Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook333 pages5 hours
Rituals: A Faye Longchamp Mystery
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Faye Longchamp doesn’t believe in ghosts, but she’s an archaeologist—dead people are her life. Yet while working in Rosebower, a rural New York town founded by Spiritualists, Faye is surrounded by people who talk to the dead on a regular basis. When influential Spiritualist Tilda Armistead invites Faye and her daughter to commune with the dead, Faye can’t say no. She’s just too curious.
Then an hour after her crystal ball shows Faye things no rational mind can explain, Tilda is dead. The evidence says that someone trapped Tilda in a small room, nailing its one door shut before setting her house afire. There is no possible way for her to have escaped the blaze, let alone drive for miles before finding Faye and dying in her arms. Yet Tilda did. How? And why?
It seems Rosebower is full of people who had reason to kill Tilda. Tilda’s estranged daughter is the heir to the Armistead fortune. That daughter’s husband is a stage magician with a long history of making things vanish. Against Tilda’s wishes, a rich developer would like to turn Rosebower into a Disneyland with real ghosts. And then there is the famed root doctor whose mysterious herbal potions are anywhere else, these people would be dismissed as crazy. In Rosebower, “normal“ is relative. As Faye watches the psychics and charlatans jockey for power, Tilda’s sister, Myrna, is slowly dying. Will Rosebower reveal its secrets before more goes up in flames?
Then an hour after her crystal ball shows Faye things no rational mind can explain, Tilda is dead. The evidence says that someone trapped Tilda in a small room, nailing its one door shut before setting her house afire. There is no possible way for her to have escaped the blaze, let alone drive for miles before finding Faye and dying in her arms. Yet Tilda did. How? And why?
It seems Rosebower is full of people who had reason to kill Tilda. Tilda’s estranged daughter is the heir to the Armistead fortune. That daughter’s husband is a stage magician with a long history of making things vanish. Against Tilda’s wishes, a rich developer would like to turn Rosebower into a Disneyland with real ghosts. And then there is the famed root doctor whose mysterious herbal potions are anywhere else, these people would be dismissed as crazy. In Rosebower, “normal“ is relative. As Faye watches the psychics and charlatans jockey for power, Tilda’s sister, Myrna, is slowly dying. Will Rosebower reveal its secrets before more goes up in flames?
Unavailable
Author
Mary Anna Evans
Mary Anna Evans is the author of the Faye Longchamp archeological mysteries, which have won the Benjamin Franklin Award, the Mississippi Author Award, and three Florida Book Awards bronze medals. The winner of the 2018 Sisters in Crime (SinC) Academic Research Grant, she is an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma, where she teaches fiction and nonfiction writing.
Read more from Mary Anna Evans
Artifacts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Findings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Relics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Physicists' Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Effigies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catacombs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlunder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rituals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Floodgates Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Isolation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strangers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUndercurrents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Burials Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwin Set Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWrecked Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJewel Box Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYour Novel, Day by Day Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Land of the Flowers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Rituals
Related ebooks
Rituals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tender Mercy of Roses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Apex Magazine Issue 117: Apex Magazine, #117 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Single Undead Moms Club Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I, Human Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWomanizer: “Knowing” Wonderful Women Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStained Glass Windows: Memoirs of a Cheater Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAbode Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKissing the Crisis: Field Notes on Foul-Mouthed Babies, Disenchanted Women, and Careening into Middle Age Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Christmas Box Miracle: My Spiritual Journey of Destiny, Healing and Hope Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Queens of the Apocalypse Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Eight Dads Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings50 Ways of Loving: One Is Killing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHook, Line, and Sinker: The Seventh Guppy Anthology: Guppy Anthology, #7 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnseen Darkness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLong Time No See: Diaries of an Unlikely Messenger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Knuckle Balled: Knucklers, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Kiss Is The Secret: Inklet, #60 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove Fraud - How marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan (Abridged edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Between Darkness and Dawn Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBetween Now and Forever Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhen Secrets Die Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing Time: Physics, Lust and Greed Series, Book 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWitch's Nocturne: Moonsongs, #2 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Bride of Manhattan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJust Cause Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spent: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homegrown: The Nashville Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Mystery For You
Dean Koontz: Series Reading Order - with Summaries & Checklist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pretty Girls: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life We Bury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5None of This Is True: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"A" is for Alibi: A Kinsey Millhone Mystery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Club: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kept Woman: A Will Trent Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summit Lake Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Flight: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finlay Donovan Is Killing It: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jack Reacher: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The River We Remember: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hunting Party: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5False Witness: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hidden Staircase: Nancy Drew #2 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Pharmacist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The ABC Murders: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pieces of Her: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Word Is Murder: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The People Next Door Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Did I Kill You?: A Thriller Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Woman in the Library: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Agatha Christie Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder at the Book Club: A Gripping Crime Mystery that Will Keep You Guessing Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Reviews for Rituals
Rating: 3.8187500799999996 out of 5 stars
4/5
80 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The setting didn't appeal to me at all (even with the historical info. included at the beginning). I also was unclear on why Faye needed so much money. Yes, I know, something with the house, but I never quite put my finger on how it got to that point. I think my biggest obstacle was the same one that I had with the premise of Isis (TV show)--if someone is an archeologist (and supposedly a good person) I can't see how they'd remove items from a dig (official dig or not) willy-nilly. It would just seem to go against their character.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved it!! Not a PI, not FBI, not even PD. She's an archeologist that solves cases, whether they want her to or not! ;) When you are meticulously working through layers of dirt, on occasion, things you are not expecting show up. And people don't like it when their buried stuff is found. This series is going to be a great read. So glad I stumbled on it!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Easy read; enjoyable story. Likeable characters mostly. I liked how the history of Faye's ancestry was slowly revealed.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5ARTIFACTS was an entertaining mystery. Faye Longchamp was an archaeology student until she was forced to drop out to take care of her mother and grandmother. Paying their last bills has made it impossible for her to return to school and threatens Faye's heritage. She is spending every cent she can scrape up to maintain Joyeuse - a mansion that has been passed down in her family since slave days. She earns most of her money doing black market archaeology and selling artifacts she discovers mostly on her family's land. She also has a job working for a dig run by one of her university professors. But when two of the student archaeologists are found murdered and buried, the dig is halted leaving Faye in even more need of money.When she is digging in a previously unexplored corner of land, she discovers bones. These aren't ancient. She identifies an earring that was popular in the 1960s. However, since she was digging illegally, telling anyone about the body threatens all her secrets. So she decides to investigate on her own not knowing that the murderer is still around and wants his secrets to stay buried too.I liked the multiple timelines that were woven together in this story. Faye discovers a diary that tells the stories of some of her ancestors who also lived in Joyeuse and those stories are woven into the contemporary story. Time also flashes back to when the girl whose bones Faye discovers lived and died.I liked the variety of characters. I liked the Florida panhandle setting. I liked the added tension that a hurricane taking aim at them brings to the story too. I also like that this is the first of what is currently a twelve-book series.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Great voice, great read and great characterization on the protagonist. I would have liked to see a lot more 'real' archeological plot as the dust jacket hinted. Those are the stories I love best. But as I always say, a solid story is a solid story and this was a solidly entertaining story-not to mention a very quick read.
I look forward to reading the next installment! - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In Evans’ mystery novel, archeologist Faye Longchamp is determined to save history. With all the work her falling down mansion requires, she finds herself illegally selling artifacts she finds in the area as she works to stay off the grid of the authorities. But when two of her archeology students are murdered, and her friend Joe Wolf Mantooth is arrested for the crime, the media frenzy forces Faye to work the clues to find a killer before she loses everything that’s important to her.A fast-paced addition to A Faye Longchamp Mystery series.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Faye Longchamp owns a house on a barrier island near the Florida panhandle. It has weathered great storms, difficult times and many owners, the last of which is Faye who is a descendant of a slave. This slave, Cally was granted her freedom and the mansion which was made of local materials sturdy enough to withstand the tests of time but it does need human help.
Faye who is an archeologist reveres the past and is doing her best to keep up the house but turbulent happenings are surrounding the once peaceful area. There have been murders of some local students and the bones of past murders have surfaced as well.
Fave and her companion on the island Joseph Mantooth are in murky water indeed as a storm develops in the gulf that threatens both the house and their lives, but the murderer on the loose is the more clear ad present danger.
I enjoyed the characters, the history and the Florida ambience. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really liked the last 2/3rds of this book but almost didn't get there. With a lot of character and a lot of history to try and get in too much of it was sort of "dumped" at the beginning which made it slow going. I'm glad I continued because this is an interesting mystery and the peeks into the historical is fascinating, especially the life of slaves in the Florida panhandle. I would highly recommend the book with the warning that it does take a while to get to the meat of the story.
I will be looking for the next in the series because I ended up caring about Faye, an archeologist who has had to do some things she hated in order to survive and Joe a Creek Indian, who is slow in book learning, but a genius in wilderness survival and living life simply. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A rivoting mystery about a strong female lead character with a problem: money. The story keeps you turning pages and leaves you satisfied while avoiding caricatures. Yes, Faye is a loner, but what detective worth his or her salt isn't? She's a scofflaw with morals, and her supporting cast is finely and sympathetically drawn.Evans weaves in a multi-generational plantation history of Faye's home, Joyeuse Isle (cleverly named from a Debussy composition), perched on the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast of Florida.Satisifying to feminists, history buffs, those with an interest in archeology and meteorology, and just plain old mystery lovers. The author's background as a scientist, musician, and mom help her create a believable and well developed world full of characters to care about. Fans of Sue Grafton, PD James, and Sara Paretsky will enjoy this book.I can hardly wait to read Relics, Faye's next adventure.