Devil May Care by Elizabeth Peters, narrated by Grace Conlin

 

Devil May Care by Elizabeth Peters, narrated by Grace Conlin

Historical Mystery

Publisher:  Blackstone Audio

Published:  1.11.07

Time:  7 hours 28 minutes

Rating: 3.5 stars

Format: audio

Source:  Purchased

Sellers: Amazon

ADD TO: GoodReads

 

GoodReads Synopsis:

Ellie is young, rich, engaged, and in love. In the carefree days before marriage and new responsibility, she decides to house-sit at Aunt Kate's palatial estate in Burton, Virginia. With its nearly invisible housekeepers and plethora of pets, Ellie feels right at home. But when she opens an antique book about the town's aristocracy, she finds disturbing secrets that extend to her own family. Suddenly, Ellie's interest in the past is attracting a slew of unwelcome guests - some of them living and some perhaps not. Unwittingly, she has aroused a terrible vengeance that is now aimed at her.

 

Sophia Rose's Review:

Is Aunt Kate a witch?  Are the hauntings at her home real?  What secret would someone kill to keep hidden?  Ellie is about to find out when she agrees to housesit for her Aunt Kate in rural Virginia.

 

Devil May Care is one of Elizabeth Peters’ standalone romantic suspenses.  It was originally published in 1977 and was a fun nostalgic revisit to that time since the book was released as a contemporary romantic suspense.  Ellie’s Aunt Kate is eccentric, clever, cunning, and a liberal with leanings that wouldn’t look out of place in today’s time.

 

Devil May Care is a revisit for me with the new edition of listening in to Grace Conlin’s audiobook narration of it.  It might as well have been an all-new book to me because I couldn’t remember it at all.  I was struck by the uneasy fact that the heroine is engaged through the bulk of this story and her heart was going pitter-pat alright, but not for her fiancée.  Fortunately, nothing occurred in the line of cheating outright.  And, I’m pretty sure we’re meant to not see it as cheating because the author deliberately opened the story from Ellie’s fiancée’s point of view and his motives for marrying her were her looks and he had full plans to change her and mold her into the proper lawyer’s wife of country club crowd status.

 

So, the story itself is a fun wink at the gothic romances with Ellie the damsel left alone in the old historical home, visited by ghosts, and the house holding a secret that a lot of people want.  The local ‘first settler’ families from like Puritan times seem to be involved somehow.  Meanwhile, Ellie is sparking against Donald, the snarky son of the local doctor who seems to look after Kate’s lawn along with the grounds’ keeper.  She is oddly irritated by this since he went to university and seems to just be lazing around pushing a mower now and then.  But, he’s soon her closest ally and the one to really believe her when she tells people there is something freaky going on and she’s pretty sure she’s seeing ghosts of the locals’ ancestors.

 

Devil May Care was fun and lighthearted with a mild thrill to it and even a possible paranormal element with the ghosts.  I liked Ellie and Donald.  Aunt Kate was a bit too much with some of her stunts and manipulative in a way that wasn’t endearing.  This one wobbles and particularly there at the end not having a clean finish and so abrupt, but it was light entertainment so there is that.

 

Author Bio:

Elizabeth Peters is a pen name of Barbara Mertz. She also wrote as Barbara Michaels as well as her own name. Born and brought up in Illinois, she earned her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago. Mertz was named Grand Master at the inaugural Anthony Awards in 1986 and Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America at the Edgar Awards in 1998. She lived in a historic farmhouse in Frederick, western Maryland until her death.

Sophia’s Bio:
Sophia is a quiet though curious gal who dabbles in cooking, book reviewing, piano-playing, and gardening. Road trips and campouts, museums and monuments, restaurants and theaters are her jam. Encouraged and supported by an incredible man and loving family. A Northern Californian transplant to the Great Lakes Region of the US. Lover of Jane Austen, Baseball, Cats, Scooby Doo, and Chocolate.

As a lifelong reader, it was inevitable that Sophia would discover book blogs and the joy of blog reviewing. Sophia is a prolific reader and audiobook listener which allows her to experience so many wonderful books, authors, and narrators. Few genres are outside her reading tastes, but her true love is fiction particularly history, mystery, sci-fi, and romance. Though, sorry, no horror or she will run like Shaggy and Scooby.

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GoodReads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13418187.Sophia_Rose