Murder, Matrimony, and the Coaching Inn Ledger
(2026)(A book in the Regency: Ghostly Grievances Society series)
A novel by Marisa Paxon
I am the narrator of this book, which means I carried the whole wretched affair from first figure to final confession without thanks and have now been ordered to sell it as well. Very good. Here is your trouble: a Regency coaching inn, a ledger with more lies than totals, one poisoned landlord in a locked office, and Flora Ainsley, the only woman in the Blue Hart with enough sense to distrust both arithmetic and gentlemen.
At the posting inn on the great north road, Flora is meant to balance accounts, placate offended rank, and survive Basil Turnpike’s whiskers. Instead she gets his corpse in the booking office, his ghost at her shoulder, and Captain Vale in the doorway, rain-soaked, exact, and far too competent for anyone’s peace. Basil, being dead, becomes even more managerial. The poison is in the glass, the receipt is wrong, the window is behaving suspiciously, and every titled guest, anxious servant, and useless male relation starts lying in a different direction. As households do when murder interrupts supper.
If Flora cannot sort the books, the apology, and the little matter of who chose Basil’s final drink, the wrong name will stay attached to the scandal, the wrong people will carry a gentleman’s debts, and the Blue Hart will become the kind of inn society discusses with lowered voices and indecent enjoyment. I had to observe the whole thing, including the part where suspicion, attraction, and bookkeeping become disgracefully entangled. No one ever considers my burden.
Perfect for readers who like sharp heroines, dry British wit, imperious ladies, clue-rich poison mysteries, hostile bookkeeping, and a romance built on competence, restraint, and dangerous amounts of mutual respect.
A Regency cozy mystery with a murderously inconvenient ghost; non-gory, clue-rich, logically solved, and paired with a closed-door slow-burn romance and a proper HEA. Also, for the orderly among you, it is a complete stand-alone in the Regency: Ghostly Grievances Society.
Go on, look inside. Flora is worth your time, Vale is worth the rain, and I have already done most of the heavy lifting.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
At the posting inn on the great north road, Flora is meant to balance accounts, placate offended rank, and survive Basil Turnpike’s whiskers. Instead she gets his corpse in the booking office, his ghost at her shoulder, and Captain Vale in the doorway, rain-soaked, exact, and far too competent for anyone’s peace. Basil, being dead, becomes even more managerial. The poison is in the glass, the receipt is wrong, the window is behaving suspiciously, and every titled guest, anxious servant, and useless male relation starts lying in a different direction. As households do when murder interrupts supper.
If Flora cannot sort the books, the apology, and the little matter of who chose Basil’s final drink, the wrong name will stay attached to the scandal, the wrong people will carry a gentleman’s debts, and the Blue Hart will become the kind of inn society discusses with lowered voices and indecent enjoyment. I had to observe the whole thing, including the part where suspicion, attraction, and bookkeeping become disgracefully entangled. No one ever considers my burden.
Perfect for readers who like sharp heroines, dry British wit, imperious ladies, clue-rich poison mysteries, hostile bookkeeping, and a romance built on competence, restraint, and dangerous amounts of mutual respect.
A Regency cozy mystery with a murderously inconvenient ghost; non-gory, clue-rich, logically solved, and paired with a closed-door slow-burn romance and a proper HEA. Also, for the orderly among you, it is a complete stand-alone in the Regency: Ghostly Grievances Society.
Go on, look inside. Flora is worth your time, Vale is worth the rain, and I have already done most of the heavy lifting.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Used availability for Marisa Paxon's Murder, Matrimony, and the Coaching Inn Ledger