Author: Marie Benedict

Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years’ experience as a litigator at two of the country’s premier law firms and Fortune 500 companies. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston College with a focus on history and a cum laude graduate of the Boston University School of Law. She is the author of New York Times bestseller The Only Woman in the Room, Carnegie’s Maid, The Other Einstein, and Lady Clementine. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

Photograph courtesy of Author’s Goodreads Page.

#BookReview The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict @StMartinsPress #TheQueensofCrime #MarieBenedict #StMartinsPress #SMPInfluencers

#BookReview The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict @StMartinsPress #TheQueensofCrime #MarieBenedict #StMartinsPress #SMPInfluencers Title: The Queens of Crime

Author: Marie Benedict

Published by: St. Martin's Press on Feb. 11, 2025

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 320

Format: Hardcover

Source: St. Martin's Press

Book Rating: 8.5/10

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie—a thrilling story of the five greatest women writers of the Golden Age of Mystery and their bid to solve a real-life murder.

London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.

May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering they’re stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.

Inspired by a true story in Sayers’ own life, New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict brings to life the lengths to which five talented women writers will go to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of letters as they unpuzzle a mystery torn from the pages of their own novels.


Review:

Mysterious, atmospheric, and entertaining!

The Queens of Crime is a menacing, action-packed tale that takes you back to London during 1930 and into the lives of five of the most successful female crime writers of the time, including Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, as they join together to solve the murder of a young British nurse who vanished without a trace one day while on holiday with a friend in France.

The prose is descriptive and light. The characters are independent, intelligent, and intuitive. And the plot is a well-paced, captivating tale full of red herrings, amateur sleuthing, dangerous endeavours, deduction, secrets, deception, and female friendships.

Overall, The Queens of Crime is a cosy, enjoyable, satisfying tale by Benedict inspired by real-life historical figures that I devoured from start to finish and is the perfect choice for anyone who prefers their mysteries set in historical times.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Marie Benedict

Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years' experience as a litigator at two of the country's premier law firms and Fortune 500 companies. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston College with a focus on history and a cum laude graduate of the Boston University School of Law. She is the author of New York Times bestseller The Only Woman in the Room, Carnegie's Maid, The Other Einstein, and Lady Clementine. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

#BookReview The Mitford Affair by Marie Benedict @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #TheMitfordAffair #MarieBenedict #bookmarkedbylandmark

#BookReview The Mitford Affair by Marie Benedict @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #TheMitfordAffair #MarieBenedict #bookmarkedbylandmark Title: The Mitford Affair

Author: Marie Benedict

Published by: Sourcebooks Landmark on Jan. 17, 2023

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 352

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Sourcebooks Landmark

Book Rating: 8.5/10

From New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict—she’ll have to choose: her country or her sisters?

Between the World Wars, the six Mitford sisters dominate the English political, literary, and social scenes. Though they’ve weathered scandals before, the family falls into disarray when Diana divorces her husband to marry a fascist leader and Unity follows her sister’s lead, inciting rumors that she’s become Hitler’s own mistress.

Novelist Nancy Mitford is the only member of her family to keep in touch with Diana and Unity after their desertion, so it falls to her to act when her sisters become spies for the Nazi party.

Probing the torrid political climate of World War II and the ways that sensible people can be sucked into radical action, The Mitford Affair follows Nancy’s valiant efforts to end the war and the cost of placing loyalty to her country above loyalty to her family.


Review:

Engaging, informative, and colourful!

The Mitford Affair is a timely, intriguing tale set in England in the 1930s, pre-WWII, that takes you into the lives of the Mitford family, specifically three of the six sisters. Nancy, a novelist and the oldest of the siblings whose concern for the family’s political leanings she expresses through her writing and through information she secretly gathers and shares with her cousin Winston Churchill; Diana, a true beauty whose love for the fascist movement leads to the destruction of her marriage to the Guinness heir yet facilitates an ambivalent relationship with the founder of the British Union of Fascists, and perhaps even more controversial a friendship with the Führer of Germany; and Unity, one of the youngest of the sisters who through her all-consuming Nazi obsession becomes one of Hitler’s closest companions until war is declared and tragedy ultimately strikes.

The prose is smooth and precise. The characters are spirited, self-indulgent, and cultured. And the plot is an evocative tale of life, loss, love, self-discovery, passion, war, secrets, friendship, determination, betrayal, treachery, family, espionage, and manipulation.

Overall, The Mitford Affair is an alluring, insightful, compelling novel by Benedict that does a spectacular job of highlighting her incredible knowledge and research into these fascinating historical figures whose complex lives, relationships, and political alliances are often unknown, overlooked, or perhaps just long forgotten.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Marie Benedict

Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years' experience as a litigator at two of the country's premier law firms and Fortune 500 companies. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston College with a focus on history and a cum laude graduate of the Boston University School of Law. She is the author of New York Times bestseller The Only Woman in the Room, Carnegie's Maid, The Other Einstein, and Lady Clementine. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

#BookReview Her Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #HerHiddenGenius #MarieBenedict #bookmarkedbylandmark

#BookReview Her Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #HerHiddenGenius #MarieBenedict #bookmarkedbylandmark Title: Her Hidden Genius

Author: Marie Benedict

Published by: Sourcebooks Landmark on Jan. 25, 2022

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 304

Format: Hardcover

Source: Sourcebooks Landmark

Book Rating: 8.5/10

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie and The Only Woman in the Room.

Rosalind Franklin has always been an outsider―brilliant, but different. Whether working at the laboratory she adored in Paris or toiling at a university in London, she feels closest to the science, those unchanging laws of physics and chemistry that guide her experiments. When she is assigned to work on DNA, she believes she can unearth its secrets.

Rosalind knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture―one more after thousands―she can unlock the building blocks of life. Never again will she have to listen to her colleagues complain about her, especially Maurice Wilkins who’d rather conspire about genetics with James Watson and Francis Crick than work alongside her.

Then it finally happens―the double helix structure of DNA reveals itself to her with perfect clarity. But what unfolds next, Rosalind could have never predicted.


Review:

Captivating, insightful, and absorbing!

Her Hidden Genius is an informative, heart-tugging tale set in Paris and England between 1947 and 1958 that takes you into the life of Rosalind Franklin, a young woman from an influential Jewish family whose intellect and love of science drove her to forgo an easier socialite lifestyle to wade into a male-dominated, mostly exclusionary field where she used her exceptional knowledge and unparalleled work ethic in X-ray crystallography to identify the base, double-helix structure of DNA before it, ultimately, led to her premature death at the tender age of 37. 

The prose is rich and smooth. The characters are intelligent, dedicated, and lonely. And the plot is a somewhat poignant tale of one woman’s personal and workplace relationships, struggles, disappointments, accomplishments, challenges, and achievements.

I have to admit, shockingly as a science major, that I knew very little about Rosalind Franklin when I started Her Hidden Genius, but Benedict did such a lovely job of blending historical facts with compelling fiction that I was left fascinated, impressed, and highly entertained, and more than a little intrigued to learn more about this strong-minded, extraordinary woman who has for far too long been overlooked or not credited for the remarkable impact she had on the twentieth-century advancements in science we all continue to reap the benefits of today.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Marie Benedict

Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years' experience as a litigator at two of the country's premier law firms and Fortune 500 companies. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston College with a focus on history and a cum laude graduate of the Boston University School of Law. She is the author of New York Times bestseller The Only Woman in the Room, Carnegie's Maid, The Other Einstein, and Lady Clementine. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

#BookReview The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict @RaincoastBooks @Sourcebooks #TheMysteryofMrsChristie #MarieBenedict

#BookReview The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict @RaincoastBooks @Sourcebooks #TheMysteryofMrsChristie #MarieBenedict Title: The Mystery of Mrs. Christie

Author: Marie Benedict

Published by: Sourcebooks Landmark on Dec. 29, 2020

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 288

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Raincoast Books

Book Rating: 8.5/10

Marie Benedict, the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room, uncovers the untold story of Agatha Christie’s mysterious eleven day disappearance.

In December 1926, Agatha Christie goes missing. Investigators find her empty car on the edge of a deep, gloomy pond, the only clues some tire tracks nearby and a fur coat left in the car—strange for a frigid night. Her husband and daughter have no knowledge of her whereabouts, and England unleashes an unprecedented manhunt to find the up-and-coming mystery author. Eleven days later, she reappears, just as mysteriously as she disappeared, claiming amnesia and providing no explanations for her time away.

The puzzle of those missing eleven days has persisted. With her trademark exploration into the shadows of history, acclaimed author Marie Benedict brings us into the world of Agatha Christie, imagining why such a brilliant woman would find herself at the center of such a murky story.

What is real, and what is mystery? What role did her unfaithful husband play, and what was he not telling investigators?

A master storyteller whose clever mind may never be matched, Agatha Christie’s untold history offers perhaps her greatest mystery of all.


Review:

Immersive, mysterious, and intriguing!

The Mystery of Mrs. Christie is a captivating, colourful interpretation that sweeps you away to England in the early 1900s and into the life of Agatha Christie, from her courtship by Lieutenant Christie to wifehood, motherhood, authorship, and the subsequent investigation into the unaccountable eleven days in 1926 that she was missing.

The prose is eloquent and expressive. The characters are well-drawn, complex, and authentic. And the plot, alternating between a Chrisite manuscript detailing her life and her husband’s actions and motivations following her disappearance, is an absorbing tale of life, loss, loneliness, loyalty, aspirations, heartache, retribution, and infidelity.

Overall, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie is a vivid, compelling, pensive novel by Benedict that does an exceptional job of highlighting her considerable knowledge and impressive research into this renowned literature figures life as well as a dramatic, somewhat plausible explanation for her still unexplainable disappearance all those years ago.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

 

Thank you to Raincoast Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Marie Benedict

Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years' experience as a litigator at two of the country's premier law firms and Fortune 500 companies. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston College with a focus on history and a cum laude graduate of the Boston University School of Law. She is the author of New York Times bestseller The Only Woman in the Room, Carnegie's Maid, The Other Einstein, and Lady Clementine. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.