Book Review and Giveaway - Masked Intentions: A Camera Club Mystery by Kara Lacey

My Review

Bobbie Brooks is a photographer living in Stonebridge, Vermont.  She's busy with the annual harvest festival.  There is shocking murder at the festival, and another neighbor is seriously hurt there as well.  Bobbie is personally at risk, so she starts to investigate these mysteries.

I wanted to read Masked Intentions because I enjoyed the first book in this series.  These mysteries involve a lot of interesting photography details.

I really like the Stonebridge setting;  it's a picturesque small town.  We get to know Bobbie's friends and family, including her sister Alicia, her mother Fiona, her dog Darcy, and her camera club friends.  Bobbie is a widow and she develops a tentative friendship with a handsome new Irish man in town named Ciaran.

This is a complex case, with two mysteries needing to be solved at once.  Bobbie juggles her amateur sleuthing with her busy photography business, her camera club, and her mother's visit from out of town.  There are several strong suspects, and I enjoyed sleuthing along with Bobbie.  

There are several twists and surprises.  I was suspicious of the perpetrator as the story went along.

I enjoy the Camera Club Mystery series.  The characterizations are strong and well developed and the story is detailed and a bit more in depth than usual for a cozy mystery.  I look forward to the next book in the series.  I recommend Masked Intentions for other cozy readers, especially for anyone who likes small town settings, fall settings, or who has an interest in photography.

Book Synopsis

It’s autumn in Vermont, and the mountains are ablaze with color, just in time for Stonebridge’s annual harvest festival. The village is swarming with leaf-peeping tourists, and the celebration is off to a jubilant start as residents gather for their favorite kick-off event: a masquerade party on the village green. But the crisp fall air turns chilling when a party guest is found lifeless and another is whisked away in an ambulance, on the verge of death.

Photographer Bobbie Brooks vows to leave the investigation to the professionals until a tearful plea from a friend causes her to shift her focus from merriment to murder. The Stonebridge Keep it Snappy Shutter Club is on another case as Bobbie plunges into the world of herbal poisons and masked motives. The truth is concealed in the details captured through her lens. But as everything comes into focus, Bobbie finds herself in danger once again. Can she unmask the killer before the killer zooms in on her?

Author Bio

Kara Lacey is the author of the Camera Club Mysteries. Along with her husband, she lives in a tiny village nestled in the beautiful Green Mountains of Vermont—the inspiration for her novels. Kara is a photography enthusiast who also enjoys hiking, skiing, and getting cozy with a good book. When she’s not at her laptop creating havoc for her characters, you can find her rambling through the forest with her husband and spirited Labrador retriever, camera in hand.

Kara is a member of Sisters in Crime, Sisters in Crime-New England.

Author Links

Instagram https://instagram.com/karalaceyauthor

Facebook https://facebook.com/karalaceyauthor

Website https://karalaceyauthor.com

Substack https://karalacey.substack.com

GoodReads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/51886848.Kara_Lacey

BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/profile/kara-lacey

Purchase Links – Amazon – Bookshop.org – B&N – Kobo

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Giveaway

Book Review - A Thousand Painted Hours by Barbara O'Neal

My Review

A Thousand Painted Hours is a historical novel told in two timelines -- early 1900's colonial India and London, 1940 during the Blitz.  Elsie Turner lives in India with her parents when she is a young girl.  She has a strong connection with a young prince her age, Tanveer Singh.  Friendship turns to love, but they are separated when the Turner family moves back to England.  They have other relationships but their bond remains strong over the decades ... still longing to be together.

I wanted to read A Thousand Painted Hours because I love historical fiction.  I am interested in both early 1900's India and the World War II time period, so this novel was particularly appealing.

Elsie and Tanveer are both compelling characters.  The connection between them is so strong and the scenes of them together as adults are electric.  They are separated most of their adult life and part of their story is told in letters.  This novel is so much about absence and not being with the person you love.  Elsie's friend remarks:  "Your prince is a fantasy, my dear.  It's easy to love someone at a distance" (p. 213).  Later when they are briefly reunited, Tanveer tells Elsie, "The world has color again" (p. 244).

This is my first read by Barbara O'Neal and I will certainly look for her other books.  The storytelling is beautiful - with both vivid descriptions and well drawn characters.  

I love sweeping historical sagas that move through the decades, and enjoyed that aspect of this novel.  It is a long book but I found it a fast read.

I recommend A Thousand Painted Hours for fans of historical fiction, and especially anyone interested in India or England in the first half of the 1900's.

Book Synopsis

An epic, emotionally charged novel about love, art, and survival spanning 1900s colonial India to Blitz-era London by the USA Today bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids.

In the shadow of the London Blitz, artist Elsie Turner clings fiercely to her canvases, refusing to let war dim the colors that define her. The bombs test her nerve, but the struggle also stirs memories of her golden youth in India and of the long-lost love of her life.

The daughter of a British civil servant in the Himalayan station of Nainital, Elsie crosses cultural divides to forge an unlikely bond with Tanveer Singh, a Sikh prince with hopes, dreams, and far-reaching ideas. What begins as shared sketchbooks and stargazing becomes first love and a secret correspondence. When Elsie’s father is summoned to England, Elsie is severed from the world she knows—and is determined to preserve it through both her art and a connection with Tanveer that endures through the most tumultuous years of their lives.

Across four decades and two continents, Elsie navigates a journey from lush colonial India to war-torn London, amid landscapes of beauty, protest, and peril. As past and present collide, the most impossible choices and sacrifices are yet to be made in the name of love, war, and survival.

Author Bio

Barbara O’Neal is the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Amazon Charts bestselling author of twenty novels of women’s fiction, including the #1 Amazon Charts bestseller When We Believed in Mermaids, as well as The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth, Memories of the Lost, This Place of Wonder, and The Starfish Sisters. Her award-winning books have been published in more than two dozen countries. She lives on the wild Oregon Coast with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent. For more information, visit www.barbaraoneal.com.