Digital Reads Reviews

Many thanks to publisher Bookouture for my spot on this Blog Tour.

A murder mystery set in 1933, this was simply the perfect book for me. I grew up reading such books, scavenging them from my relatives’ bookshelves… Most were first or second editions. You bet I was not allowed to touch them. Yet… I did.

Dolphin Hotel was the setting, and its owner Mrs. Treadwell had received a few threatening notes in the past few days. She hired Mathew to look into it and protect Kitty, her granddaughter. In absentia of gran, Kitty and Matt started investigating, when murders occurred too close to home.

My first book by Helena Dixon, I loved the old world feeling I experienced while reading this book. I became a child hiding from the world, trying to solve the mystery. Body count increased, and both Kitty and Matthew rushed to get to the identity of the killer. Pages too turned fast trying to keep up with them.

I loved Helen’s writing, she took me straight from my home to 1933 where the world moved at a slower pace and investigations were conducted using old fashioned methods. The book started with a strong beginning and ended with the right shocker. There was attraction between the main characters, but in a murder mystery, my focus was only on the who and why of the murder.

A brilliant whodunit where nostalgia and suspense gripped me.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley and publisher, and this is my journey into its pages, straight from the heart!! STRICTLY HONEST AND UNBIASED.

All my reviews can be read here

A room with a view… to murder

June 1933. Independent young Kitty Underhay has been left in charge of her family’s hotel, The Dolphin, on the tranquil English coast. She’s expecting her days at the bustling resort to be filled with comfortable chatter with chambermaids as they polish the mahogany desks and glittering candelabras of the elegant foyer. Everything must be perfect for the arrival of a glamourous jazz singer from Chicago and a masked ball that will be the cultural highlight of the season.

But when several rooms are broken into and searched, including Kitty’s own, she quickly realises that something out of the ordinary is afoot at the hotel. Soon rumours are flying in the cozy town that someone is on the hunt for a stolen ruby. A ruby that Kitty’s mother may well have possessed when she herself went missing during the Great War. And when the break-ins are followed by a series of attacks and murders, including of the town’s former mayoress, it seems the perpetrator will stop at nothing to find it.

Aided by ex-army captain Matthew Bryant, the Dolphin’s new security officer, Kitty is determined to decipher this mystery and preserve not only the reputation of her hotel, but also the lives of her guests. Is there a cold-blooded killer under her own roof? And what connects the missing jewel to the mystery from Kitty’s own past?