'Deadly Desires at Honeychurch Hall' by Hannah Dennison

Published by Minotaur Books,
11 October 2016.
 ISBN 978-1-250-00780-3

This is a fun book with numerous participants who are eccentrics and/or enjoy false identities.  The characters come alive and interact in front of your eyes.  The considerable cast of characters does make reading the first chapters quite taxing.  They get sorted out quite quickly and, I think, if you had read the first book in the series this process would have been much simpler.  

Our protagonist is Kat Stanford who is staying with her mother, Iris, in the English village of Little Dipperton.  The threat of a high speed railway being built through the valley and destroying the village causes uproar and a protest group is quickly established and financed by people of the village.   The relationship between Kat and her mother is rather argumentative and their relationships with other characters, jointly or singly, are often contentious too.  Crime occurs in the village - murder and theft.  Kat finds herself in the centre of these events and trying to make sense of them.

Don't read the blurb on the cover or on the Amazon Ebook - firstly, it is inaccurate and, secondly, it gives away events from well into the tale. 

This is a Cosy which is well crafted to include romance, fascinating characters, much humour and mystery.  The conclusion does not disappoint!

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Reviewer: Jennifer S. Palmer

The first book in the series was Murder st Honeychurch Hall.  Hannah Dennison  writes a series about Vicky Hill, a local reporter, also set  in Devon.

Hannah Dennison was born and raised in Hampshire, but on leaving school landed a job as an obituary writer/amateur dramatic reviewer for a Devon newspaper. Hannah is the author of the Honeychurch Hall Mysteries and the Vicky Hill Mysteries, both set in Devon, England. She has been an obituary reporter, antique dealer, private jet flight attendant and Hollywood story analyst. Hannah originally moved to Los Angeles from England to pursue screenwriting and now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and their cat. She continues to teach mystery writing at the UCLA Extension Writers' Program and still works for a west coast advertising agency. Hannah is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, The Crime Writers Association, Mystery People, The Historic Houses Association, the National Trust and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. She enjoys hiking, horseback riding, skiing, theater and seriously good chocolate.

www.hannahdennison.com

Jennifer Palmer Throughout my reading life crime fiction has been a constant interest; I really enjoyed my 15 years as an expatriate in the Far East, the Netherlands & the USA but occasionally the solace of closing my door to the outside world and sitting reading was highly therapeutic. I now lecture to adults on historical topics including Famous Historical Mysteries.