something terrible had happened. I had to go back and fill in. Really excellent, but pretty dark.

Lark Chadwick, finally happy in a relationship, comes across a plot to blackmail one of the president’s advisors into pressing the president into approving a drone law. There were so many possible murderers, it was hard to identify the guilty party. Several deaths later, and problems in Lark’s relationship, make for a captivating read.

Lighter but still fascinating was This Enemy Town by Marcia Talley.

I am gradually reading my way through all the Hannah Ives mysteries. In book 5, another cancer survivor asks Hannah to help with the naval academy’s production of Sweeny Todd. Feeling she cannot refuse, Hannah agrees. While there, she sees Jennifer Goodall, the woman who’d accused Hannah’s husband of sexual harassment and almost destroyed both his career and their marriage. Hannah confronts her and when Jennifer’s body is discovered, Hannah is arrested as the prime suspect.

I did not see the final twist coming and I am now on to number six.

I took a break from mysteries and read Skinwalker by Faith Hunter.

It came up on my Amazon feed as something I might enjoy. And I really did. Jane Yellowrock is a vampire hunter in a world when the ‘vamps’ have been outed and are now part of the human world. A rogue vampire is terrorizing New Orleans, draining humans and vampires alike.

Well-written and full of action. It reminded me of the Thomas Perry Jane Whitehead mysteries with a badass woman, except with an added paranormal aspect. Another series I will continue reading.

Finally, I began reading a nonfiction book by Matthew Green: Shadowlands; Britain’s Lost Cities and Vanished Villages.

Although I haven’t finished this, I read the first chapter and was immediately hooked. Skara Brae is an old old village, estimated as about 5000 years old, so older than the Egyptian pyramids and older than Stonehenge, in northern Scotland. A severe storm in 1850 washed away the sand from a beach and revealed this neolithic village on the shore.

I have seen this village on a pre-pandemic trip to Iceland. On the way home, we stopped in Kirkwald, a very northern town. From there, we took a bus to Skara Brae.

It is a village of little stone huts. Repeated storms have continued to wash away the sand and also, unfortunately, one of the houses.

Although it was the beginning of July, it was COLD.

Albany Book Festival

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I had a great time at the Albany Book Festival this past Saturday. It was so wonderful seeing all the other writers (especially my table mate Jode Millman) and the crowds of attendees.

This is a free event and plenty of people took advantage of it. All ages, both men and women, and a wonderful diversity. I will definitely sign up again next year.

All of the authors around me sold books too so we did well with publicity aspect of it. As usual, I picked up a few books to read but at least this time I didn’t spend more than I took in. LOL

Albany book Festival

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Instead of blogging about books I read this week, I wanted to let everyone know about the Albany Book Festival this Saturday. I have attended many times and will be attending again this year.

I feel warm to this event since last year it was the first in-person event I attended.

Besides the local author section, where I will be, the event has talks and a children’s section with games and more. It is FREE.

This will be held at Albany University’s upper campus: 1400 Washington Avenue.

There are many many authors covering all the genres, non-fiction and more.

I hope to see you there.

Hiking in Maine

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As anyone who knows me can tell you, I am an avid hiker and one of my favorite places is Acadia Park. We visit the park as often as we can, at least several times a year.

We visited Acadia over Labor Day Weekend. I have never seen the park so busy – but I digress. This was our first time taking the new puppy on a real hike. On our past visits, we took her for several of the easier walks: Wonderland and Ship’s Harbor.

This time we hiked up Flying Mountain. Although short, and one of the easier hikes, it includes many of the things we love about this park: the rock climbing and the stunning views.

After twenty minutes going almost straight up, Cayenne was already tired. But we pressed on to the summit.

Then we began the downward climb. One’s knees really take a beating from climbing over the granite boulders on both the up and the down. Many of the trails are also treacherous with exposed roots.

We were almost to the end here, with maybe a little more than half a mile to go. Cayenne was very tired and didn’t want to walk anymore. We did not carry her and she made it to the end of the trail. When we got home, she collapsed on the floor and didn’t move for about twenty minutes.