Face Down Beside St. Anne's Well (Lady Appleton Mysteries) [Paperback]

Kathy Lynn Emerson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Lady Appleton Mysteries | Publication Date: April 2006

Are the nude spies lolling in the ancient Roman communal baths of Elizabethan England plotting the return of Mary Queen of Scots’ She is said to be clamoring to return to these healing waters. Once again Susanna, Lady Appleton, encounters murder and treason, and only she can unravel the crimes in the intriguing year of 1575. Rosamund, Susanna's twelveyearold foster daughter, is certain her French tutor has been murdered. Rosamund and her friends are quite modern: they cut school, rebel against authority, and giggle over secrets. But can teenage mischief be construed as spying and treason’ These are most significant matters to the Elizabethans, as the wrong religion, the wrong marriage, the wrong friends...may all be seditious.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set in Buxton, Derbyshire, in 1575, the 10th entry in Emerson's Elizabethan historical series (Face Down Under the Wych Elm, etc.) smoothly mixes engaging characters, political intrigue, period customs and crime. Rosamond Appleton, the impetuous 12-year-old foster daughter of Susanna, Lady Appleton, is horrified when she learns that her French tutor, Madame Louise Poitier, has drowned face down in St. Anne's Well. Unable to accept the crowner's ruling of accidental death, Rosamond calls on Lady Appleton to investigate. Conspiracies and murders surrounding the imprisonment of Mary Stuart, the abdicated queen of Scots, complicate the process, but Lady Appleton and her friend and housekeeper, Jennet Jaffrey, as ever rise to the occasion. Those readers who need help keeping the characters straight can refer to a list at the front. There's also a glossary of unfamiliar Elizabethan words. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

Susanna, Lady Appleton, herbalist extraordinaire and amateur detective, returns in an all-new mystery fraught with plenty of sixteenth-century intrigue. When her stepdaughter's French tutor drowns in the soothing waters of one of Buxton's renowned naturally heated baths, Susanna is compelled to investigate. With the help of the precocious 12-year-old Rosamund Applegate and her ever-faithful housekeeper and friend Jennet Jaffrey, Lady Appleton unravels a tangled web of passion, deceit, and possible treason. As usual, the twisted affairs of state provide a colorful backdrop for Susanna's machinations, as Tudors and Stuarts vie for both political and religious power and control. Like Edward Marston in his Nicholas Bracewell series, Emerson steeps her period whodunits thoroughly in Elizabethan-era manners, language, and historical detail. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 231 pages
• Publisher: Perseverance Press (April 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880284820
• ISBN-13: 978-1880284827
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,300,237 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Ho hum, June 21, 2009

By 

Cheryl A. Reynolds "Spuddie" (Minneapolis, MN, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Face Down Beside St. Anne's Well (Lady Appleton Mysteries) (Paperback)

#9 Lady Susanna Appleton historical mystery set in Elizabethan England with all its political intrigues. Rosamond, Susanna's 12-year-old foster daughter (the child of one of her dead husband's mistresses) involves Susanna in an investigation involving the death of her French tutor at St. Anne's Well. It's been declared an accident, but Rosamond is sure she was murdered, so Susanna and her housekeeper Jennet are off to supposedly take the baths at nearby Buxton while looking into things. What they discover is a whole nest of plotters to put Mary Stuart back on the throne--but was Madame Poitier's death related to that, or to something personal?

This was a fairly typical entry in this series, an easy light read, good period detail and a relatively interesting story. However, I have to say that this series has really lost its shine for me. I absolutely loved the first few, but depsite the fact that I recognize that it's a decent book, I found that it felt like work getting through it. Not really sure why, perhaps it's the lack of Susanna's character development as the series has gone on--she seems to have become much less interesting than she was early on in the series.

I do know that I'm glad I got this one from the library rather than spending much effort tracking it down myself and spending money on it. I'm not sure if I will bother with the last one in the series or not.

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Price Makes No Sense, June 3, 2009

By 

Lisa Small - See all my reviews
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Amazon sells this book for just over $11 new. Just search on the title and you'll find it. For some reason, this entry doesn't show the ISBN numbers, and Amazon's "add to description" feature doesn't let you add it. Attempts to put the URL for the better price into the "reference URL" section also failed.