Welcome to my showcase for THE FRAMED WOMEN OF ARDEMORE HOUSE which is been hosted by Harlequin Trade Publishing, Hanover Square Press,
The Framed Women of Ardemore House
CHAPTER ONE
The house was enormous. Jo didn’t know enough about local architecture to date it,
but the walls stretched up in the damp air, big and dark and lichen flecked. Windows had
been boarded up; they wept black mildew creases over sandstone sills. Staring through the car
window, Jo dropped her eyes down to the stairs, flanked by columns where Jo imagined
regal statues might have stood. Or ought to have stood.
“It’s…a castle,” she whispered.
“It is most certainly not a castle,” said Rupert Selkirk, solicitor of Selkirk and Associates,
in the driver’s seat beside her. “Not even the largest house in Abington.”
Solicitor. Jo rolled the word around in her mouth. She’d pocket it for later rumination; it was
nice to have a word for chewing on. It suggested antique leather chairs and brass lampstands,
elt safer than divorce lawyer, and didn’t trigger the same sort of gut gripe. Rupert looked exactly
as
a solicitor fought to, with a high forehead, disappearing hairline, and two very bushy eyebrows.
He also drove a puddle-green sedan with the steering wheel on the wrong side of Jo’s expectations. S
he wondered if the sense of dislocation would fade with the jet lag. It hadn’t exactly improved
her first impressions. She forgot to introduce herself, forgot the handshake, stared in absolute
stunned silence at the landscape as they drove.
Online pictures had suggested something endlessly green, but the reality was wet and ragged,
browned out from the end of winter and laced at the edges with naked tree branches.
Jo squinted into the distance, taking in the brackish heath, then trees, then fog. A cluster of
trees appeared, lanky pin oaks and a few copper beeches. A crumbling dry-stone wall s
naked away from decayed posts; no fence, but the remnants of one. She let her eyes wander its
length to a dark smudge of woodland and black bark dotted with lichen. The rest of the hill
loomed treeless, stark, and scarred by eruptions of additional stone. Moors, she thought.
Endless and rolling with dry heather and wet peat.
Jo had pressed herself to the glass, ignoring the steam prints she made. She hadn’t brought
much with her—certainly not her books. But Wuthering Heights might have been a
good choice. Relaxation breathing had never been much use to her; whenever she consciously
thought about autonomic responses, they went all wrong. So she mentally recited the opening lines
of the novel as the car grumbled to a halt in the shadow of Ardemore House. As for Rupert,
he was repeating himself.
“—Not a castle. The house is wider than it is deep, mostly to take advantage of the
south-facing aspect.” Seeing the blank look on Jo’s face, he tried again. “In England, south-facing
gardens get the most sun. That’s where you’ll find the Ardemore Gardens. They were the highlight
of the property, once. Overgrown now, I’m afraid.” Rupert swept his hand across the horizon
as if bisecting it. “Everything east of here is rented for grazing livestock. There is also,
as you know, the cottage. It helps defray the tax burden.”
Tax burden. She might want to hold on to those words, too.
“Emery Lane, my assistant, will be drawing up papers while we walk the property,”
he said. Jo was starting to run out of processing space, internally. She felt a hiccup of
emotion and press-ganged it into a smile.
“Papers?”
“For you to sign. To take over the property as your inheritance.”
The smile failed. Better say something like yes, good. Quite.
Exactly the thing. But Rupert got there first, offering her a hand out of the passenger seat.
“Your mother always spoke very warmly of you, by the way.
I was very sorry to hear of her passing.”
At these words, Jo quietly abandoned her pursuit of professionalism.
“Y-yeah. I got the card. Thanks.”
Rupert was still looking at her. She could tell, but wasn’t about to look back.
She took in the house, instead, this not-castle that rose straight out of bracken
and into a cloud bank.
“I want to go inside,” she said. Rupert joined her across the weedy lawn.
“I thought we would see the cottage first. It’s at least habitable.”
He didn’t seem to understand; Jo was standing in front of Wuthering Heights,
and no, she did not want to go poke around a cottage. Not yet.
“Inside,” she said. “Please.” Rupert sighed.
“All right. But have proper expectations. This property has been vacant for a century,
at least since at least 1908.”
Now in front of the door, Jo furrowed her brow as Rupert hunted for the right key.
That was a surprise, actually. And it didn’t make sense.
“But you said my uncle Aiden had the property? In your email—”
“Ah, but he did not live on-site. Had a flat in York, and—” Rupert stopped abruptly a
nd stumbled back. Jo followed his gaze to see a pair of bright eyes peering back at
them through the glass.
“Jesus!”
“Tut, now.” Rupert waved his hand airily. “That’s only Sid Randles, caretaker.”
A moment later, and the man himself opened the door. Lean, lanky, all arms,
legs, and a shock of red hair. Attractive in the way of highwaymen and pirates,
he was either a very well-kept forty-something, or thirty gone to seed. He was also blocking the way.
“Here’s a surprise,” he said. “This the American, then?”
“Yes. Sid Randles, meet Josephine Black,” Rupert offered.
“Jones,” Jo corrected. “It’s Jo Jones now. I mean, again.” Jo faltered slightly,
then dutifully stuck her hand out. Sid tucked an industrial-grade flashlight under
his arm and gave her a shake, then squeezed her palm.
“Sounds like an alias,” he said.
“Jo Jones was an American Jazz drummer of the Count Basie Orchestra rhythm
section from 1934 to 1948,” Jo said, then puckered her lips as if that would bring the
words back. Sid eyed her a minute, then let out a yelp of laughter, and not very kindly.
“Ms. Jones would like a tour. Sid, will you do the honors, please?” Rupert checked his
wristwatch. “I need to take this call and there’s no signal inside.” He turned away, and Sid grinned
at Jo, one crooked canine slipping over his lip like a storybook fox.
“There’s no electricity,” he said.
“I figured that’s why you have the flashlight,” Jo said, pointing. Imagining him as
Reynard from the French fables had done wonders for her confidence. She could almost i
magine the swish of his irritated tail.
“Fine, fine. Come on in.” He backed into the hall. “Hope you don’t mind the smell.”
Book Summary:
An abandoned English manor. A peculiar missing portrait. A cozy, deviously
clever murder mystery, perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Anthony Horowitz.
Jo Jones has always had a little trouble fitting in. As a neurodivergent, hyperlexic
book editor and divorced New Yorker transplanted into the English countryside, Jo
doesn’t know what stands out more: her Americanisms or her autism.
After losing her job, her mother, and her marriage all in one year, she couldn’t be
happier to take possession of a possibly haunted (and clearly unwanted) family
estate in North Yorkshire
But when the body of the moody town groundskeeper turns up on her rug with three
bullets in his back,
Jo finds herself in potential danger—and she’s also a potential suspect. At the same time, a
peculiar
family portrait vanishes from a secret room in the manor, bearing a strange connection to
both the
dead body and Jo’s mysterious family history.
With the aid of a Welsh antiques dealer, the morose local detective, and the Irish innkeeper’s wife,
Jo embarks on a mission to clear herself of blame and find the missing painting, unearthing a
slew of secrets about the town—and herself—along the way. And she’ll have to do it all before
the killer strikes again…
The Framed Women of Ardemore House
Author: Brandy Schillace
Publication Date: February 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781335014030, Hardcover
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Price $30.00
Buy Links:
BookShop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-framed-women-of
-ardemore-house-a-netherleigh-mystery-original-brandy-schillace/20016470?ean=
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-framed-women-of
-ardemore-house-brandy-schillace/1143600531
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1335014039/keywords=mystery%
20books?tag=harpercollinsus-20
Books A Million: https://www.booksamillion.com/p/9781335014030?cjdata=
Social Links:
Author Website: https://brandyschillace.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bschillace
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BSchillace
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/b_schillace/
Book’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/netherleigh/
Peculiar Book Club Podcast, Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.
Author Bio:
Brandy Schillace, PhD, is a historian of medicine and the critically acclaimed
author of Death's Summer Coat: What Death and Dying Teach Us About Life and Living and
Clockwork Futures: The Science of Steampunk. The editor-in-chief of the journal Medical Humanities,
she previously worked as a professor of literature and in research and public engagement
at the Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum. Brandy also hosts the Peculiar Book
Club Podcast, a twice-monthly show.
The Framed Women of Ardemore House, featuring an autistic protagonist caught at the
center of a murder mystery, is her fiction debut. Brandy is also autistic, though has not
(to her knowledge) been a suspect in a murder investigation. Find her at https://brandyschillace.com/
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