In a nutshell: magical crime drama with orphans, chimney sweeps and secret societies!
Rose Raventhorpe is a girl with a talent for solving mysteries. When she hears that a young orphan has gone missing, she’s determined to find out what’s going on. In this she is helped by her butler Heddsworth, a member of a secret society of butlers, and just the kind of right hand man you need, and hindered by her ghastly cousin Herbert, who is set on one day marrying Rose, and replacing Heddsworth with his own butler too. The plot moves along at a cracking pace as the mystery unfolds, the setting is a wonderfully atmospheric and there are some great characters to meet.
This will appeal to fans of Katherine Woodfine’s The Sinclair’s Mysteries series and Patricia Elliott’s Connie Carew books. ~ Andrea Reece
It's a bitterly cold winter in Yorke and Rose Raventhorpe and her butler Heddsworth are stuck with Rose's unpleasant cousin Herbert, and his equally horrible butler, Bixby. When an orphan boy named Orpheus interrupts the Cathedral's Mistletoe Service, saying that his sister has been kidnapped, Rose vows to help. Solving the mystery will be a lot better than accompanying ghastly Herbert! But the investigation is more complicated than Rose has anticipated and will lead her and her butler friends through fancy tea-rooms, horrible factories, secret underground passages and more...Fireplace pokers are much more dangerous than you might imagine ...
Janine Beacham is a former journalist but gave up journalism to raise her family. Instead she found herself concentrating on writing fiction. She has always loved fairy tales and fantasy, and as a child would make up games for her friends to play at school. Janine once won a competition where the prize was a real-life butler – which partly inspired the secret society of butlers in the Rose Raventhorpe Investigates series. Janine lives in Western Australia with her family.
