TO WOO AND TO WED by Martha Waters; Atria, 2024; 322 pages, $17.99; ISBN 978-16680-0792-1.

TO WOO AND TO WED

Comedian Alan King once said: “If you want to read about love and marriage you’ve got to buy two separate books,” but he was wrong. Clearly, he had never read any of the Victorian romance comedies in the “Regency Vows” series by Portland author Martha Waters. She combines both beautifully.

Waters has penned five novels in her delightfully charming and funny Victorian rom-coms, and “To Woo and To Wed”  is the fifth and final book in the series.  Too bad, too, because this book is the best yet and Water’s wonderfully entertaining stories will be greatly missed. She has a knack for creating endearing characters mixed up in complex, romantic plots, loaded with jokes, innuendo, double entendres and witty repartee, all wrapped in the Victorian elegance of wealth, status and perfect manners.

It’s 1818 in Victorian England, and Sophie, Lady Fitzwilliam Bridewell, is a young widow who conspires with a former lover, West, the Marquess of Weston, to fake a wedding engagement, hoping to encourage her widowed sister, Alexandra, to marry the Earl of Blackford. Sophie’s scheme works too well as she and West are now trapped in a rapidly moving and most unwelcome plan for a joyous family’s betrothal ball and a lavish double wedding.

Complicating the arrangement is the fact that Sophie and West were once lovers seven years before, but an accident and a threatening father ruined that budding romance. Now, tied together in this scheme, they find themselves conflicted — are they still in love or not? And how will they get out of the mess they’ve created?

Plots and counter-plots (Alexandra has a plan, too) and  hilarious romantic entanglements produce a most satisfying conclusion. See? Love and marriage all in one book, and it’s great fun.

GHOST TOWN by Kirsten Reed; Maine Authors Publishing, 2023; 400 pages, $22.95; ISBN 978-1-63381-348-9.

GHOST TOWN

Nothing much ever happens in the small town of Moon Hill in northern Maine, and Al Bernard, the chief of police, has little to do but drive around and wave to folks. He is not prepared for the murders and mysteries about to descend on the town.

“Ghost Town” is Maine author Kirsten Reed’s second novel, a complex suspense thriller of multiple murders, puzzling mysteries, unexplained events, and a prickly old woman who is the gatekeeper minding the portal “between here and there.” Moon Hill isn’t a ghost town and this isn’t a ghost story, but Reed carefully weaves in a plotline that will make the reader wonder about “folks out there in the hills who aren’t on any register.”

Al and his daughter, Deb, are Moon Hill’s two full-time cops, now way over their heads when two boys and a man go missing, bodies are found at a staged murder site, a well-mannered and articulate 5-year-old girl is found in a dog kennel, and the appearance of the Red Man spreads fear.

Investigating with the help of the state police and other cops, Al links the menacing presence of the Red Man with a 20-year-old serial-murder case, but can’t make a conclusive connection. He and Deb are also baffled by the little girl who knows far more than any 5-year-old girl should know.

Adding to their worries, Deb’s dead husband may not be dead after all, and credible reports of strange sights in the woods bewilder even the most savvy forest ranger. Although too long by a hundred pages, this is an excellent tale of good people trying to solve crimes and make sense of events and behavior they can’t explain.

Bill Bushnell lives and writes in Harpswell.