The Historic Homes Series by R.J. Koreto

12/4/2024

SERIES TOUR - THE HISTORIC HOMES SERIES

The Historic Homes Series by R.J. Koreto

Publisher: Level Best Books

Available in Kindle, Paperback and Audio

Series Blurb

Young architect Wren Fontaine specializes in restoring grand historic homes in the New York City area. She finds these homes contain mysteries, which also connect to modern crimes, all of them centered on the magnificent mansions. She's assisted by her girlfriend, chef/event planner Hadley Vanderwerf, a descendant of one of New York's great Gilded Age families.

They contain the same main characters, and can be read in any order.

Each book in the series ends with a solid conclusion.

Genres: Contemporary, Murder Mystery and Suspense, Romance

NOTE: All three books in this series take place in the present. However, my protagonists spend a lot of time researching and discussing characters who lived in the past.

Pairing: FF

The central romance is between the sleuth/protagonist, Wren Fontaine, and her girlfriend, Hadley Vanderwerf, which starts in the first book and grows and deepens throughout the series. A side romance exists between Wren's mentor, Professor Lavinia Suisse, and her wife, Angela, a prominent physician.

Overall Heat Rating for the series: 1 flame - The characters have active sex lives, but there's a kiss, fade to black, and then someone is making omelettes the next morning.

Buy Links for all books

Amazon US | Amazon UK

BOOK DETAILS

BOOK 1

Book Title: The Greenleaf Murders

Length: 250 pages

Release Date: November 29, 2022

Tense/POV: third person, past tense

Tropes: Forbidden love, friends to lovers, love triangle, great families, righting past wrongs, obsessions

Themes: Coming out, forgiveness, the importance of family, class differences, revenge

Goodreads

As young architect Wren Fontaine renovates a Gilded Age mansion and starts a tenative romance with a member of the distinguished family that owns it, she finds that both old homes and new lovers can hide dark secrets.

Blurb

Young architect Wren Fontaine lands her dream job: restoring Greenleaf House, New York's finest Gilded-Age mansion, to its glory days. But old homes have old secrets: Stephen Greenleaf—heir to what’s left of his family’s legacy—refuses to reveal what his plans are once the renovation is completed. And still living in a corner of the home is Stephen's 90-year-old Aunt Agnes who's lost in the past, brooding over a long-forgotten scandal while watching Wren with mistrust.

Wren's job becomes more complex when a shady developer who was trying to acquire Greenleaf House is found murdered. And after breaking into a sealed attic, Wren finds a skeleton stuffed in a trunk. She soon realizes the two deaths, a century apart, are strangely related. Meanwhile, a distraction of a different kind appears in the form of her client's niece, the beautiful and seductive Hadley Vanderwerf. As Wren gingerly approaches a romance, she finds that Hadley has her own secrets.

Then a third murder occurs, and the introverted architect is forced to think about people, and about how ill-fated love affairs and obsessions continue to haunt the Greenleafs. In the end, Wren risks her own life to uncover a pair of murderers, separated by a century but connected by motive. She reveals an odd twist in the family tree that forever changes the lives of the Greenleafs, the people who served them, the mansion they all called home—and even Wren herself.

BOOK 2

Book Title: The Turnbull Murders

Length: 260 pages

Release Date: September 12, 2023

Tropes: Romance, past wrongs, class differences

Themes: Obsessive love, jealousy, family ties

Goodreads

Young architect Wren Fontaine, along with her girlfriend Hadley, renovates a 200-year old house for movie star Nicky Tallon, and finds a pattern of murder that connects a long-gone sea captain with Nicky's two enigmatic girlfriends.

Blurb

Movie star Nicky Tallon selects architect Wren Fontaine to renovate Turnbull House, where he'll be filming his next movie. Even to Wren, used to old homes, this one is a 200-year-old federal-style home on a private island in New York harbor, designed by the most celebrated architect of the day. But Turnbull House hides many secrets, such as the disappearance of the sea captain who built it. That's just a historical curiosity, until a studio executive no one likes is killed.

Wren just wants to keep her worksite safe, but then another murder occurs, and she starts noting eerie connections between the mysteries surrounding the Turnbull family and Nicky and his entourage. The handsome star seems to have two girlfriends, a childlike folk singer and a cynical fashion model. Meanwhile, renowned actress Veronica Selwyn renews a friendship with Wren's father, which Wren finds more disturbing than she wants to admit. She concludes it's time she and her girlfriend Hadley take the next step and find a place together, an exciting but stressful change.

As the attacks continue, Wren realizes she will have to solve the mysteries surrounding Captain Turnbull and Nicky Tallon. Turnbull House speaks of order and harmony, and Wren must dig deep to see how the house has affected its owners, old and new. Fortunately for her, the eminently practical Hadley is by her side, pepper spray at the ready—because a frighteningly clever killer is about to find that Wren is getting too close to the horrific truth.

BOOK 3

Book Title: The Cadieux Murders

Length: 238 pages

Release Date: October 15, 2024

Tropes: Forbidden love, great families, righting past wrongs

Themes: Obsession, the importance of friendship, the importance of family, the difficulties of coming out and LGBTQ acceptance.

Goodreads

As young architect Wren Fontaine, along with girlfriend Hadley Vanderwerf, works on a twisty modernist house, built 70 years ago by a renowned architect as a gift of love for its owner, the pair finds that not everyone appreciated that love—and someone is crossing the line into obsession.

Blurb

The ink is still wet on the contract, but Wren Fontaine is already running into trouble as she renovates Cadieux House, a modernist masterpiece on Long Island's exclusive Gold Coast. The home's architect was the brilliant and eccentric Marius Cadieux, her father's mentor, and Ezra doesn't want Wren to change as much as a doorknob.

And the home itself comes with a dark In 1955, it was the site of the never-solved murder of its owner, Dennis Blaine. Cadieux himself was alleged to be having an affair with Dennis's wife, the stunningly beautiful Rebecca. It seems like yesterday's headlines, but then someone starts killing people with a connection to the house. The home's new owner—bestselling novelist Bronwyn Merrick—may be using the house to launch a fictionalized account of the 1955 crime. But someone may not want to her to. Just how far will Bronwyn's armed bodyguard go to protect her?

As Wren untangles the threads, she finds they all lead back to the house. Rebecca apparently inspired the strange, yet alluring residence, and both the home and its mistress may have caused uncontrolled emotions that led to tragedy. Wren uses all her architectural skills to decipher the hidden message Cadieux cunningly wove into the home's design. She must think back 20 years to when, as a little girl, she met Cadieux. Deeply impressed with Wren, he gave her a clue about the house—and his unusual friendship with Rebecca. With her girlfriend Hadley at her side, Wren eventually solves the mysteries of the home and the people who lived there, develops a grudging respect for modernist architecture—and learns something about the difference between love and obsession.

About the Author

R.J. Koreto is the author of the Lady Frances Ffolkes mystery series, the Alice Roosevelt mystery series, and the Wren Fontaine Historic Homes series. His short stories have been published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

In his day job, he works as a business and financial journalist. Over the years, he’s been a magazine writer and editor, website manager, PR consultant, book author, and seaman in the U.S. Merchant Marine. Like one of his heroines, Lady Frances Ffolkes, he’s a graduate of Vassar College.

He and his wife have two grown daughters and they divide his time between Rockland County, N.Y., and Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

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