In a historical mystery for Downton Abbey fans, a society reporter covers a killer party in Gilded Age Newport.Newport, Rhode Island, August 1895: She may be a less well-heeled relation, but as second cousin to millionaire patriarch Cornelius Vanderbilt, twenty-one-year-old Emma Cross is on the guest list for a grand ball at the Breakers, the Vanderbilts' summer home. She also has a job to do—report on the event for the society page of the Newport Obse...

Thirty-year-old Lelia Snyder is devastated when her aunt Tressie dies after a battle with ALS; now shes the last living member of her family, and she feels truly alone. Even so, she manages to find joy in starting her life over, thanks to the generous inheritance Tressie has left her.Life only gets better for Lelia when she meets a blond Adonis named Jason Ferguson. The honeymoon is planned, and everything seems perfectuntil Lelia discovers a shocking truth about Jason. She flees h...

In late nineteenth-century Newport, Rhode Island, journalist Emma Cross discovers the newest form oftransportation has become the newest type of murder weapon …On a clear July day in 1899, the salty ocean breeze along Bellevue Avenue carries new smells of gasoline andexhaust as Emma, now editor-in-chief of the Newport Messenger, covers Newport’s first-ever automobile parade. Butthe festive atmosphere soon turns to shock as young Philip King drunkenly swerves hi...

With the dawn of the twentieth century on the horizon, the fortunes of the venerable Vanderbilt family still shine brightly in the glittering high society of Newport, Rhode Island. But when a potential scandal strikes, the Vanderbilts turn to cousin and society page reporter Emma Cross to solve a murder and a disappearance . . .Responding to a frantic call on her newfangled telephone from her eighteen-year-old cousin, Consuelo Vanderbilt, Emma Cross arrives at the Marble House mans...

The days are getting shorter as summer's end approaches, which means it's time for the Harvest Festival, the last big event of the season, held by Mamie Fish, wife of millionaire railroad tycoon Stuyvesant Fish, at their grand "cottage," Crossways. The neocolonial mansion is decked out in artificial autumn splendor, and an extravagant scavenger hunt will be held. But the crowning jewel of the evening will be the guest of honor, Prince Otto of Austria.As acting editor-in-chief of th...

Late nineteenth-century Newport, Rhode Island, is home to some of America's wealthiest citizens. For society reporter Emma Cross, a less well-heeled cousin to the illustrious Vanderbilts, trailing gossip and glamour will lead her straight into murder . . .Emma's job is to take note of the real players off the field—Newport's well-bred elite. But the fashionable façade is breached when a woman demands to speak to the wife of Senator George Wetmore—until she...

Following the death of her uncle, Cornelius Vanderbilt, in September 1899, a somber Emma is in no mood for one of Newport's extravagant parties. But to keep Vanderbilt's reckless son Neily out of trouble, she agrees to accompany him to an Elizabethan fete on the lavish grounds of Wakehurst, the Ochre Point "cottage" modeled after an English palace, owned by Anglophile James Van Alen.Held in Wakehurst's English-style gardens, the festivities will include a swordplay demonstration, a...

As a reporter, Emma is used to covering Newport's social events. But this time she is appearing on the arm of her fiancé, Derrick Andrews, at a small but exclusive gathering of the New York Yacht Club at Beacon Rock, the Grecian-inspired summer "cottage" of Edwin and Elizabeth Morgan. The members—which include cousin and Yacht Club Commodore John Pierpoint Morgan and widow Lucy Carnegie, the first woman to be admitted to the Club—are there to discuss their strategy for the next America's C...

1901: Back from their honeymoon in Italy, Emma and Derrick are adapting to married life as they return to their duties at their jointly owned newspaper, the Newport Messenger. The Elms, coal baron Edward Berwind's newly completed Bellevue Avenue estate, is newsworthy for two reasons: A modern mansion for the new century, it is one of the first homes in America to be wired for electricity with no backup power system, generated by coal from Berwind's own mines. And their servants—wi...

Since the Great War, some family fortunes have suffered, including those of the Renshaws. Despite being the granddaughter of an earl, Julia Renshaw is under pressure to marry for money—and has settled for Gilbert Townsend, a viscount and a wealthy industrialist. He is decades older than Julia, and it's clear to her sister Phoebe—and to Eva, who has been like a surrogate mother to the girls—that this is not a love match. Nevertheless, the wedding takes place—and in a hurry.At the re...

As England recovers from its costly involvement in the Great War, Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her lady’s maid, Eva Huntford, find the steady comforts of their lives unsettled by a local case of murder …Eva is excited for a visit from her sister Alice, who lives in Suffolk with her husband and three children. But when Alice arrives alone, desiring a break from her family, Eva becomes concerned. Her dismay deepens as Alice starts spending time with a former beau...

Following a whirlwind engagement to Viscount "Lyndy" Lyndhurst, Stella Kendrick is finding her footing within an elite social circle in picturesque rural England. Except tea time with refined friends can be more dangerous than etiquette faux pas—especially in the company of Lady Philippa, the woman Lyndy was once set to marry, and her husband, the ostentatious Lord Fairbrother . . .Outrage erupts and accusations fly after Lord Fairbrother's pony wins best in breed for the seventh c...