Customer Reviews

The Windsor Knot

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

 

 

This is one of the best and funniest of the MacPherson series. You won't turn a page without getting a good laugh. MacPherson's crazy family is back. This is a very enjoyable book. I recommend that you read Sick of Shadows first so that you will be familiar with the characters.

This is a deliciously funny mystery about Americans, British Royalty, forensic anthropology and getting married in haste.

Not for THAT reason. Dr. Cameron Dawson, marine biologist, gets selected off the honors list to attend a garden party given by the Queen. Due to his brother failing to forward his mail to America, Dr. Dawson doesn't get the invitation until after his return to Scotland, three weeks before the party. Dr. Dawson is less then happy--he's going to have to wear a tie. It's his American fiancee, Elizabeth MacPherson, who is royalty-mad.

The problem: she hasn't been invited. Only spouses can come and she and Dr. Dawson are planning their wedding for next summer. Unless she puts aside the careful plans that are being laid for next year and gets married in the next two weeks. She needs to arrange for leave from her academic job and risk annoying her adviser before getting her degree. The issue is complicated by the fact that Elizabeth's parents are in Hawaii--so she turns to her Aunt Amanda to cope with the wedding. Now that Amanda is off the sauce and out of the crazy bin, she's ready to tackle this small challenge of bringing off a proper Southern society wedding in two weeks.

Complications ensue. Elizabeth considers putting the entire wedding party in kilts. Dr. Dawson's ugly garden gnome goes wandering--lost, stolen or strayed? Cousin Charles goes in search of a lady love. And a local widow gets the word that her husband has just died again.

Yes, that's right.

The main problem with this crazy cozy is that the characters are a bit too much over the top. It's still great fun to read and makes a marvelous antidote any time British Royalty hits the news.

This is a cutie and a cosy although does not rank anywhere near the stratospheric heights of this author's Ballad series of novels. However, Elizabeth's pre-nuptial exploits are fun and entertaining for a quick rainy day read.

This is another great book from Sharyn McCrumb. Elizabeth's cousin Geoffrey reminds me somewhat of Archie McNally, the late Lawrence Sanders character of the McNally series. From Scotland to Georgia to the gnome's travels around the globe, this book is highly entertaining from start to finish!

I have many of Sharyn's books and love them but this one was way below par. It was slow and very boring. It is mostly about Elizabeth getting everything ready for her wedding & her cousins who are weird. The jest of the book that was any good at all was at the end of the book. I almost put it away more that one.

not my favorite

The way she swapped point of views was aboultly wonderful. I enjoyed how she could swap between people and how easy it was to folloe that.

Not having read any of the author's previous works, I happened to grab this book in the hope that it would be a light read to balance the weighty books I generally peruse. As a bit of a royal watcher myself, I was delighted with the historical tidbits and found the book to be entertaining, and filled with sparkling dialogue. As I was not familiar with the characters from the author's earlier works, I was pleased to be able to understand each of them, their inter-relationships and interactions without having to diagram a family tree. Too many other books in the middle of a series overwhelm the new reader with multiple names in an ever-exhausting cast of characters. That McCrumb could introduce all her characters without my having to make a reminder list of who was who, is very much to her credit and marks her as someone well organized and a maven in the subtle art of character description. I look forward to reading more from her when I want a delightful, entertaining read.

A friend, knowing I like to read, dropped three books on my desk this week. One I had already read, the other two were mysteries written by Sharyn McCrumb. I tackled 'Missing Susan' first and quickly finished that and grabbed 'The Windsor Knot'.
It was funny and not so convoluted that you couldn't follow why a mystery in Georgia was tied to the Queen having a tea party in Scotland.
Loved the lead character, Elizabeth MacPherson, newly minted forensic anthropologist and fiancee of a Scottish gentleman.
Not overly graphic, this book was written several years ago, as Charles and Diana were pre-divorce.

I love Elizabeth and Cameron! I also love the anthropology tidbits thrown in! These are funny and touching at the same time!

The dialogue is not stilted and flows like natural conversation. McCrumb builds her characters so that their actions seem logical. She has a descriptive use of language.