A delightful book. Not as fantastic as I thought A Poisoned Season to be, but entertaining nonetheless. Like A Poisoned Season, the ending had a great twist that I did not see coming. This book had a bit more action in it than A Poisoned Season and I felt myself holding my breath at some points. A Fatal Waltz was a great third installment to the Lady Ashton series and I cannot wait to read the next. ( )

Lord Fortescue hosts a party at his country house where Lady Emily Ashton, her fiance Colin Hargreaves, and other guests are invited. Lord Fortescue is murdered, and the authorities arrest Robert Brandon, husband of Lady Emily's friend Ivy. Lady Emily is convinced the authorities have arrested the wrong person, and it is up to her to solve the crime. Colin has been called away on the Crown's business to other parts of Europe. Lady Emily visits Vienna where she finds herself in danger.

I'm not a huge fan of espionage, and this novel seems to rely heavily on that aspect for the plot. I enjoyed the mystery itself and the romance between Colin and Emily and even the interactions of both Colin and Emily with his former love. Lady Emily has "matured" as a detective in this particular installment and seems more focused than in previous novels in the series. ( )

Lady Emily Ashton and her fiance, Colin Hargreaves, are guests at a country house party hosted by Lord Fortescue. Lord Fortescue has made no secret of his dislike of Lady Emily, but she is still distressed when he is murdered while out hunting with the men of the party. She is even more distressed when Robert Brandon, husband of her dear friend Ivy, is arrested for the murder. Having no one else to turn to, Robert asks Emily to look into the facts surrounding Lord Fortescue's murder and to do everything within her power to prove his innocence. Her search for the truth takes her to Vienna, a city of intrigue. She has to embark on her quest without Colin, who was sent off on a confidential government mission soon after Lord Fortescue's death.

This is my favorite of the three Lady Emily novels I've read so far. Unlike in A Poisoned Season, where several problems competed for Lady Emily's (and the reader's ) attention, this time Lady Emily had an overriding purpose for her investigation. Although other problems arose during her investigation, Emily managed to provide assistance to others in need without losing sight of her main goal. The author found the right balance between the main plot and the subplots in this novel.

I did get the impression that some scenes may have been edited out of the book. I was puzzled by a reference to an appointment that the characters were aware of, but which hadn't been mentioned in the text. There was also a discussion of a threat to one of the characters made by a specific person, but even when I went back and re-read the passages involving the person who was said to have made the threat, I couldn't find it in the text. These omissions were probably all the more noticeable to me because the rest of the novel was so well done. ( )

A Fatal Waltz would be the third in the "Lady Emily Ashton" series that Tasha Alexander writes. I read the first book because there was something on the cover about "if Jane Austen wrote mysteries" and my mom bought it for me as a joke. I read the second because a friend's father somehow wound up on the cover recommending it (not exactly his type of literature...). I read the third because, having just finished a dreadful book, I needed something that I knew would be fun. And that's exactly what it was, provided that you don't want you fun to come at the cost of thought or energy.

Lady Ashton has succumbed to the suit of Colin Hargreaves (the best friend of her first husband, whose murder formed the focus of the first novel) and the pair are engaged, but somehow, they can't quite manage to make the wedding happen. First, Colin is called away for business (he's a spy dontcha know!) and then the most powerful man in England swears that he'll do all in his power to put an end to it, as he despises Lady Ashton. Well, when he winds up murdered, you'd think that might at least pave the way for the wedding (and provide the basic plot of the novel as Lady Ashton seeks to exonerate her friend's husband, who winds up as the prime suspect), but then the Queen decides that as a favor to Lady Ashton's mother, she will lend the location and her presence... next summer.

I put the basic plot of the novel in parentheses there because I'm not fooling myself... I know why I'm reading these. I like the romance of it all, and the mystery comes second. And it's hard not to put the romance first in this one, because it's not just their cute banter as to when they can get married ("I'm free this afternoon."), but we see a bit of Colin's past as a former flame turns up. She may be married and she may be Austrian, but that only makes her more of a threat to poor Emily, who's worried that she might not measure up to such a glamorous creature... particularly when the woman tells Emily outright that when Colin proposed to *her*, she turned him down because she selflessly didn't want him to become sloppy in his work and risk his life. Despite the melodrama, I was pleased that Colin was given this past love who clearly meant something to him and he doesn't try to deny it. After all, the first novel had the intriguing premise of a young woman who didn't particularly know her husband well, but when he dies, in her search for answers, she finds that she was dearly loved... and she can't help but fall in love with him, too. It was poignant and here, we see Colin allowed to have something, too. I'm not sure I appreciated it when it was blatantly pointed out the phrase being something like "we're both people who've lived" or somesuch), but it leveled the playing field. And lest yee think that the drama ended there, oh no... we've got a case of hopeless love, multiple cases of familial revenge, and a baby on the way whose father might be execute. And the whole murder case thing. We also get to run around Vienna for a while, which is nice if you've been to Vienna so you have visuals for the copious amounts of historical touchstones and location references. Just like tourists now, they couldn't get out of Wien without sampling sachertorte.

I only wish that these books didn't bother to make an appearance in hardcover, as the third novel just made its debut in paperback and the fourth is out, but I simply can't justify the purchase for fluffy fiction. So if historical romance mystery floats your boat and you enjoyed the first two, then certainly try the third. You won't be surprised by anything that happens, but you'll certainly feel satisfied. ( )

This mystery involves a cast of utterly modern characters set in 1891 in London and Vienna. The protagonist, Lady Emily Ashton, must solve the mystery of who murdered the despicable Lord Fortescue before her closest friend's husband is wrongly sentenced to death for the crime. With very little by way of clues and a few dangerous suspects, she embarks on an adventure that will bring her in contact with an anarchist and a man bent on starting war. The closer she gets to answers the higher the stakes get.

I was pretty confident that I had the mystery solved before the murder even took place. The more I read the more sure I was. In fact, I was kind of ticked that it was so easy. But it wasn't; I was wrong. Ms. Alexander did a good job of laying few clues and diverting my attention.

Honestly I have very little good to say about the book. The writing wasn't terrible but "historical texture and emotional depth", as the New York Times put it, it did not have. Through most of my reading it felt like an episode of Murder She Wrote. The characters and dialog were completely wrong for the historical setting. There was just nothing real about it. But I still enjoyed it enough to finish it. It is brain candy reading just a few notches above chick lit and made me role my eyes throughout but I never considered putting it down. It's not necessarily my cuppa tea but it has its merits and would make a fine read for those who like mysteries. It is the third book in a series. I may just go back and read And Only to Deceive and A Poisoned Season.

According to Amazon reviews the first two books in this series are much better. Many reviewers feel that A Fatal Waltz was rushed and lacks the proper character development for the new reader. Good to know. ( )