Monday With Kaye: "Aunt Dimity and the Summer King" by Nancy Atherton (Reviewed by Kaye George)

In addition to today being Memorial Day it is also time for another Monday With Kaye. This week Kaye reviews Aunt Dimity and the Summer King by Nancy Atherton. I’d never heard of this book which came out a month ago and is the 20^th in the series. For that matter, I had never heard of this series either which began with Aunt Dimity's Death back in November 1993.

Aunt Dimity and the Summer King by Nancy Atherton

Another hit in the long line of Aunt Dimity books. Plenty of mystery in this cozy book, but no murders.

Lori Shepherd and her husband Bill are Americans, but they’ve settled into the small English village of Finch so comfortably that they truly care about the town and its future. Bill’s father, William Willis Sr., has even moved up the lane from them, and lives at the rather grand Fairworth House. Now Amelia Thistle, accomplished watercolorist, has agreed to marry Willis, Sr. This would be a joyous occasion, except that Bill’s Boston aunts, better known as The Harpies, are coming to the wedding. If you have relatives you dislike, I dare you to put them up against Honoria and Charlotte—very nasty women. Lori lives in dread of their arrival.

With Amelia moving out of her cottage, Lori is worried about the future of Finch. It will now have four empty cottages. Many people are looking, but no one is moving in. Lori sets out to determine why. But first, Lori’s friend, Emma, has been mapping the village and its surrounds, so Lori decides to take her baby, Bess, on a walk along a path Emma has discovered. Distracted by the sight of kites flying above the neighbor’s wall, she steers the pram into a pothole. She’s startled to see an odd man perched on the wall. His clothes are casual and rumpled, but he wears a crown of dried grapevines and buttercups on his gray hair. He’s the Summer King, he tells her.

Aunt Dimity, if you haven’t met her, is an unusual ghost. She communicates with Lori by writing in a special book. She lives in the house with Lori, Bill, the twin boys, Will and Rob, and baby Bess. Mysteries abound, piled on top of each other and interwoven as Lori seeks help from her to figure out what’s happening to the village and who is responsible. And also seeks help getting through the nuptials with The Harpies.

Reviewed by Kaye George, Author of Eine Kleine Murder for Suspense Magazine