Bewitching Benedict

Bewitching Benedict (2017) C. E. Murphy (The Lovelorn Lads)

Set in England ~1800 (Napoleonic Wars)

Claire Dalton is excited her cousin and two friends are coming to visit. She hasn’t seen her cousin since he left for the war, and hopes he and his friends are as dashing as she remembers.

Unfortunately, the first thing her cousins friends do is insult her.

When she ends up in London for a season, she disdains the two who insulted her, while the rest of her cousin Charles’s friends adore her.

“I’m beginning to think I ought to find a way to make something of that name. What special talents do mice have?”

“They creep into places they are not expected, and make themselves at home there, as you have crept into all of our hearts,” Nathaniel Cringlewood volunteered as he, too, joined them.

It’s a fun story.

The problem is that the seems to have meant this to be the start of the series, which didn’t happen, so we’re left in the lurch about Charles.

“How terrible it must be, Charles! How dreadful to face guns and cannons and to know that running will destroy his reputation, when I dare not even stay and face the curious eyes of Society! How unfair!”

She could not know, Charles told himself; none of them save Vincent and O’Brien really knew, though there was plenty of talk. Men his age did not come back from the front, pale, withdrawn, but without visible injury, and not cause talk.

And Ackerman,

“I want to be admired for my wisdom and insight rather than my face, of course,” Ackerman said lightly. “Just as any beautiful woman might wish to be.”

And Ronald Vincent.

But no further stories, so we don’t know what happened to Charles during his war, and how he will overcome it.

Publisher: Miz Kit Productions

Rating: 7/10

• Browse the archives:
  
• A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie » »
• « « A Rare Book of Cunning Device, Audio Edition