An Invitation To Murder (Lady Katherine Regency Mysteries Book 1) Kindle Edition

I like Leighann Dobbs but this is not one of her best books, mainly due to a glaring lack of research. The main character, Lady Katherine, is an independent-minded spinster in Regency England who wants to be a detective rather than a housewife. She sets about solving a series of country house murders while visiting a house party under the guise of being a matchmaker for an unattractive young woman. The characters are well-written and interesting. A large amount of "detecting" consists of snooping in guests' rooms and leaping to conclusions.The authors, who admittedly make an accuracy disclaimer at the beginning, are so extremely inaccurate that a great deal of the reader's enjoyment is lost. They could at least have mastered Jane Austen's language style, or even copied Georgette Heyer's meticulously researched Regency slang. The Bow Street Runner character who invents detection aids is collecting fingerprints 30 years before they were even recognized as being worthy of attention and 60 years before they were used for identification at all! Additionally, they were called "finger marks" rather than "prints."I know I am a collector of trivia, but there is another glaring mistake in this book: the characters run around outdoors every evening. But it would have been too cold to run around. 1816 was "The Year Without a Summer" - there was frost or snow every month of the year, due to a large volcanic explosion in Indonesia the year before, which cooled the whole earth's climate significantly.The series has promise due to the clever characters, but the authors will need to step up their game for it to succeed.

I felt a great need to write a review because I bought the 3 book bundle based on all of the 5 star reviews. Now I wish I hadn't. Aside from Captain Wayland, the rest of the characters are actually Caricatures, 2 dimensional or even 1 dimensional. Katherine is especially annoying: obstinate, insecure, and unrealistic. I think that the story is supposed to be campy, but it's lacking in the humour that would make it so. Katherine, who appears to feel as though everyone in London is an idiot, goes about her investigations in a pure illogical manner, it's a wonder she "solves" the crime at all! I knew who the culprit was 25% of the way through, there was no mystery. I'd like to know how she's to remain an anonymous detective when her methods are so very blatant, and the only time she speaks to other characters is to talk about the crime, or herd them into a room and interrogate them. To add to my disappointment, the dialogue completely lacks the British regency feel to it. Lavishly using the same two swear words of the time does not an authentic dialogue make.

This is the first Historical mystery I've read from these two authors and although the mystery was pretty good it was so unconventional on the part of how the characters were portrayed for the Regency era it was really unbelievable. I know the authors wanted it this way but it made the story very unrealistic. I had a hard time liking Katherine because she was too self absorbed from the beginning. I would also suggest that brushing up on English titles would be wise if continuing to write in this genre. Duchess Philomena would be introduced as Her/Your Grace and would not have the title of 'Lady'. Her young daughter would have the title of 'Lady' and not Miss as both were referred to in this story. I might try the next book since I'm curious on how Katherine and her new partner in investigating will handle the next murder mystery in Bath.

Really dumb. I totally disagree with the premise in the Prologue. It's just an excuse for poor research and terrible anachronisms. If you are going to write a Regency novel, write a Regency novel!

Lady Katherine took the matchmaking job under sufferance – but knew it would make a good cover story while she caught the Pink Ribbon Killer. Two young women had died during the season; with one last party for debutants to find husbands, Katherine knew it would be the perfect place for the killer to strike again. But not if she could help it…Katherine’s father had stipulated she was to prove her ability by her birthday or lose her dowry – with only one week to do it in, she knew it would be tight. Her friend Lyle was one of the Bow Street Runners – she anticipated his help would be invaluable. As long as her father didn’t find out.With very little to go on, and many whom she could call suspects, Katherine knew time was running out. She needed to dig more deeply as well as keep any prospective victims safe. Could she do it? Or was she putting herself in danger, along with other young women at the party?An Invitation to Murder by Leighann Dobbs is the first in the Lady Katherine Regency Matchmaker series and a thoroughly entertaining beginning. With plenty of action, swooning ladies and arrogant lords and dukes in the mix, plus Emma, Katherine’s adorable pug, this historical cosy set in the Regency period has a lot to offer fans of the genre. Highly recommended.

This is one of the silliest books I've ever read. It's written reasonably well but the constant Americansims and American spellings let it down badly.Plus all the characters are annoying and to be honest, I didn't bother to finish it. other than to skip to the denoument.As others have said, too much 'confusion' of the main characters. Plus not enough research or knowledge of the era. For instance, all the 'comedy' measuring of mens' boots could have been avoided by asking the bootboy for help. If she was that emancipated she wouldn't have had any problem with speaking to a lowly servant.Although anachronisms don't bother me normally some of the phrases and vocabulary were much to modern and/or USA. I defy anyone in the UK to ever use the word 'tarnation' whatever the year!No worth bothering with. Maybe the author(s) should stick to 1 or 2 genres in future and leave this era to others more qualified or wth better research skills.

This is the second Lady Katherine book I’ve read. They aren’t meant to be taken seriously, I’m sure, and I certainly didn’t. Niggled over the americanisms and the frequent repetitions of her thoughts which wavered each and every whichway - how many times did we need to be reminded that she needed to solve the murders in order to receive her dowry? Too many.However, it made for very light reading which, during the pandemic, was all my elderly locked down brain seemed able to cope with.

I’m not a fan of the Regency period and detest the relentless Austenesque pursuit of husbands, but I quite enjoyed this. Lady Katherine is an anachronism, as freely admitted by the author, so the premise is far-fetched for the period, but it’s fun. It wasn’t hard to work out the culprit so it was mostly an exercise in waiting for our heroine to arrive at the right conclusion, but a page turner nonetheless. Slightly spoilt by American spellings.

After reading the first few chapters of the book I skipped to the end. Usually I am a big fan of Leighann’s but I lost interest in this book after a couple of chapters. I did persevere for another couple of chapters but in the end skipped to the last chapter and the end.

An 'olden days' novel where girls had to have chaperones. When more than one of those girls is murdered, who did it? Our heroine battles to find out before she's out of time (you'll see why if you read it), pursuing the 'pink ribbon' murderer. Great book!