Daughter of Ashes: A Hannah Ives murder mystery by Marcia Talley

Hannah and her husband have bought a new home.  It's by the water and it looks like an English cottage.  It's cute and Hannah loves it even if it needs some work done.  No one expected a dead baby to be hidden in the fireplace...

Severn House and Net Galley allowed me to read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published September 1st, so keep an eye out for it.

Hannah can't leave a mystery alone and when the sheriff tells her there's no way to identify the baby since it appears the birth was in 1950 or so and the baby died naturally, she can't leave it alone.  She wants to know more about the house and the people who had lived there.

She's also working on a project at the courthouse.  They found an old locked room in the basement that had many old records it it.  They are moldy and falling apart but many are still salvageable.  She agrees to work with the new county clerk and her old boss to rehab what they can.  She also hopes to find more info about the house and its occupants.  

The more Hannah discovers, the more questions arise.  One young woman committed suicide at the home by drowning in the lake.  There's an old cemetery there that someone is caring for.  Eventually she learns it was the slave's cemetery.  That's just one of the secrets of this community.

The troubles go back three generations.  Murder is a side event that will protect the monied.  And somehow Hannah has ended up in the middle of it.

Hannah is not a boring character.  She fights for what's right, stands up to those who are more privileged than she is, and doesn't back down.  I admire her.  Hannah resolves this case and puts a lot of old wrongs right.  What more could you ask for?

Tomorrow's Vengeance by Marcia Talley

Hannah Ives is back in another cozy mystery.  This time she's visiting a community for older folks.  Her friend is managing the facility.  It's for all types of folks from normal to needing full-time care and Hannah agrees to volunteer there.  While she knew some folks were on their last days, she sure never expected to find a perfectly healthy man murdered on the premises.

Severn House and Net Galley allowed to read and review this book (thank you).  It has been published, so check with your bookstore for a copy.

Hannah finds a woman there who barely survived WWII by hiding in a convent.  She lost her whole family and their belongings in the war days.  Her father had an art gallery, but he lost it to the Nazi's.  When the girls go on a casual outing to the local gallery, Sophia almost faints from shock when she finds a painting of her brother that came out of her father's gallery.  With the help of a lawyer, she sets about to try to recover her paintings.

There is a desperate person working at the life care community and that person will stop at nothing to protect their goal.  Even death is not too much. The reason for the death and the stolen paintings goes right back to greed.  As they say, follow the money.  It always seems to lead to the killer.  Love will do that, too, but it was greed in this case.

I found it interesting to read about this life care community because my mother lives in one.  There were similarities (no murder!) and it made the read more pleasant for me.  Ms. Talley throws in odds and ends of mysteries to snarl the trail to the truth.  I didn't cotton to the truth until the end of the book and that makes it a good mystery for me.  Why not give it a try?