A spellbinding new historical psychological mystery
Book Blurb
Two women take drastic action to protect the life they’ve built, in this gripping new novel set in early twentieth-century Belfast by the author of The Devil’s Own.
Jane Best and Agnes Williams are known in Belfast for taking in lodgers at Riverdale House, the business they started together after losing their husbands in the Anglo-Zulu War. For forty years, they’ve welcomed young women in need of a respectable place to stay in the city—including unfortunate cases like young Iris Seoin, who’s come here to get away from her abuser.
When a man shows up at the lodging house looking for Iris, he experiences a flash of recognition. He knows these two. He knows their past. And he knows what they’re hiding.
For Jane and Agnes, everything is at stake. But if they succeed in burying this blackmailer, will their secret stay buried with him?
My Review
Jane Best and Agnes Williams both experience the death of their husbands. While they had two very different backgrounds, neither could return to their former lives and agree on a new location with a business they could use to generate income as well as a stable home.
Each have their areas of expertise and soon they own and operate a safe lodging residence for ladies. Against the odds, however, an uncouth man from their former lives recognize them. What follows is a suspense-driven, well plotted mystery set in the latter 19th century Ireland.
“…Home Rule means Rome Rule.”
I enjoyed the early account of their experience and later the struggle to create their lodging house. The antagonist is just nasty enough to stack the tension. Support characters and descriptions of the area and time create authenticity.
Several twists come as a surprise and plot re-direction. The prose provides light-hearted insight to the circumstances while the background turns darker.
A quick and easy read that adds spice to the suspense and generates the need to know more. Recommended!
Book Details
- ASIN: B0CDCPFG9M
- Publisher : Bloodhound Books
- Publication date : September 1, 2023
- Print length : 322 pages
- Genre: LGBTQ+Genre Fiction, Lesbian Fiction
- Source: Author
- Title Link: A Superior Death [Amazon]
Rosepoint Publishing: Four points 
The Author: Originally from Belfast, Maria McDonald lives in Kildare, with her husband Gerry.
Maria is an avid reader who loves to write but only indulged in her passion for writing fiction after retirement. Since then, her short stories and articles have been published in Woman’s Way and Ireland’s Own, as well as numerous anthologies; Intermissions, Grattan Street Press Melbourne; Same page anthology, University College Cork; Fragments of Time, Amber Publishers. Maria is a founder member of Ink Tank Writing Group, based in Newbridge library and contributed to their anthologies, Timeless in Kildare and Let Me Tell You Something.
(c) V Williams
Rosepoint Publishing 