Customer Reviews

Sing It to Her Bones (Hannah Ives Mystery Series, Book 1)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Hannah Ives, downsized and recovering from cancer goes to stay with her sister-in law Connie in Pearson's Corner, on her husbands family farm situated in a quiet backwater.

On the first morning of her stay, awaking refreshed with the warm sun on her face, Hannah takes Colonel, the aging half German shepherd and half fox terrier for a walk across the sun dappled fields past the Nichols old place., Relaxed and singing, her enjoyment of the morning is shattered when whilst trying to retrieve her hat, she finds a body.

When the body is identified as that of a young girl who disappeared eight years earlier, Hannah feels an obligation to discover who murdered her.

This is not just a `who dun it', but a story of people, the pain in everyday life and how they cope with that pain. There were passages in the book that so identified with something I had experienced that they jumped off the page, but I suspect that it is something that anyone who reads this book will experience.

The story is complex and the characterisation excellent. This is a terrific book with a heroine who is vulnerable, often frightened, but not going to give in no matter what life throws at her. I really like Hannah and I want to know what happens to her next. So please Marcia, when do we next meet Hannah?. Highly recommended. Don't miss this one!

Sing It To Her Bones was an excellent mystery. I couldn't put the book down once I started reading, the pace is fast and one is never bored. It is a great book for an airplane flight for the hours do fly when reading an intense mystery such as Sing It To Her Bones. The answer is not revealed until the very end and the result is satisfying.

This is an excellent first novel by the author, and the first novel in the Hannah Ives series. I purchased the novel after reading "I'd Kill for That," a round robin mystery edited by the author.

The plot is set in a small town in Maryland. Hannah Ives has gone to stay with her sister-in-law. When a body is discovered, an old case is reopened, and suspicion falls on a number of people. Everyone is not as they seem. A lot of information was covered up eight years earlier, and things are going on in the small town. Hannah finds her own life in danger as she opens up a can of worms.

The author is from the area used for the setting. It can be assumed some portions of the plot are drawn from her own experience. The story is well crafted.

Marcia Talley was the winner of the 1998 Malice Domestic Grant.

I am certain when you open the cover and read the excerpt titled, Swan Song, you will instantly take a liking to Hannah Ives. She comes across as an honest, witty, and courageous character.

After surviving surgery and treatment for breast cancer, and a job lay-off, Hannah goes to stay with her sister-in-law, Connie, at the family farm near Pearson's Corner, an old fishing community on the Truxton River in Southern Maryland. While there she discovers a body in a well. Being the person she is, Hannah feels since she is the one who discovered the body, she has an obligation to the victim to solve the murder. This is one obligation that leads her and Connie in to some dangerous waters....

Marcia Talley is coming out of the chute strong with her first mystery. I understand this is to be a series and I'm glad to hear it. I'd like to see more about her husband, daughter and son-in-law. IMHO, Hannah Ives is going to be one of our favorite protagonists and Marcia Talley will be one of our most talked about writers.

Hannah Ivey has plenty of reasons to be upset. Due to downsizing, her firm Whitworth and Sullivan fired her after twenty loyal years with them. Paul, her spouse, a professor at the Naval Academy, has been acting strange. She is recovering from the surgical removal of her breast due to cancer. When Paul's sister Connie invites her to spend a few weeks vacationing at the family farm in Pearson's Corner, Maryland, she accepts.

On her second day at the farm, Hannah walks with Connie's dog Colonel. However, the slow moving elderly canine abruptly takes off to the nearby Nichols' place. Hannah follows, catching up to the dog at the cistern. When Colonel knocks her hat that covers her thinning hair into the cistern's water, Hannah tries to retrieve it. Instead, she notices what appear to be the remains of a human body. The police confirm that high school teenager Kate Dunbar, missing for eight years, has been found, a victim of murder. Though told to mind her business, Hannah somehow becomes deeply involved in solving a case that could prove more dangerous than breast cancer.

SING IT TO HER BONES, the debut of Hannah Ivey amateur sleuth is an event that fans of the sub genre will enjoy tremendously. The murder mystery is entertaining, but this book is all about Hannah, a wonderful lead protagonist who worries about her health, her relationship with her beloved Paul, and her future. Still, she finds the time and courage to sleuth. Using compassion without weeping, Marcia Talley clearly demonstrates talent that dexterously brings home the full gamut of emotions that impacts a family when breast cancer raises its ugly fangs.

Harriet Klausner

I found this first novel by Ms. Talley quite refreshing, not the same old murder mystery. Her involvement and subsequent investigation don't seem too far removed from reality. Hannah's experiences with surviving cancer, and the recovery ring true and add a different dimension to her ruminations. Good read, would highly recommend it to anyone!

Marcia Talley's debut mystery is a good tale - filled with very real details about Maryland's tidewater regions, and very real insights about surviving breast cancer and the way it changes personal relationships. The mystery unfolds like a car rolling downhill - slowly, at first, then gaining speed before barreling headlong to the gripping conclusion.

With the wonderful world of sailing in Maryland as the background, Talley introduces Hannah Ives, a breast cancer survivor. Talley and I are both breast cancer survivors and I thank her for taking us into Hannah's world with both passion and humor.

To set the scene: Hannah is fired from her office-manager job and decides to reclaim her life by visiting her sister-in-law, Connie. She almost loses her life while investigating murder.

This is a great fast-read. Here is an example of the author's style and sense of humor:

"I raided Connie's medicine cabinet that night - slim pickings- I can tell you. Rooting through left over vials of prescription medication that had been lying around since the Nixon administration, my hopes were raised when I discovered a brown plastic container labeled 'percocet' hidden behind a blue jar that might once have held noxema, but with the exception of some tell-tale dust at the bottom, the percocet container was empty. I fought the urge to dip into it with a wet finger. I had to settle for a nearly empty bottle of aspirin that had expired in 1995."

This title was published in 1999 and the series is still being written. But some titles are available only from Amazon.com Sellers. However, I have had excellent results with the sellers. So don't miss this series.

Added note: Tag suggestions, "lesbian fiction," and "lesbian detectives" are incorrect.

Hannah Ives is an entirely believable character who has had an unimaginable string of bad luck: breast cancer, job layoff, and a husband accused of sexual harrassment. She toughs it out, solving an old mystery in the process. I do have a criticism. Her husband seems beyond saintly when she disbelieves his side of the sexual harassment problem (although, of course, her run of bad luck gives her a good excuse.) Since every other thing about the book makes a good mystery with great main characters I accept the fact Hannah has an absolutely perfect loving husband. That kind of good fortune transcends all her recent bad luck.

I worry that the next books in the series can't be as good.

I was given this book without any info about the author. I was hesitant for about the 1st 2 pages. The book is exciting and quite surprising. It is the perfect book to take on a trip or vacation. I can hardly wait for some more Hannah Ives mysteries....and I'm not even a huge fan of mysteries. My only regret is that I didn't (or haven't yet) gotten my hands on a hardcover copy of this great book.