“Very entertaining. I highly recommend this book to the permanent library of any reader that appreciates a very well written mystery, with some twists and an intelligent plot. You will not be disappointed. Excellent way to spend a cold weekend!” –Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (regarding Murder in the Manor)MURDER IN THE MANOR (A LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY—BOOK 1) is the debut novel in a … debut novel in a charming new cozy mystery series by Fiona Grace.
Lacey Doyle, 39 years old and freshly divorced, needs a drastic change. She needs to quit her job, leave her horrendous boss and New York City, and walk away from the fast life. Making good on her childhood promise to herself, she decides to walk away from it all, and to relive a beloved childhood vacation in the quaint English seaside town of Wilfordshire.
Wilfordshire is exactly as Lacey remembers it, with its ageless architecture, cobblestone streets, and with nature at its doorstep. Lacey doesn’t want to go back home—and spontaneously, she decides to stay, and to give her childhood dream a try: she will open her own antique shop.
Lacey finally feels that her life is taking a step in the right direction—until her new star customer turns up dead.
As the newcomer in town, all eyes are on Lacey, and it’s up to her to clear her own name.
With a business to run, a next-door neighbor turned nemesis, a flirty baker across the street, and a crime to solve – is this new life all that Lacey thought it would be?
Books #2-#9 are also available!
“Lots of interesting characters and a great story. I can’t wait to read the next book in this series!”
–Amazon reader
“A great start to this new series….I really enjoyed this cozy mystery and found it to be well written and entertaining with great characters. I am looking forward to reading more books in this series.”
–Amazon reader
“Murder In The Manor is an excellent mystery which I recommend.”
–Amazon reader
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This was definitely light reading. It was kind of silly in a way to think that so many things happened so quickly to a newcomer to the community. However, it was easy to just keep reading chapter after chapter. Beach read for sure.
I found myself urging her onward. She faced a lot but conquered it all.
Light read, great location……interesting characters
Love it
I would read another book by this author.
I love this author I’m working on the rest of her books
Enjoyed it very much but can’t seem to find more from this author
“Murder in the Manor” by Fiona Grace is an excellent mystery that readers will not be able to put down. We meet Lacey Doyle, a 39 year old recently divorced New Yorker who is trying to find some happiness in her life after receiving her divorce papers from her husband of 14 years, David Doyle. She realizes that the only time she was really happy before her marriage was when she was a little seven year old girl vacationing at the Wilfordshire, England seaside with both of her parents and four year old sister Naomi. She remembers that this is the place that she last saw her father, the man she has always adored and has always missed. She leaves her job as an interior designer’s assistant, saying she will just be taking some personal time off, boards a plane and takes off for England. She happily rents the last rooms available because of the Easter vacation, a little cliff side cottage with direct access to the beach and sea. When she walks to town the next day, enjoying the sound and smell of the sea air, she discovers an empty store and decides that it would be the perfect spot for an antique store, just like the one her father had. She meets Tom, the owner of the bakery across from the store and they become friends. Chester, an English Shepherd belonging to the tenants who had the store before Lacey, comes into the store, makes himself at home and becomes Lacey’s companion. After Lacey sets up her store, she meets an elderly woman, Iris Archer, who comes into the store and asks her to come to her home, the Penrose Estate, for breakfast the next day to appraise some of her belongings. She tells Lacey that she has come to her because she has recognized her name and Lacy reminds her of Francis who Lacey knows is her father’s name. Lacey realizes this woman knows of her father and might also know what happened to him. She never gets to find out because when she comes to the Penrose Estate, she finds Iris Archer dead. The woman was murdered and Lacey, being the outsider and the one who is found at the estate, is considered a suspect. She determines, with the help of her neighbor and friend Gina, her friend Tom and her landlord Ivan, that she will find the murderer and clear her name. Fiona Grace helps her readers feel everything that Lacey feels, her unhappiness at being a newly divorced woman, her thrill at arriving at Wilfordshire, England, her happiness at being away from her job and old boss, her joy in setting up her own store like the antique store her father had owned, her hope in finding out more about her father from Iris Archer and then her sadness at finding Iris dead, her exasperation at being thought of as a murderer and her warm feelings whenever she is with Tom, a man so different from her husband David. I am sure readers will love “Murder in the Manor” as much as I did.
Couldn’t put it down!
It takes a while to like the main character, but once you’re into the story, you fall in love with her insouciance. The menagerie of inhabitants, the grandmother, the curmudgeon and nosy neighbors all lend themselves to a fun read.
A light, entertaining, read-in-an-afternoon book. I liked it enough to immediately purchase the next book in the series.
The reader has to complete one-third of the book before the actual murder. Till then, one is given details of travel, tea, pastry shop, and post-divorce blues. Once the murder takes place, the pace of the story takes off. Nice ending with all the pieces of the puzzle falling in place quite nicely.
Very unrealistic, lots of holes in story, I gave up halfway through.
Just finished…fun “who done it”
Fun book to read really enjoyed it
Reading the series now
I had never read any of her books before. It was the first in a series I finished it in a couple of days it was hard to put down. It was easy to read, laugh out loud funny at times, and really cool characters. I am in the second book of the series and will order the ones after this. Very entertaining.
Good plot, good characters, good read.
Interesting premise. Like the characters. Enjoyed the storyline.
Well-drawn characters, good descriptions of places and setting. Enjoyable and fun, a quick read. The author’s timeline for all that happens is totally unrealistic to the point that I found it a distraction. It could easily have been spread over several months instead of crunched into a matter of a few weeks.