Beauty, Beast, and Belladonna

(Paperback)

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Description

Variety hall actress Ophelia Flax knows how to win over an audience. That's why she's accepted the marriage proposal of the brutish Comte de Griffe to nettle her occasional investigative partner-and romantic sparring partner-the pompous if dashing Professor Penrose. From the author of Cinderella Six Feet Under, a beauty must solve a beastly murder. Variety hall actress Ophelia Flax knows how to win over an audience. That's why she's accepted the marriage proposal of the brutish Comte de Griffe to nettle her occasional investigative partner-and romantic sparring partner-the pompous if dashing Professor Penrose. But with his boorish table manners, wild mane of hair, and habit of prowling away the wee hours, the comte has shredded Ophelia's last nerve. She intends to disengage from her feral fiance at his winter hunting party-until Penrose, his lovely new fiancee, and a stagecoach of stranded travelers arrive at the comte's sprawling ch teau. Soon she can't tell the boars from the bores. When one of the guests is found clawed and bloody in the orangerie, Ophelia is determined to solve the murder before everyone starts believing the local version of Beauty and the Beast. But until the snows melt, she can't trust her eyes-or her heart-since even the most civilized people hold beastly secrets...

Reviews

Praise for Snow White Red-Handed

Offering a clever twist on the tales of the Brothers Grimm, this debut historical cozy introduces an attractive, spunky heroineand an entertaining, well-constructed plot that will satisfy fans of folklore and fairy tales.Library Journal (starred review)

Deliciously Gothic, intriguingly different, this story plunges us into the world of Brothers Grimm fairy tales, where the greed and evil are all too real, and everyone has something to hide.Rhys Bowen, New York Times bestselling author

[Chances] lively debut, the first in a new cozy serieswill whet the readers appetite for Ophelia and Prues next misadventure.Publishers Weekly

Maia Chance has woven a magical tale of murder, mystery and mayhem.MyShelf.com

Author Bio

A finalist for the 2004 Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award, Maia Chance is the national bestselling author of the Fairy Tale Fatal mysteries, including Cinderella Six Feet Under and Snow White Red-Handed, as well as the Discreet Retrieval Agency mystery series. A Ph.D. candidate at the University of Washington, she is writing her dissertation on ninenteenth-century American Literature.