December 1925: Salem, Massachusetts

When Matthew Gardner, the heir to a shipping fortune, hires New York jazz singer Lizzie Crane and her band to perform during the Christmas holidays, she has high hopes that this prestigious event will foster their career and bring them riches and recognition. She’s also eager to reconnect with a handsome man from one of Boston’s most esteemed families, whom she met at an earlier visit to Massachusetts.

But the evening the musicians arrive in historic Salem to begin their engagement, police discover the body of a man near a tavern owned by Lizzie’s cousin–a cousin she even didn’t know she had until Christmas Eve. In the dead man’s pocket is a cryptic letter addressed to Gardner. To compound her dismay, she also learns that her host plans to marry his daughter to the man Lizzie wants for herself.

Soon Lizzie’s caught in the middle of a high-stakes feud between her cousin and her employer over a mysterious lady. When she digs deeper into their conflict, she discovers its roots are deep and bitter: her cousin’s father crewed on one of Gardner’s grandfather’s ships that sunk during a storm in 1868. As she struggles to piece together the puzzle and find the lady at its center, Lizzie becomes a pawn in each man’s deadly game for money and revenge.

The Goddess of Shipwrecked Sailors is an entertaining read – and not just for readers familiar with the first two books in the Lizzie Crane Mystery Series.

Combining historic crime fiction with a touch of romance, it succeeds in bringing the multitude of interesting characters to life and draws you in. It is a well-researched book with historic Salem coming to life before your eyes and almost being a character in its own right (I’ll be sure to visit Salem next time I find myself in the USA!).

Although the plot does not offer too many surprises, the book is engagingly written and will be of particular interest to readers who love the fusion of crime and romance in a glamorous, historic setting. For these readers, there is certainly hope of another instalment in this series, as at the end of the book Lizzie finds herself on a train to Boston, no doubt heading for another adventure.

Skye is the author of nearly 50 fiction and nonfiction books, many on metaphysical and spiritual subjects. She also writes a mystery series set in the Roaring Twenties featuring jazz singer Lizzie Crane. Her stories have been published in numerous anthologies internationally, and her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Her “Modern Guide to Witchcraft” has sold more than 150,000 copies and has over 3,000 positive Amazon reviews. In addition to writing, Skye is an artist, feng shui practitioner, astrologer, and tarot reader. After living in Massachusetts for 31 years, she now makes her home in Texas.

Vanessa Nitsche is a writer and actress born in London in 1971 to German parents. After attending school in Germany, she returned to the United Kingdom in 1991 to attend university, where she obtained a PhD in viral oncology. Since then, she has worked as a science writer, scriptwriter and as an actress. Cocoa the Cat is her first book title. She lives in London.