My only complaints were that it wasn’t long enough and as it’s the first in the series I now have to wait impatiently for the next installment which doesn’t even have a name yet it’s so long away. I’m always after a new historical mystery series, and Cat Sebastian was one of my 2018 Obsessions as I worked my way through her back catalogue so this is practically a Venn diagram all on its own. It’s funny and snarky and has a great cast of supporting characters who – as it’s the first of a series – we should hear more from in books to come. I think you all know me well enough to know that this plot summary ticks quite a lot of my boxes – murder mystery, mid-twentieth century, secret services connection and it’s sort of enemies forced to work together. Soon Leo and James are crossing paths – one as as he tries to solve the crime, the other he tries to get his village back to normal – or at least that’s what he thinks he’s doing. Leo Page works for one of the shadowier (and possibly dodgier) bits of the British secret service and is surprised to be sent to a sleepy village to investigate a charlady’s death. But soon she’s found dead after a dinner party at the Big House and James feels like the peace of his post-war sanctuary has been shattered. After he catches his cleaning lady looking through his patient records and snooping in his flat he lets her go. James Sommers has come back from the war to work as the doctor in the village that he lived in as a child. Hither, Page is a murder mystery and romance set in Britain in the aftermath of World War Two. But this wasn’t on the original list of potentials for the Christmas post, so I don’t feel too bad about it.

Lots of stuff from it will be making appearances in other posts soon too – in fact the only thing against Hither, Page being this week’s pick is that I sort of wanted it for my Christmas reading post, which is taking longer to put together than I was expecting because I haven’t liked a lot of the stuff that I’ve been reading with an eye to including it. An embarrassment of riches on this week’s list, but I think this was my favourite.

Hither, Page by Cat Sebastian