Murder in Belgrave Square Book Review - Christy's Cozy Corners

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Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for Murder in Belgrave Square: A 1920s Cozy Mystery (A Tommy & Evelyn Christie Mystery) by Catherine Coles. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!

Murder in Belgrave Square: A 1920s Cozy Mystery (A Tommy & Evelyn Christie Mystery)

by Catherine Coles

Murder in Belgrave Square: A 1920s cozy mystery
(A Tommy & Evelyn Christie Mystery)
Historical Cozy Mystery
4th in Series
Publisher: INSPIRED PRESS LIMITED (April 30, 2021)
~200 Pages

Tommy & Evelyn Christie were hoping for a break from solving murders when they agreed to host Aunt Victoria and her daughters, Madeleine and Elise at their London home in Belgrave Square.

Recently widowed Victoria has returned from France for the London Season and to mend bridges with her estranged family.

None of them were prepared for the doubly shocking sight of a newborn baby and a dead body on the back doorstep of their imposing London residence.

Tommy & Evelyn face a race against time to solve the murder and the mystery of the abandoned baby before cousin Madeleine’s London Season is ruined.

Guest Post

Many thanks to Christy’s Cozy Corners for hosting me today

Hello everyone! I’m Catherine and I write historical cozy mysteries.

A little bit about the background of my series: it began as a project to keep me busy during the first lockdown in March last year. Some years previously I had written medical romance, so I was not new to writing books or indie publishing. However, I had never written a cozy mystery before, or even thought I might like to try! Other than reading Agatha Christie voraciously, I’d never read one either (I’m not sure how wise it is to admit to that .)

It was actually my eldest daughter who encouraged me to try and write something crime related. Everyone in my family knows if there is an Agatha Christie film on TV, I will watch it. It doesn’t matter how many times have already seen, I’m quite happy to sit and watch again. My absolute favourites are the BBC adaptations of Miss Marple featuring Joan Hickson. There’s such calm gentility in those 10 or 12 shows. In my opinion, they are incredibly well done.

I also enjoy Midsomer Murders, Death in Paradise, Grantchester, and my old favourite Murder, She Wrote. I have a friend who nicknamed me Jessica when finding out I wrote cozy mysteries!

The other thing I’ve always been really fond of, and which ties into my genre, is researching my family history. I can spend hours trawling through records trying to find out what happened to a long deceased family member. As I live on the north east coast of England, it’s not a surprise that many of my ancestors were fishermen.

One of the most amazing facts I found was that my great great grandmother (also called Catherine) was born in Cornwall (at the complete other end of the country). Her mother was from Cornwall, but her father was Scottish. Obviously, he too was a fisherman. I imagine Catherine and James meeting in Cornwall and falling in love. Tragically James died at sea in his early forties and some of the family relocated to the Hull area which is near where I live now. It is very humbling to find out stories like this about your own relatives and certainly puts my modern day woes into perspective!

I have also used my family tree in naming some of the characters in my books. For example, my father did have an Aunt Em. I don’t remember having met her, and I’m certain that as an ordinary Yorkshire lass she wasn’t nearly as posh as Aunt Em in my books The vicar in my series is called John Capes. John is my father’s name and Capes was the surname of his great grandmother. Milly’s children share the same names as my own children

So, with my head full of murder and the past, I decided to set my cozy mystery series in the 1920s. I didn’t realise back in May last year when I started writing that there were so many other cozy mystery authors who set their books in the same era. Now I think we must all have jolly good taste to have chosen that period in time!

My newsletter subscribers helped me choose the setting of my current release, Murder in Belgrave Square. In my mind, I see a mix of the glitz and glamour of Downton Abbey, the clever and perceptive Miss Marple, and the lovely characters I’ve created that feel like friends to me. It’s hard work remembering these people are not real when I turn off the computer!

If you could go back in history and meet one person, who would it be, and why? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’ll pop back throughout the day to answer all comments.

About Catherine Coles

About Catherine: I’ve always wanted to be an author…or a songwriter…or a nurse…or a teacher…I never have been able to make up my mind J My working career is a testament to this. Over the years, I’ve worked as a legal secretary, a night carer, in a bar while I completed my law degree, a family law practitioner, a childminder, a foster carer, a home carer, a receptionist, facilitating car deliveries for online customers, and a PA/HR Manager. Now I am living my dream as a full-time author. Well…in truth…one of my dreams—a girl should never have only one dream! Catherine lives in the northeast of England where she shares her home with her children and two spoiled dogs who have no idea they are not human!

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