It should be Maggie Kelly's dream come true: the first book of her best-selling Regency mystery series, featuring the dashing and brilliant Alexandre Blake, Viscount St. Just, is being made into a movie and she's been invited to England for the filming. Unfortunately, this dream is becoming more of a nightmare. To start with, a few months ago, St. Just became a flesh-and-blood man, popping into Maggie's apartment with his faithful sidekick, Sterling Balder. They've agreed to explain Alexandre as "Alex Blakely," a distant relation and her inspiration for the character in the book. Not trusting Alex on his own in Manhattan, Maggie has little choice but to take him and Sterling to England with her.
As if that wasn't bad enough, a heavy rainstorm traps cast and crew indoors with little to do but snap at each other or sneak off to the bedrooms together. Then, shortly after arguing with Maggie, the screenwriter turns up dead -- and it looks like murder.
An old manor house, cut off from help, with the electricity out and a murderer on the loose -- just the place for St. Just to take center stage and solve the mystery. After all, it's what he was created to do. And even in this strange new world he finds himself in, a murder is a murder. But the investigation gets personal when it appears the killer's next target could be Maggie herself.
Donβt get me wrong: There was plenty to laugh about
when we
first arrived in Merry Olde England to watch one of my
novels being
shot as a major motion picture. Alex was delighted with the
location (a
seventeeth-century manor house), but horrified with the
surfer-dude
mimbo playing him. I, personally, found the situation
hilarious -- then
the leading lady started rubbing up against "my" hero,
leaving me no
choice but to start a little flirtation of my own with the
lord of the
manorβs nephew. It was all very Regency House Party until the
scriptwriter showed up ... dead.
Lights,
camera...action! No, not that kind of action. Well, maybe a
little
Okay, so things are suddenly getting hot and heavy
between Alex
and me -- and our timing is atrocious as usual, what with
the murder
and mayhem. Suspects? Donβt get me started. Thereβs Mr.
Contemptuous
Director, Ms. Man-Crazy Production Assistant, Mr. Fancy
Pants English
Actor, Ms. Diva Leading Lady, and -- yours truly. Yep, I was
seen
arguing with the victim right before his unfortunate demise,
so I am,
as the Brits would say, in a bit of a pickle...
It
was a dark and stormy night...
No, seriously. Some truly nasty English weather has
flooded the
property, cutting off the power as well as access to the
roads. Plus,
someoneβs stolen all the cell phones. Oh, thereβs also that
second body
we just found. And did I mention the ghost? Mm-hmm -- the
place is
haunted. You know, it wasnβt too long ago that a scenario
like this
would have had me reaching for a cigarette. Now, it just has me
reaching for Alex...
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