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Kathleen Buckley will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

A MURDER OF CONVENIENCE

Kathleen Buckley

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GENRE:  Historical Mystery

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BLURB:

Ellen Cuthbert’s husband, Randolph, is now the Earl of Keswick’s heir. Their marriage is a sham, and Randolph’s mistress, Lydia, is present at the house party. When she is found murdered in a locked room, all the evidence seems to point to Ellen. And how could the murderer have escaped the locked room except by witchcraft? Sir Hugh accompanies his cousin, a magistrate, to the scene of the murder. They investigate, appalled to find their childhood friend Ellen appears to be the chief suspect. Hugh’s lack of prospects years ago prevented their marriage. Now if he cannot find the real murderer, there may be only one final service he can perform for Ellen to spare her a slow death at the end of the hangman’s rope.

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Excerpt:

Keswick strode to the door and spoke sharply to the footman who hurried away to return in a matter of minutes with two candlesticks holding tapers.

“Hold the candle for me, Hugh.”

Wallace knelt by the heap, which had been a woman. She lay on her left side, swathed in a night rail, its white linen embellished around its low neck and cuffs with white silk embroidery. The cushioned stool lay on its side at her feet. She must have been sitting there, ready to retire, when someone struck at least one hard blow. That much was obvious from the blood matting the side of her head, horribly visible against hair as pale as flax.

“You see the problem, Seaton.”

“Apart from the murder?” his cousin asked.

The earl gave an irritable grunt. “The scandal, man. No one in attendance at this affair is titled but myself, and all but she”—he jerked his chin at the corpse—“and a family of Cits are related to me in some degree. I can control them. The servants are another matter. Threaten as I may, keeping this quiet may be impossible. The best solution I can hope for is that the inquest finds she fainted or had drunk to excess and hit her head on the table.”

This was clearly a suggestion that Seaton should endorse one of these explanations. Hugh managed not to reveal his opinion of such fiddling with facts and legal procedure.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

One day after coming home from first grade, Kathleen Buckley set about writing her own dictionary but quickly realized it would take too much time, so she read a book instead. Possibly Space Cat.

After a career which included customer service, light bookkeeping, working as a paralegal, and a stint as a security officer, she began to write as a second career, rather than as a hobby. Her first historical romance was written after re-reading Georgette Heyer’s Georgian/Regency romances for the tenth or twelfth time and wondering if she could do something like that. Apparently she could, as her eleventh will be released on 3/24/2025. As a change of pace, it’s a murder mystery, but still set in the mid-1700s (but still with some romance).

Warning: no bodices are ripped in her romances, which might be described as “powder & patch & peril” rather than Jane Austen drawing room. They contain no explicit sex, but do contain the occasional den of vice and mild bad language, as the situations in which her characters find themselves sometimes call for an oath a little stronger than “Zounds!”

 

Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/3L2RGJ

Website: https://18thcenturyromance.com/

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https://www.facebook.com/pg/anunsuitableduchess/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/270998.Kathleen_Buckley

https://www.bookbub.com/profile/kathleen-buckley

https://writing-on-el-camino-real.blogspot.com/

Author page: https://www.amazon.com/author/kbuckley

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