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Face Down Beside St. Anne's Well: A Lady Appleton Mystery    by Kathy Lynn Emerson Amazon.com order for
Face Down Beside St. Anne's Well
by Kathy Lynn Emerson
Order:  USA  Can
Perseverance Press, 2006 (2006)
Paperback
* *   Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth

In Face Down Beside St. Anne's Well, Kathy Lynn Emerson brings Lady Appleton back for the tenth time to solve a murder. Lady Appleton resides in England in medieval times and so is hampered by the dim view that society takes of women in general. Complicated relationships abound to add to the problem of solving the murder. Lady Appleton is foster mother to her husband's bastard child. She loves the girl deeply but despairs of the reckless twelve-year-old who seems to find trouble easily and hates the constraints placed upon her.

Plots have been afoot to rescue Mary, Queen of Scots, who is being held against her will. Could the woman who died have been involved in yet another scheme to put Mary on the throne of England? Intrigue lurks behind every tree and shrub. Including at the mineral baths at Buxton where patients take the waters in the nude and coed! When a lady in waiting is found down face down beside St. Anne's Well, Lady Appleton cannot accept the verdict of death by accidental drowning. When her foster daughter Rosamond becomes embroiled in the detecting, Lady Appleton fears for the girl's life.

This well-written story takes the reader from his/her easy chair and plops them into the medieval scene. It is easy to imagine the gowns and great halls, with servants waiting on the gentry hand and foot. A playbill of the characters in the front of the book is well placed. Many players have odd and sometimes confusing relationships, and the list helps to keep everyone in their proper role.

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