“Charming… Four interconnected visits to a world of danger, wit, beauty and genuine romance. Treat yourself!”—ANNE PERRY, internationally bestselling author
A stellar line-up of historical mystery novelists weaves the tale of a priceless and cursed gold watch as it passes through time wreaking havoc from one owner to another. As the hours and years pass, the characters are irrevocably linked … characters are irrevocably linked by fate, each playing a key role in breaking the curse and destroying the watch once and for all.
From 1733 Italy to Edinburgh in 1831 to a series of chilling murders in 1870 London, and a lethal game of revenge decades later, the watch touches lives with misfortune, until it comes into the reach of one young woman who might be able to stop it for good.
As much a book of curses as a book of destinies, The Deadly Hours is a breathtaking anthology rich with atmosphere and intrigue that encapsulates the exquisite destruction, heartbreak, and redemption wrought by fate.
This outstanding collaboration of authors includes:
More praise for The Deadly Hours:
“A fantastic read.”—Tasha Alexander, New York Times bestselling author
“What a treat!”—Victoria Thompson, USA Today bestselling author
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I liked that each novella in this anthology furthered the story of a watch that carried a curse. It brought disaster to whoever owned it. I was already a fan of Anna Lee Huber’s Lady Darby, and her novella didn’t disappoint. Once again, Kiera and Gage try to help the criminal Bonnie Brock, a rogue whom I’m fond of. I’m also a fan of C.S. Harris’s historical mysteries. The one in this anthology didn’t feature Sebastian St. Cyr, but I liked the more modern story every bit as much. I’m new to Susanna Kearsley and thoroughly enjoyed her story. I liked Christine Trent’s female undertaker and her husband Samuel, but I stumbled with parts of the mystery itself and wasn’t happy when she didn’t want to incur the watch’s curse so sold it to a pawnbroker who didn’t know its history.
Deadly Hours contains four novellas by four exceptional authors. Each tale deals with the curse placed on gold stolen from a church in 1697. Some of that gold is made into a beautiful watch called La Sirene. Each person who owns the watch, even temporarily, comes to a terrible end. The stories take you from the watch’s creation to its final destruction a couple of centuries later. Or, is it really destroyed and the curse broken???? Two of the authors are longtime favorites of mine – Anna Lee Huber and C.S. Harris and I couldn’t wait to read their contributions. I haven’t read Susanna Kearsley nor Christine Trent, so I was anxious to give some potential new favorites a try.
The stories are in chronological order, so be sure to read them in the order they appear in the book. Skipping around only confuses the timeline – I speak from experience there.
While each of the stories was good, well-written, and well-delivered, the whole just didn’t catch my imagination. I think part of that was that I wanted to know more about each set of characters and the size constraints just didn’t allow for that.
Weapon of Choice by Susanna Kearsley – 4 Stars
February 1733 (with tales dating to 1697)
Oh! We have pirates, Jacobites, assassins, and a cursed timepiece all trapped together during a raging storm. What could possibly go wrong there? I think this might have been my favorite of the four stories because it was fast-paced and the characters were very interesting.
Three different ships, all bound for the same place, but from different origination points, are all caught in a horrendous, unnatural storm. All three ships make it to the same port and the passengers have to stay at the same Inn. One ship carries an assassin who is looking to assassinate The Duke of Ormonde, a staunch supporter, and advisor to the king. One ship carries a staunch Jacobite and protector of the king and the Duke. One ship, oops, carries the Duke himself.
The pirate captain carried an unusual timepiece that seemed to strike fear into the heart of another captain. Why? The timepiece was named La Sirene and it had quite a history – which the captain gladly shares. Then – when murder happens …
This was a really good read and an exciting way to start the tale of La Sirene.
In A Fevered Hour by Anna Lee Huber – 4-Stars
May 1831
I THINK this would be book 4.75 or so in the Lady Darby series because it takes place two weeks after the wedding and before they take off for their honeymoon in the Lake District. You can read this story without reading the Lady Darby series, but it is a really good series if you care to read it.
Keira and Gage are spending a quiet evening at home when Bonnie Brock Kincaid comes knocking on their door – highly distraught. That is highly unusual for the normally cool and aloof Brock. He tells his tale of a cursed watch bringing down his family and all of Old Town Edinburgh. OH! Curses!
Keira and Gage don’t believe anything about cursed timepieces, but when Brock collapses on the floor with some strange malady they immediately think he might have been poisoned. After sending for a doctor and learning that a strange illness is decimating Old Town Edinburg they have to wonder – and investigate.
Can they solve the mystery, find and destroy the timepiece before all of Edinburg is wiped out? Will Brock survive? You’ll just have to read this excellently crafted novella to find out. It is well worth your time.
A Pocketful of Death by Christine Trent – 4 Stars
March 1870
La Sirene resurfaces again when a newly minted Viscount begins to have all of his relatives disinterred and reburied in a new family plot. Inside a grave, the undertaker handling the removals and reburials finds a lovely and expensive watch wrapped within a pair of gloves. Believing that it must belong to the family of the deceased, she takes it to the Viscount.
Strange occurrences begin within the exclusive Mayfair neighborhood – a murder, then another, then another. Some blame the newly found watch. Some blame a madman. Either way, the undertaker, Violet Harper, being the curious sort, begins asking questions. (Note – Violet Harper is from this author’s Lady of Ashes series.) The more questions she asks, the more confusing the circumstances – there are almost no commonalities among the victims other than they live within the same neighborhood. Yet, La Sirene stops working one hour prior to each death. What does this cursed watch have to do with the deaths?
This was an excellently written story, but it was my least favorite of the four. It seemed to be more slow-moving and plodding than the other stories. As I said, well-written, but it just didn’t catch my imagination.
Siren’s Call by C.S. Harris – 4 Stars
June 1944
There is a German spy and a murderer loose in the small English village of New Godwick. Are they one and the same? What do they want? The murderer’s first victim is a lovely old man who is an antiquarian with a vast collection of valuable antiques. One of his most cherished items is missing. That item? A case for a cursed timepiece called La Sirene. Did it contain clues to the location of the timepiece itself?
More deaths and mysterious radio broadcasts to Germany keep MI5 – and a local miss – busy investigating. With Hitler and his henchmen’s interest in all things occult, it is no surprise that they might be looking for La Sirene. Will the spy find it and get it to Hitler? Will our English detectives discover them and retrieve La Sirene? Will the curse end? You’ll just have to read to see.
The Deadly Hours is a fantastic anthology by some of today’s leading historical mystery writers. I knew by name three of the four authors; I wasn’t familiar with Christine Trent. The only one I’ve actually ready anything by was Anna Lee Huber. I loved her last Verity Kent book. I now have some new favorite authors! Though some of these stories contain characters from previous books, all four stood alone just perfectly.
“I am the only master of my time.” This is the engraving on the cursed watch which is the thread that pulls all four stories together. Running the gamut from 1733 Italy, 1831 Edinburgh, 1870 London to 1944 United Kingdom’s Kent Coast, the watch connects the couples from each time period together. La Sirène is the name of the watch, and its curse can only be broken by going through the four elements: water, earth, air and fire.
All four stories were quite enjoyable, with the strongest being the story set during WWII by C.S. Harris. Almost equally as good were those by Anna Lee Huber and Susanna Kearsley. The book by Trent was the weakest, but I still enjoyed it very much. I have numerous books by most of these authors that I haven’t read yet, and now I know I shall love them. That is the thrill of reading anthologies – you know which author’s books you will enjoy. This anthology is top notch!
I received an ARC of this book courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley. I received no compensation for my review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are solely my own.
It’s not often that I enjoy interrelated short stories this much.
I originally wanted to read this because Huber and Harris are two of my favorite mystery writers, and they definitely delivered here (Huber even included some favorite characters from her Lady Darby series). But Kearsley and Trent did not disappoint either.
Interesting stories, centering around a cursed golden timepiece spanning from 1733 to 1944. Nicely drawn characters for short stories and great flow/connection between the time periods/stories. All-in-all a fun, well-done read. Recommended.
Thanks to #NetGalley and #PoisonedPenPress for providing me the ARC. The opinions are strictly my own.
Whoever came up with the idea of following a cursed watch over time was brilliant. Starting in 1733 with a story by Susanna Kearsley, each author tells a tale that includes the watch set years after the last one set in 1945. I bought the book because I live Susanna Kearsley. Now I’ve found three new authors – C. S. Harris, Anna Lee Huber, and Christine Trent. I loved all their stories.
I loved this book
This was a fabulous idea and I’d certainly like to read more books that travel through time. This book contains four stories from four different authors and each one charts the journey of a cursed watch. We might begin the journey in the seventeen hundreds but we end up most definitely in the twentieth century. Fans of mysteries and romance will be enthralled with the way these authors entertain the reader and this anthology is a good way to try new authors.
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair
This anthology of stories by four different authors makes an entertaining read. The stories all revolve around a supposedly cursed watch. I was familiar with two of the authors.I love anthologies or series by different authors for the very reason that I can meet new authors that are similar to ones I know.
The characters in these stories are as different as the authors themselves. With strong heroines, I found it interesting to read how they each took a stand against societal norms and expectations of women of their individual eras, playing a key role in stopping fate or just a string of coincidence in stories filled with a trail of murder, spies and espionage. As they each followed the trail of havoc that accompanied the watch through the centuries, they sought a way to break the curse.
I have been a long time fan of Susanna Kearsley’s and Anna Lee Huber’s work, so definitely was happy to read novellas in which well-loved characters made an appearance. My favorite story was that by new-to-me author C.S. Harris and look forward to reading more of her works.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author/publisher and was not required to write a review. All opinions expressed are my own.
The Deadly Hours is a box set featuring 4 stories that revolve around the infamous La Sirene watch, a gold watch that has been cursed since the moment it was made. These four interconnected mysteries take you from Italy in 1733 to 1944’s war torn England, each one full of murders that have been committed because of the watch. This was an interesting read, with characters who are well rounded, and a story line that will keep you intrigued. Each author presents a story in a different era from the others, but now and again, there will be a mention about the history of the watch, and characters from previous stories will be named.
Each author has done a good job with the suspense of the story, but I must admit that I was not as engaged in some of the stories as I was with some of the others. You can definitely see the different writing style from each author, yet they keep everything cohesive.
Due to the fact that I was not engaged throughout all the stories, I will be giving this box set 4 stars. I will, however, recommend the set if you’re a fan of these authors, or period mysteries.
**I was given an ARC of this title by the publisher and NetGalley and this is my honest and voluntary review.
“I am the only master of my time…”
When I found out Anna Lee Huber and C.S. Harris were a part of this stellar author line up I knew I wanted to get my hands on a copy. Little did I know that I’d be introduced to these new-to-me authors like Susanna Kearsley and Christine Trent! The seamless flow from story to story offers mystery with an almost supernatural tone and dashes of romance mixed between the pages. From 1733 to 1944, these four novellas are woven together with expert storytelling as we follow a cursed watch through time.
Just so you know, I’m here if ever there’s another collaboration – in the meantime I’m going to investigate what else I can read by these fabulous writers.
A big thank you to Poisoned Pen Press for providing a digital copy in exchange for my honest review.
#NetGalley #TheDeadlyHours #Goodreads
** This review can also be found on NetGalley, Goodreads
JE SUIS LE SEUL MAITRE DE MON TEMPS
This is a hard book to review as it is made up of 4 shortish stories, each by a different author that describes the journey through time of a cursed timepiece/watch. Each story is told by a female private detective who also features in her own series (apart from the last one). And there’s a cat hidden in the last three. Although every story features a completely different period, characters and setting, the authors managed to bring us an interesting and well-constructed tale. This concept is not an easy task they undertook, but they each did a great job and I can’t pick one that’s more favourite than the other
The timepiece is made of gold that was stolen during an extremely cruel and brutal raid of pirates. Well, the pirates tell a different story about the mechanics of the facts. This gold belonged to the cathedral and was cursed by the bishop to bring all sorts of death, misfortunes, and disasters. But the church had stolen the gold from the Indians and was possibly cursed prior to the raid. The only manner to get rid of the curse is to have it embraced by all four elements in turn. Whether or not this curse is real or not is not clear, you have to make up your own mind to believe or not. Although many of the unfortunate deaths can be explained; there remain various incidents with mysterious bouts of bad luck, misery, and death that are much harder to dismiss
1. WEAPON OF CHOICE (SUSANNA KEARSLEY)
The first story takes place in 1733. The English dispatched an assassin to kill the duke of Ormond, a fierce Jacobite with a substantial following. The captain of his ship is in the possession of ‘La Sirène’, a watch with an infamous reputation for being cursed and bringing disaster, destruction and death. The assassin and a clever newly-wed couple of Jacobite supporters/spies come eye to eye while sheltering in an inn during a fierce storm.
The main characters are to solve the murder of the captain and to prevent the one on the Duke. They’re a lovable couple and I can see them very well carry their own series. It’s an excellent story to open this collection; it has spies, pirates, a murder mystery, and a curse. What more do you want?
2. IN A FEVERED HOUR (ANNA LEE HUBER)
This is set in Edinburgh 1831, almost 100 years after the first story. Here we meet another newly-wed young couple that’s called upon to solve an epidemic of a mysterious and strange disease, the poisoning of a rather sympathetic (I thought him not so bad and I noticed that the female sleuth wasn’t impartial to him) crime boss. Of course, the cursed watch resurfaces after being lost for a century.
There was a real documented outbreak of spotted typhus in Edinburgh that year. So there an enjoyable mix of fact and (plausible?) fiction in this story.
3. A POCKETFUL OF DEATH (CHRISTINE TRENT)
Now we move 40 years into the future, to 1870. ‘La Sirène’ has been split into the casing and the watch itself, and it is the watch self, that’s suspected of being responsible for a series of violent deaths.
I really like the rather original and unusual occupation of the heroine. She’s an undertaker and has to dig up all the buried relatives of a newly knighted viscount and bury them again on a private lot in a London graveyard. And it’s during those activities that she unearths the cursed thing. Violet’s occupation gives an interesting look into the pre-occupation with the death in Victorian times and some of the (now strange looking) habits they practised.
4. SIREN’S CALL (C.S. HARRIS)
We move on to 1944 on the coast of Kent and meet an old home-guard captain that’s murdered in his own house. He was a famous collector of all sort of clocks and his price-possession was the outer case of ‘La Sirène’. All of his life he tried to find the watch self and might have been close to achieving this. There are also 2 detectives from MI5 in the village who’re looking for a German Spy and they think he may be the culprit. There’s even a love story woven into this mystery. It’s also the only tale that’s not connected to a series, although I think the characters are interesting enough to do such a thing.
I thank NetGalley and Poisoned PenPress for their free ARC, this is my honest, unbiased review of it.
Kearsley and CS Harris always present a great and believable story. They do not disappoint.
I absolutely loved this book! Each story, though set in a different place and time with different characters, feels connected and seamless. The first three stories were written using characters from each of the author’s signature series. The last story, written by C.S. Harris was entirely unique. Initially I was disappointed because I was hoping to read about Sebastian St. Cyr (from Harris’s regency series), but almost instantly, I was pulled into that one as well.
Weapon Of Choice by Susanna Kearsley was remarkable. Within the first few minutes I was hooked and couldn’t stop reading until I was done. I looked up the author’s other books and plan to read them all. Kearsley sets the tone, mood, and setting with such skill, I felt like I was right there. The way she reveals her characters’ personality, with so few words is sublime. I fell in love with Hugh and Mary AND Edmund and Anna. I want to know them better.
In a Fevered Hour by Anna Lee Huber was the second story and featured characters from A Lady Darby Mystery. This is a series I have meant to read for a long time, so I was pleasantly surprised to meet Keira and Gage. I liked Huber’s writing style and the setting, and the way the curse played out within actual historic events.
A Pocketful of Death by Christine Trent, the third story was entertaining, but I didn’t think the murders (and murderer) at all plausible, and I didn’t think Violet was a realistic character. (What undertaker goes to visit her clients on a daily basis? Especially after she has completed her commission.)
Siren’s Call by C.S Harris was a beautiful story about the hardships people faced during WWII. The main characters had an inner goodness that shined through the pages. They both witnessed and endured terrible things, but they remained committed to living honorable lives. Some of the dialogue spoken by Rachel and Jude could have been written for our own times. The plot held my interest to the very end, and I thought it was brilliant the way the story came full circle when Rachel read Mary’s journal from the first story.
I loved the way these authors weaved actual historical events into their writing. It was fascinating to stop and research the events they included. JUST BRILLIANT! #TheDeadlyHours #NetGalley