The Quiet Gentleman by Georgette Heyer

Gervase Frant, Earl of St Erth, has recently inherited an estate and title after the death of his estranged father.  His half-brother and stepmother are not happy that he survived the war with Napoleon, but he tries to console them by allowing them to continue to live in the castle/mansion that he now owns, but which was never his home. Then someone starts making attempts on his life.  Everyone suspects the step-brother, Martin, who is next in line to inherit, but Gervase and his stepmother's companion, the plain but canny Miss Drusilla Moreville decide they ought not jump to conclusions. Gervase is determined to stay alive while preventing a family scandal. With Miss Moreville's help, he tries to unravel the mystery of who is really responsible for the the attempts on his life. 

I checked out this book to read on the airplane on my trip to Italy.  It is not one of Heyer's most famous books and doesn't seem to be available in audio, so I hadn't read it already. It is ok, but not my favorite of the Heyer books.  Gervase is an interesting protagonist. He is wealthy, smart, and a bit of a dandy, but he is also very patient and fair with his unfriendly extended family. That being said, he doesn't let them bully him and he knows his own mind. The focus of the story is the mystery of who is trying to kill Gervase, and the character of Drusilla, and her growing regard for Gervase, almost seems like an afterthought. It is as if Ms Heyer wrote a mystery, and then someone told her she should add a romance, so she quickly added in the Drusilla character. Still, I generally like Heyer's writing style and enjoyed the book well enough to make an extra effort to finish it before the lone expired. It wasn't a bad choice for an airplane trip.

The Spindle of Fate by Aimee Lim

 Evie Mai's mother has just been declared dead from drowning when her car went off a cliff into the ocean, although her body was never found.  As Evie is dealing with her grief and trying to help her family cope, a strange monkey demon comes into her room and tells her that her mother isn't really dead.  Instead she had been kidnapped and taken into Diyu, the Chinese Hell, by someone trying to get her "spindle of fate" a magical item that allows her to change the fate of another person.  Evie discovers her mother was part of a group of mystical elders and had magical weaving powers.  Evie decides to, with the help of the other elders, to go into Diyu and rescue her mother.  A young son of a warrior elder, Kevin, agrees to go with her. Together they traverse all 10 layers of Hell to try to save Aimee's family. 

This is the first book of a new author, but in the tradition of the Rick Riordan Presents imprint.  To me it felt like a Chinese Dante's Inferno. Since the characters are going through Hell, the story ends up being pretty dark.  At one point they are swimming through a river of blood, and there are several other rather graphic depictions of the different kinds of tortures in Diyu.  It would be too much for some young readers, but I could see certain 10-12-year-old boys liking the gross-out factor. There is some snarky sarcasm in the story that helps lighten things up a bit. The author does a good job of making Aimee a very believably flawed character, and doesn't flinch away from the complex nature of her grief. Kevin is also an interesting character, and they have pretty good chemistry (though not romantic).  The author keeps the ending open for a sequel, which seems to be coming out next summer, but I am not sure if I will read it.  (2024, 304 p)