Terns of Endearment

March 1, 2019

Meg Langslow and her entire family are on a cruise ship anticipating her grandfather's scheduled lecture when a much-detested member of a writers' group vanishes overboard.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2019
Meg Langslow's maiden sea voyage, a trip to Bermuda, rapidly turns into the cruise from hell. Of all the offers he's had to lecture aboard cruise ships, naturalist J. Montgomery Blake has selected Pastime Lines because they'll give him a steeply discounted rate for all the companions traveling with him. For Monty, that means his daughter and son-in-law; their children, Meg and Rob; Meg's husband; Rob's fiancee; Meg's aunt and two cousins, herbalist Rose Noire and Caerphilly County Deputy Horace Hollingsworth; and zoologist Caroline Willner. Within 24 hours, they're all sorry they ever booked passage on the Pastime Wanderer. Trevor Ponsonby-West, Monty's indispensable assistant, takes to his cabin, then vanishes as completely as if he'd never boarded. Desiree St. Christophe, the aging doyenne of ravished-virgin romances, leaps into the Atlantic the first night at sea, provoking not a single tear from Angie Weyburn, Kate Trevanian, Tish Gregory, and Janet Costello, four other writers convinced that Desiree's plagiarism suit drove their friend Nancy Goreham to suicide five months ago. The Wanderer's navigation system goes on the fritz, and repairs require cutting all electrical power to the rest of the ship. Most of the thinly stretched crew, and many of the passengers, are stricken with food poisoning. And although there's no way anybody's going to find Desiree's body, Meg and her father's search of her cabin discloses a quite different corpse. As the Wanderer sits becalmed at the edge of the Bermuda Triangle, giving Rose Noire the willies, Meg's mother rouses the passengers with a stirring speech: "Many of us are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs on board the ship." The Poseidon Adventure with a laugh track that drowns out most of the individual characters' voices.

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June 24, 2019
Bestseller Andrews’s winning 25th Meg Langslow mystery (after 2018’s Lark! The Herald Angels Sing) takes ornamental blacksmith Meg Langslow and her extended family on a cruise to Bermuda. Aboard the Pastime Wanderer, Meg meets romance author Kate Trevanian and her three companions, also genre-fiction authors, who are on the cruise to honor the memory of their late friend and fellow writer Nancy Goreham. Kate and company are later shocked to discover deceitful Desiree St. Christophe, the group’s nemesis and Nancy’s antagonist, on the ship, and they wonder about her motives. Then the ship stalls out at sea with no power, and a passenger jumps overboard. When the captain and first officer decline to look into the apparent suicide, Meg organizes her family members, all experienced crime investigators, to pursue the matter. Andrews smoothly combines a clever plot with distinctive and endearing characters. Cozy fans will wish this long-running series never ends. Agent: Ellen Geiger, Frances Goldin Literary.

June 1, 2019
Meg Langslow and her quirky extended family board the Pastime Wanderer, traveling with her grandfather, naturalist Dr. Montgomery Blake, and his film crew. Blake was hired to give nature lectures on this Bermuda cruise and hopes to film a documentary. When popular but demanding romance author Desiree St. Christophe disappears overboard, it looks like she committed suicide. Then no one can find Dr. Blake's bumbling assistant, Trevor. With the captain declining to investigate further, Meg and her father search Desiree's cabin, finding another body. Not trusting the crew, the two work with others in the family to discover the truth. Meanwhile, the ship becomes stranded miles from Bermuda. It needs extensive mechanical repairs, and the crew all but seems to disappear. Meg soon organizes the passengers to help repair and run the ship while ultimately solving the mysteries. Fans will be pleased with the plot twists, humor, natural-history details, familiar and well-delineated characters, and the fresh setting. A satisfying addition to the long-running series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)