As Death Draws Near (Lady Darby Mystery Series #5)

by Anna Lee Huber

Overview

In this historical mystery from the national bestselling author of A Brush with Shadows, Lady Kiera Darby and Sebastian Gage get tangled in a dangerous web of religious and political intrigue.
 
July 1831. In the midst of their idyllic honeymoon in England’s Lake District, Kiera and Gage’s seclusion is soon interrupted by a missive from her new father-in-law. A deadly incident involving a distant relative of the Duke of Wellington has taken place at an abbey south of Dublin, Ireland, and he insists that Kiera and Gage look into the matter.
 
Intent on discovering what kind of monster could murder a woman of the cloth, the couple travel to Rathfarnham Abbey school. Soon a second nun is slain in broad daylight near a classroom full of young girls. With the sinful killer growing bolder, the mother superior would like to send the students home, but the growing civil unrest in Ireland would make the journey treacherous.
 
Before long, Kiera starts to suspect that some of the girls may be hiding a sinister secret. With the killer poised to strike yet again, Kiera and Gage must make haste and unmask the fiend, before their matrimonial bliss comes to an untimely end...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425277720
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/05/2016
Series:	Lady Darby Mystery Series , #5
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	28,222
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Anna Lee Huber is the RITA and Daphne award–nominated author of the Lady Darby Mysteries, including A Brush with Shadows, As Death Draws Near, A Study in Death, A Grave Matter, Mortal Arts, and The Anatomist’s Wife. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she majored in music and minored in psychology. She currently resides in Indiana with her family and is hard at work on the next Lady Darby novel.

Editorial Reviews

10/03/2016
Rich political background more than compensates for the slow-moving plot of Huber’s fifth full-length Lady Darby mystery (after 2015’s A Study in Death). In the last installment, the novella A Pressing Engagement, the Scottish noblewoman found love with English detective Sebastian Gage and married him despite their differences in rank. Now, in July 1831, their idyllic honeymoon is cut short when Gage’s father asks him to look into a postulant’s murder in a Catholic nunnery in Ireland. The investigation tests the couple’s mettle as a detective team, especially when a nun is killed soon after they arrive. The real focus of the story is on the political tensions between the English and the Irish, the colonizers and the colonized, which are expressed as religious tensions between the English Anglicans and the Irish Catholics in the form of the tithe rebellions. Huber conveys these intricacies with a light touch through the prism of Lady Darby’s developing political awareness. Fans of historical mysteries will be rewarded. Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for the Lady Darby Mysteries

“[A] history mystery in fine Victorian style! Anna Lee Huber’s spirited debut mixes classic country house mystery with a liberal dash of historical romance.”—New York Times bestselling author Julia Spencer-Fleming
 
“Riveting...Huber deftly weaves together an original premise, an enigmatic heroine, and a compelling Highland setting.”—New York Times bestselling author Deanna Raybourn

“[A] fascinating heroine...A thoroughly enjoyable read!”—National bestselling author Victoria Thompson

“[A] clever heroine with a shocking past and a talent for detection.”—National bestselling author Carol K. Carr

“Reads like a cross between a gothic novel and a mystery with a decidedly unusual heroine.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Huber deftly evokes both [Sebastian and Kiera’s] attraction and the period’s flavor.”—Publishers Weekly

“[Huber] designs her heroine as a woman who straddles the line between eighteenth-century behavior and twenty-first-century independence.”—New York Journal of Books

“[A] must read…One of those rare books that will both shock and please.”—Fresh Fiction

“Fascinates with its compelling heroine who forges her own way in a society that frowns upon female independence.”—RT Book Reviews

“One of the best historical mysteries that I have read this year.”—Cozy Mystery Book Reviews

From the Publisher