Book Review | The Seafarer’s Secret by Carol Ann Collins

The Seafarer’s Secret is doing a Great Escapes tour with Lori Caswell, and I thought: that looks interesting and fun. And so it is! The author’s details are included, as well as a review.

The Seafarer’s Secret

by Carol Ann Collins

Secrets are revealed. Lies are exposed. And in order to have a future, William and Eva will have to delve into the past.

William Templeton, widower and police chief of Eden, North Carolina is working the scene of a local woman’s drowning when the body is found with an old gold coin in her pocket – identical to a coin that was discovered on Catherine’s body, his estranged wife, over a year ago. Catherine’s case, originally deemed a tragic accident, has been reopened, forcing William to step down as police chief.

Historian and Blackbeard expert, Eva Knightly, is brought into the investigation to help identify the coins and can’t understand why her good friend Catherine never mentioned anything about it. When more coins surface at a local church, Eva and William know it’s more than mere coincidence. With the entire town whispering about Blackbeard, cursed coins, and lost treasure, it becomes hard to separate what is true and what is a myth.

The Seafarer’s Secret is a thrilling cinematic mystery featuring the exigent slow-burning romance between William and Eva as they work together to reveal the secrets and lies of Eden, North Carolina. Though, in order to have a future, they’ll have to look deep into the past to keep from being a modern-day killer’s next victim.

My Preamble

I have been to North Carolina, although not to the coast, and my main memory is of checking into the motel and not being able to understand a word the receptionist said. The feeling was mutual. Eventually we gained some linguistic/accent middle ground and we did fine. So every now and then when I found some oddities in this narrative, I put them down to style, rather than substance. Doing that worked well, and I relaxed and enjoyed it!

My Review

The Seafarer’s Secret‘s chapters are interspersed with a (usually short) paragraph of someone else’s memoirs. This is all bound up in the Blackbeard legend, and works well. It helps even more if you remember that Blackbeard’s name was Edward Teach. The town of Eden is fully bound up in preparations for its Blackbeard Festival, which adds pressure to the situation of the locals, as thousands of tourists will descend on them. Not a good time for a body to turn up in mysterious circumstances, for the police chief to be removed from his duties, or for the local historian to get bound up in the investigation. But then, who wants life to be easy?

This elegant cosy mystery follows the patterns and rules I have learned to expect. A vast horde of characters arrive in the first couple of chapters, mostly to provide local colour, background information via gossip in the cafe, and map out the likely red herrings. I must be getting too good at this, as I fingered the perpetrator virtually as soon as (s)he arrived, but enough doubt floated around for another to go in and out of focus for a goodly while.

So… I thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked the set-up for the friendships between Eva and the rest of the crowd, and a good amount of the set-up of the mystery through the historical and art settings. If you like Noelle A Granger and Rebecca Douglass’s mysteries, you’ll enjoy this — even if it isn’t in cold wet places like Maine!

About the Author

Writing allows Carol Ann Collins to combine two of her favorite things, history and romance. Her work is a combination of historical fact, pure fiction, and a vivid imagination. Though she is an introvert who had no problem staying inside during quarantine, she enjoys traveling with her husband and two adult children. In her spare time, she is an avid book collector and bargain shopper who loves to combine the two. To date, her favorite find is an 1869 edition of Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain purchased for $10.

Website: https://www.carolanncollins.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorcarolanncollins/

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23031966.Carol_Ann_Collins

Purchase Links – Amazon – B&N – Bookshop.org – Kobo 

THE SEAFARER S SECRET TOUR PARTICIPANTS 

• May 15 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – CHARACTER GUEST POST 
• May 15 – Carla Loves To Read – REVIEW, AUTHOR GUEST POST 
• May 16 – Mystery, Thrillers, and Suspense – REVIEW 
• May 17 – Literary Gold – AUTHOR INTERVIEW 
• May 17 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT WITH SPOTLIGHT 
• May 18 – Jemima Pett, Author – REVIEW 
• May 18 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT WITH EXCERPT 
• May 19 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT 
• May 20 – Baroness Book Trove – SPOTLIGHT 
• May 21 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT 
• May 21 – Boys’ Mom Reads! – SPOTLIGHT WITH EXCERPT 
• May 22 – Ruff Drafts – REVIEW 
• May 22 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read! – AUTHOR GUEST POST 
• May 23 – Ascroft, eh? – CHARACTER INTERVIEW 
• May 24 – Brooke Blogs – SPOTLIGHT 
• May 24 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – AUTHOR INTERVIEW