Still Life With Murder

Books

"What a thoroughly charming book! A beautiful combination of entertaining characters, minute historical research, and a powerful evocation of time and place." -NYT bestselling author Barbara Hambly Boston, 1868: The dawn of the Gilded Age, an era of burgeoning commerce and invention, of unimaginable new fortunes and lavish excess-for some. Born into poverty, young Nell Sweeney scratches by on her wits and little else until fortune blesses her with a position as nursery governess to the fabulously wealthy Hewitts. But she soon learns that ugly secrets lurk beneath the surface of their gold-plated world. The Hewitts' eldest son, William, a former Union Army battle surgeon and the black sheep of the family, was reported to have died years before in a notorious Confederate prison. But one snowy February afternoon, his parents learn that he is, in fact, still alive-and in jail for having murdered a man while on opium. Infuriated by his son's deception and convinced of his guilt, August Hewitt forbids his wife ...