The Cotswold Manor Mystery by Maxine Barry

The Cotswold Manor Mystery by Maxine Barry

Coming soon to a bookshelf near you (well, your screen actually!) — don’t miss a single stop on this magical book tour!

We are on tour – 19th – 25th August


Starting in….

  

About the book

Publication Date : 19th August 2026

Publisher : Choc Lit (Impring of Joffe Books)

Genre : Cozy Mystery

Page Count : 203 pages

Series / Standalone : 1st book in the Dreaming Spires Romantic Mysteries

Blurb

❤️ Friends to enemies to lovers
❤️ Childhood best friend
❤️ Amateur sleuth
❤️ Small-town setting
❤️ Slow burn
❤️ Second chance romance

Welcome to Nether Dene — the cosy English village where a crumbling manor, a long-buried secret and a second chance at first love are about to collide . . .

After thirteen years away, Oriana Foster has come home to the village that broke her heart — and bought the one house nobody thought she’d dare to touch: the Manor House, ancestral home of the very family who once helped send her away.

With a fortune from an anonymous benefactor and a heart full of unanswered questions, her plan is simple. Move in quietly, clear her name and finally uncover the truth about the night Rollo Seton died.

Because she didn’t kill him, but somebody knows who did.

What she didn’t count on was Lowell Seton.

Rollo’s infuriating but handsome younger brother is convinced Oriana is guilty — and he’ll do anything to win his family’s house back. But he can’t deny that the spark that flared between them when they were sixteen has never quite gone out . . .

With her first love convinced of her guilt, can Oriana uncover the truth before the killer strikes again?


About Faith Martin

Faith Martin was born in Oxford, and has spent all her life within twenty miles of the university city, even working at Somerville College for six years before turning to writing full-time.

Faith has been writing for nearly 30 years under four different pen names and has had nearly 50 books published so far. She began writing romantic thrillers as Maxine Barry, which Joffe Books are in the process of re-releasing as brand new eBooks. Then she turned to crime, and as Joyce Cato wrote classic-style whodunits, since she’s always admired the golden-age crime novelists.  But it was when she created her fictional DI Hillary Greene, and began writing under the name of Faith Martin, that she finally began to become more widely known. 

Her latest literary characters WPC Trudy Loveday, and city coroner, Dr Clement Ryder, take readers back to the 1960’s and the city of Oxford. Having lived within a few miles of the city of dreaming spires for all her life, both the city and the countryside/wildlife often feature in her novels. Although she has never lived on a narrow boat (unlike DI Hillary Greene!) the Oxford canal, the river Cherwell, and the flora and fauna of a farming landscape have always played a big part in her life – and often sneak their way onto the pages of her books.

Her hobbies include walking her now ageing dog, wildlife-watching, reading and (reluctantly) gardening.


Faith Martin’s past adventures with Zooloo’s Book Tours – check out the lineup!


Reviewers Schedule

Daily Wrap Links
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19 August
loopyloulaura
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20 August
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21 August
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The Cosy Moose
22 August
imreadingmybook
Rambling Mads
23 August
MoMoBookDiary
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24 August
Sri Reads
ninnyreadsbooks
25 August
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Happilyeverhels

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