I can't believe I waited so long to read this!

Peril at Pennington Manor is the second book in Tracy Gardner's Avery Ayers series. I did go back and read Ruby Red Herring first, because that's always how I approach a series, but while you'd miss a good story in the first book, you could enjoy this one as a standalone.

I appreciate being immersed in the art world with these titles. I also really like Avery as a character... she's not perfect, but she cares deeply about her people and she doesn't make constant bad decisions to prove her independence. I also enjoy the budding relationship in the storyline.

Really hoping this series is continued, as I feel there were a couple of good plot points hinted in the final pages of this book. 4.5 stars rounded to 5.

Thanks to Net Galley and Crooked Lane Books for the complimentary digital review copy of this title.

This was an entertaining cozy mystery book and the writing was outstanding. I read this out of order and the book stood up well as a standalone. It was well paced. The plot was engaging. I would love to be an antiques and artifacts Appraiser, it sounds so interesting! I also love history so that factors into it. The plot kept me guessing with plenty of red herrings (which is ironically part of the first novels title). The characters were likable. Overall, this was a thoroughly enjoyable read and I can't wait to see what these characters get up to in the next installment of this series.

What started out as an amazing opportunity to catalog and appraise a manor full of amazing antiques becomes a mystery of reproductions and murder, with a dash of aristocratic drama and a hearty helping of truth and trust. Many suspects to choose from but who has the most compelling motive? was it for money, love/jealousy, or envy. just as many red herrings as there are suspects to keep you not only guessing but also page turning. The only time I lingered on a page was to to look up the recipe to make baked chicken with tomatoes and capers, delish!

I really enjoyed book 1 and I loved this one just as much! Avery and her sister are getting life figured out again now that their dad is home. Not only is there a murder, but the antiques have been replaced with fakes. I love how Avery's mind works and how her family and friends create a fun team. I am really looking forward to the next book.

Princess Fuzzypants here: Avery is still coming to terms with the events of the past year. Her father and sister are struggling too but all this must be set aside when Avery and her father and their business colleagues are hired to assess the value of various antiques in Pennington Manor. The Duke is going to sell the home and wants to see what he has before he decides what to sell and what to take back to his country. It starts out as more than an ordinary job but things get very interesting and very deadly quite quickly. First, Avery discovers that some of the treasures have been stolen and then one of the staff is murdered.

Avery is teamed up with her former boyfriend, Art, a detective, to try and suss out what is going on behind the scenes. And with all sorts of secret passageways, there can be a lot going on. As she goes about evaluating the items, she is also listening for any clues to either mystery. It is only when she is able to backtrack the stolen goods that she and Art unravel the conspiracy. But as they investigate, things get very dangerous indeed. There are some tight situations for both of them but never does Avery do anything dumb. I like that. She works with Art and the other detectives and does not overstep or treat them like they were idiots. It does bother me when the heroine goes off on a tangent.

I do like the series as the characters are intelligent and I always learn something new about antiques. It was an enjoyable read. And adding kittens to the mix just made it better. Five purrs and two paws up.

Till date, I have only ever read a few cozy mysteries and they very rarely connect with me. But the summary of Peril at Pennington Manor caught my interest and I decided to give it a try - I am very glad I did so. It is the second book in the Avery Ayers Antique Mystery series. I hadn't read the first book in the series but still I was able to follow the story mostly.

This book primarily follows Avery Ayers and her team of antique appraisers, when they are invited to appraise the contents of a Duke's manor and they are mired in the mysterious events occurring in it, particularly in the murder of the housekeeper. The extraordinary circumstances prompt Avery to once again start her amateur sleuthing, particularly help the police gather information about the inmates of the manor, along with her ex-boyfriend Art. Who is behind the nefarious activities? Why are they doing it? Read the book to know the answer to these questions.

Tracy Gardner is a very good writer who has a crisp and very clear writing style. She is able to pull in the reader from the very first page of the story and manages to hold our attention throughout by throwing in several small mysteries relating to the secondary characters. We are not only invested in finding out what is happening but also eager to find out what is it going on with the other characters as well. I loved the way she has written the development of Avery and Art's relationship; it is very organic and romantic.

Overall, Peril at Pennington Manor is a very well written cozy mystery which manages to entertain the reader completely. Do check this book out if you are into interesting cozy mysteries.

Meh. VERY heavy on the mystery and not enough cozy characters and setting. This one just didn't hold my interest unfortunately. There was too much drama for a cozy mystery.

It was one of a ride in this story. There a lot of characters yet so much for the motive of the killer. I kind of predicted the killer and I like how the author were able to connect the stories without changing anything from it.

The second in the Avery Ayers Antique series continues with the friends and families who were so engaging in Book 1. The setting for the mystery in this one is perfect, and the Pennington family is quite captivating.

Even though this one is strong, I enjoyed Book #1 much more, a rare occurrence with a cozy series. For a bit, we have a love triangle with tingling and zinging. I get the purpose, but it’s a little hokey for my tastes.

Gardner’s highly sympathetic character development and skilled story building more than make up for my personal preferences. The series is still a winner.

Thank you to Tracy Gardner, Crooked Lane Books, and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is the 2nd installment in the Avery Ayers Antique mystery series. Avery is on an assignment with her Father and their company appraising antiques for a friend of her Aunt Midge’s Nicholas Pennington (Duke of Valle Charme) who is in the process of selling the family estate in America. Avery is excited to be working on such a unique assignment with her Father (who in the previous novel she thought was dead and he was in protective custody) along with their associates Micah and Sir Robert. Immediately they sense something is off at the estate and some of the family members are very icy towards them and they soon find several expensive items either missing or fakes. Then the housekeeper Suzanne is found dead after a fall from the roof. The police cannot rule out suicide, however all indication is that this is murder. Art Smith who was Avery’s love interest and they broke up has reached out to try and get back together and since he is a police detective he decides to go undercover as another member of Avery’s firm to protect her and her co-workers. This was a good solid mystery with lots of family dynamics in not only Avery’s family (her sister returns from her first semester in London) and those of the Pennington family. I really enjoyed this story and appreciated Avery’s honesty with Art and how they work their way back to each other. Love the family dynamic and how well everyone works together and they help each other out. I loved the first book and this one was just as good. Looking forward to the next installment.

Tracy Gardner involves Avery Ayers and her family appraisers in the antiques at Pennington Manor, the home of a ruling Duke of Valle Charme and his connections. The Ayers find that antique items have been replaced by worthless copies and a staffer falls to her death. Peril at Pennington Manor reaches out to the family and staff of the Duke and the appraisers. Meanwhile Avery is trying to sort out her romantic relationships. Great cozy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The plot was a bit different from other cozies I've read.

Avery Ayers is an antique appraiser. This has been the family business for some time and she is very good at it. Now, Avery isn't just a working girl, there must be money somewhere in her family because her aunt lives in an apartment that sounds pretty spectacular in New York City overlooking Central Park. And she's good friends with a royal family from a small European country. In fact, it is thanks to Aunt Midge that Avery's family is appraising antiques for the Pennington family. While working on the appraisals, first a woman dies (is it suicide or murder? you already know the answer to that one) and a valuable watch is discover missing. Later they find that other valuable items have been replaced with forgeries.

Avery is pretty likable as a protagonist. She is fairly good at obeying commands ("Stay here!") although she does act on her curiosity at times. She has recently reconnected with an old boyfriend when she is thrown into the mystery which also has another former boyfriend working with the police on the case of the dead woman.

I found it interesting that the author talked about some of the methods used to authenticate an art item.

There is a subplot concerning Avery's sister Tilly who was attending school in England. (Why not as there's obviously enough cash in the family to pay for college there along with the airfare back and forth.) I don't think the subplot was at all necessary to the story. It never tied into the main storyline.

This is obviously the second book in a series as there are many references to things that happened in the past in an attempt to explain some of the personal dynamics involved. And of course, you can't have a cozy mystery without knowing what everyone eats and wears. But those things for some reason didn't bother me as much in this book as it does in some others. Perhaps I was so engaged in the art thefts that I really didn't notice/mind the food and clothing.

I like Avery enough to want to read more of her adventures and hope that each book has a unique quality to it and doesn't just follow a formula for cozies.

A beautiful castle located on the Hudson River, owned and used as a second home by the patriarch of a dysfunctional family of European aristocrats, is the setting for the second book in the delightful Avery Ayers Antique Mystery Series.

Avery Ayers, whose family owns an antique appraisal firm, is hired by Duke Nicholas (“Call me Nick.”) Pennington IV to appraise the many antiques in the castle so that they, along with the castle itself, may be sold, much to the chagrin of his adult son, Lord Percy. Mystery is in the air at the castle. When a woman named Suzanne, who works there as a housekeeper, falls or is pushed from a parapet, Avery teams up with the boyfriend with whom she recently broke up, to investigate Suzanne’s death which might well have been a homicide.

Making murder even more likely, only a year before, another young woman named Tia who was also employed at the castle was found dead under mysterious circumstances. Meanwhile, while doing her appraisal work, Avery discovers that several of the Duke’s valuable antiques have been replaced by fakes. Soon, Avery and Art, along with Detective Carson, who is the lead police investigator on the case, are hot on the trail to try to solve what appears likely to be both a murder and a series of antiquity thefts.

Suspects, including family members and household staff, and possible motives abound. It seems that Duke Pennington’s sons, Lord Nico, the firstborn heir apparent, and his younger brother, Lord Percy, an apparent wastrel, have secrets that might implicate them in the crimes. Then there’s Lord Nico’s inscrutable wife, Lady Annabelle, with whom he shares two daughters, and the girls’ nanny, Gretchen, with whom Lord Nico may or may not be carrying on an affair. It’s also under consideration by the police that if Lord Nico had been carrying on an extramarital affair with Suzanne, it would give not only him, but also Lady Annabelle and Gretchen a motive to have murdered Suzanne.

Then there are the household staff, starting with the prickly Mrs. Hoffman, the cook, and her taciturn husband, also a household employee, who have for many years lived in a house on the castle grounds and will not only lose their jobs but have to leave their longtime home once the castle is sold. Other suspects include Lord Pennington’s driver, the groom who takes care of Lord Percy’s polo ponies, and
Suzanne’s cousin Gregory Lightfoot.

The characters are interesting and there are several twists and turns in the well-developed plot. The only criticism I have is that there seemed to be an overabundance of characters such that some of them seemed underdeveloped and others seemed perhaps unnecessary to have been included in the book. That having been said, I very much enjoyed reading Peril at Pennington Manor and look forward to reading the next book in the series.

This is the first book by this author that I have read. I was misled by the cover and the name of the book, thinking that it was an historical cozy mystery but it’s not. It is set in 2021. So I was a little disappointed as I usually only read historical books. As I started to read I thought it might be good but found that there was everything but the solving of a murder and thief going on. I was well over the story by the time I got halfway through the book. It just seemed to jump all over the place with no real direction. There were just too much of other things going on and the relationship the main character has with others was not well written. I received this as an ARC from NetGalley and freely give my review.

Another book that I should have given up on after the second chapter. First off, you need to get used to choppy writing. Second, I don’t know about others, but a main 20-something character that can’t decide between two men until she goes on a date, all the while trying to solve a murder, is wearing thin. Then add a manor house in Hudson Valley, with an extensive collection of family heirlooms dating back centuries, which should take more than a few days to appraise.

The first book in the series, Ruby Red Herring, was only a so-so-read for me. Unfortunately, this book has put a final nail in the proverbial coffin.

This is the sophomore installment in the Tracy Gardner’s antiques-themed mystery series. A friend of Aunt Midge has asked them to appraise his artifacts in his castle-like mansion. Immediately, they discover a pocket watch missing and shortly thereafter a death.

I liked the relationships between the characters, the topic of plagiarism, and self-growth. The characters are developing nicely, the love triangle is resolved, and the mystery is engaging.
I liked this book.

The twists and turns were great! I received an advanced copy from Netgalley and am not required to provide a positive review.

Avery Ayers is an antique appraiser, along with her father William, and partners Micah Abbott and Sir Robert Lane. They've been given the opportunity to appraise and inventory items throughout Pennington Manor, one of the duke's homes. During the appraisals, Avery and Micah discover that there are fakes among them. But before she can bring the duke this news, housekeeper Suzanne Vick falls to her death from the top of the manor.

Now there is a murder investigation, and Avery realizes that it could be any one of the household who pushed her. Joining the group as part of their team is Detective Art Smith -- one time boyfriend of Avery's who wants to be so again -- and Avery is beginning to realize that she wants that, also. But their relationship issues are on the back burner as they work to discover a killer -- any way they can -- before the murderer does so again.

Now they're wondering if the death is tied into the thefts, and if the previous housekeeper was part of it, too. But with a household of disgruntled employees, and the duke's sons not happy, either, who is the killer? Time is not on their side, but a killer lurks close by, and Avery may find herself in a permanent time out...

This is the second book in the series and I must say that I enjoyed it quite as much as the first. It had a mystery that began almost at the beginning, which gave us time to garner clues and look for the killer. But with the appraisers finding that many of the items have been stolen and replaced with fakes, they also have to find out who the originals were sold to, and who the party was who sold them, This is going to take time, and in the meanwhile, Art and Avery are paired to quietly check out the household for clues.

In the subplots, Avery's sister Tilly is home from England with a secret to tell and a big decision to make; neither of which she is willing to come forward with as yet. Avery is training for a 26 mile marathon, the longest she's ever done; and her relationship with Art is one again moving forward after he decides to open up to her. Then there is a very cute addition, and one I love.

But I do love learning about antiques. If I could afford it, I would have them in every room instead of just the ones my parents left me. They have so much history to tell, and I love hearing about it as they go. (Others might not, but I do).

When it gets toward the end, Avery and Art are close to finding the killer, but then an incident occurs that almost stops them until it is finally all put together and why. One may never know what pushes a killer to do what they do, but it is sad in a way, yet a deranged mind will never be able to reason. I did love this book as much as the first. Ms. Gardner is indeed a talented writer and I look forward to the next in the series. Highly recommended.

Peril at Pennington Manor by Tracy Gardner.
Book Two in the Avery Ayers Antique Mystery Series
Published by Crooked Lane Books

Avery Ayers and her team have been hired by Duke Nicholas Pennington to appraise the contents of his Manor House on the Hudson River. A priceless missing timepiece is only the beginning of their troubles and soon Avery finds herself involved in another murder investigation.

Tracy Gardner writes characters with depth and complicated relationships. I enjoyed seeing Avery and her family and friends continue to deal with past events and grow.
At times, these details weighed down the story and it took effort to keep track of clues and suspects involved in the mystery at the Manor, while still staying invested in all the actions and emotional developments in Avery's personal life. Despite this, I thought the story was well plotted, and moved at a nice pace.
I personally loved the detail into Avery and her family, For me, it did not detract from the breathtaking atmosphere of Pennington Manor and the mystery surrounding the titled family and staff who lived there.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book provided by Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley. My opinions are my own.

This was a well-paced, fascinating mystery which taught me a lot about antiques and authenticity. Avery’s “short” 12-mile runs in book 1 now make sense since she’s training for a marathon. I loved the setting of the manor house with its priceless antiques and secret passages. I also enjoyed getting to know Avery’s sister, Tilly. Bonus points for the detective saving all the kitties!

I loved the first book in this series and to be honest, I was afraid that was a one-off [as is the case with many of the new series I have started in the past few years], but I am here to tell you that it was as good, if not better than book one [I read this in two days, only stopping because I needed to sleep]. WHOOSH what a ride.

Much like book one, this one is best going in blind. I knew almost nothing about this book when I requested it and I am glad I didn't go searching for plot lines as this was really great to read and discover things as the characters did. And these are some GREAT characters. I love Avery and how she handles life [there are some scenes that are right out of real life and how she handles what happens is so true-to-life and shows her maturity and grace] and the supporting characters are just perfect.

The mystery is good and compelling and puzzling. My only complaint is that there were a ton of characters and I tended to forget who people were and I wish I had kept a list of characters when they appeared in the book [something I recommend to future readers], but this is so very minor. The reveal was good and a bit edge-of-your-seat and there were moments I really wondered where we were going to end up at the end. I didn't know the killer [though in a rare turn of events, I knew the why from almost the beginning, which should have clued me in to the who, but I was totally oblivious. HOW glorious] and I love when that happens - it really makes the book.

I highly recommend this series - the writing is amazing, the mystery is very good and it leaves you wanting the next book ASAP.

Thank you to NetGalley, Tracy Gardner, and Crooked Lane Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.