Murder for the Marquess and Other Upstairs Disasters

A Cozy Regency Mystery of Love and Murder

By: Marisa Paxon

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

I am the narrator of this book, which means I have already hauled you through an entire country house full of ringing bells, bruised dignity, and people lying to my face about tea, and now they have decided I must also sell it. Apparently murder is not labour enough, I must do marketing too.

Bramblewick belongs to a marquess who prefers not to notice how his own house runs, which is a charming hobby until the morning the stillroom key goes missing and the butler turns up dead beside a tray meant for His Lordship. Prudence Ashdown, head housekeeper, keeper of keys, and the only person here who can tell the difference between a bell’s mild irritation and a bell’s full panic, has one job: keep the scandal from swallowing the staff, the estate, and the fragile respectability she clawed back with sheer competence.

Unfortunately, corpses do not respect competence. Neither do magistrates. Nor do guests with polished smiles and pockets full of opinions. So I get to watch Prudence follow the only honest trail available in a grand house, the one made of bell pulls, borrowed keys, sugar jars, rat powder, and the quiet certainty that someone is counting on servants being invisible. Lord Vellamere, meanwhile, makes the deeply inconvenient decision to listen to her, and listening leads to questions, and questions lead to the sort of partnership that polite society calls improper, mostly because polite society enjoys being wrong.

Perfect for readers who want upstairs, downstairs sleuthing, sharp banter, a formidable housekeeper heroine, a vexingly competent marquess learning to open his eyes, and a murder mystery that rewards your attention without turning gory.

Expect a clue-rich Regency whodunit with a satisfying, logical reveal, plus a closed door, slow burn romance with a hopeful HFN, all wrapped in the kind of dry, elegant chaos only a well-run household can produce. Now, please, click Look Inside and pull the bell, I have pudding to supervise and lies to untangle.