Book Series Recommendation | Harker Investigates Mysteries by Amazon Bestselling Author Karina McRob
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  • N. N. Light
    • Sep 28, 2019
    • 5 min read

Book Series Recommendation | Harker Investigates Mysteries by Amazon Bestselling Author Karina McRob

The Harker Investigates Mysteries (Series Title)

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Title The Palace of the Stars, Harker Investigates Mystery One

Author Karina McRoberts

Genre Time Travel Adventure/Romance

Publisher Rocanadon Press

Book Blurb

Welcome to the Palace... a thrilling panoply of time-travel, romance, intrigue, humour, horror, and sizzling adventure!

Michael Harker, rookie ex-cop, has been badly beaten but is determined to re-invent himself. While convalescing with quirky bookshop owner Mari Linden, an earthquake opens a time portal and Mike finds himself over a hundred years in the past. Mike battles with strange shifts in consciousness, sleepwalking, restrictive dress standards, and the strict morals of the time. He befriends JT Gordon, the magnanimous impresario of The Palace of the Stars, a grand musical hall theatre and it is here he meets and falls for a beautiful dancer and stage musician, Mae Belle.

Mae has a strange bond with her on-stage magic partner, the mysterious Chan Li. Her off-stage lover? Mike doesn’t quite believe Mae’s denials and it’s eating him alive. The question of should he stay or go haunts him. Can he go back? Can he take Mae with him, even if he can convince her he's not a nut case, and truly from the future?

Before Mike can sort out this dilemma, Mae begs him to solve a series of gruesome murders. Mike joins with his friends from the Palace to ensnare the murderer but realises too late justice has slipped through his fingers. He must make a choice, a horrific choice, and the end result could be his life, especially if the portal closes. Will Mike choose a life with Mae, no matter the century?

The story comes with copious historical notes, suitable for book club discussions.

Excerpt:

Mae Belle was in the middle of her rowdy song and dance. When Mike came back to his seat, she had her back to the audience. Usually a theatrical sin, but in this case she was doing the hoochy coo. As she waggled her bustled bum, the gallery again erupted in pandemonium!

But when she turned face-on once more, Mae Belle was an entirely different creature. Sombre, most serious. It was time for the magical part of her act.

For Michael Harker, this began when he looked straight into her magical eyes.

He was nothing.

Because she was everything.

She sang. It was singing as heaven sings.

Her notes touched his ears in tender caress.

Her voice kissed his soul.

Exquisite.

She was exquisite.

Every perfection.

Each nuance of her being called out to him to be known.

One look into those eyes, where every heaven dwelled, lifted his heart, his entire being; far aloft. Riding with the highest note of her enraptured song…where was she taking him?

And then he knew he must have her.

At all costs.

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Giveaway:

I’m one of the authors participating in the Read a Book Month Giveaway and you can win an e-copy of one of my books plus tons of other prizes.

Runs September 1 - 30 and is open internationally.

Winner will be drawn October 1, 2019.

Author Biography

Karina McRoberts lives on a rural property outside the historic town of York, Western Australia. She and her husband are converting the block from degraded farmland to natural paradise.

Once a scientist, and forever interested, Karina is now a writer, musician, painter, theatre producer, and workshop presenter. She writes to give joy, entertainment, and enlightenment. All things she finds can be lacking in the everyday lives of many people. She wants to put some of the “magic” back!

Karina is intensely interested in history and social change, in particular, the people and stories not headlined in standard take. The scope of human consciousness is another focus of her writing.

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Title The Mine's Eye, Harker Investigates Mystery Two

Author Karina McRoberts

Genre Time Travel Adventure/Romance

Publisher Rocanadon Press

Book Blurb

Intending detective Michael Harker once again chances the time portal in the earthquake-damaged book store. Memory impaired from a brutal beating and subject to strange shifts in consciousness, Mike is aided by the love of this life, Mae Belle, music hall singer and stage magician.

But Mae's magic is more than an act. She plans to use it for revenge.

The trail leads Mike and Mae to Kalgoorlie, boom town of the gold rush days. Mike goes mine hopping and Mae joins a dance hall review where she learns of fiendish plot. But can it be stopped...in time?

The story comes with copious historical notes, suitable for book club discussions.

Excerpt:

“Come, Mae. Please come!”

“I will come, darling! Soon.”

“Do you have to stay? You don’t, you know. Not really.”

“I do, you know. Yes, really!”

She didn’t allow him to interrupt.

“Oh, Michael! Of course I have to stay. I promised Gordon! You know that! And to be honest, I's looking forward to dancin’ up a storm, luv!” She winked, but saw he wasn’t amused and dropped her act. Calmly, she suggested “So, if you would just wait a few days, we could go together.”

“Mae, I can’t wait! His trail might grow cold! Well and truly frozen! Then I'll never find the ugly piece of shit! Is that what you want?”

“No. Of course not!” She was annoyed at his swearing. “So, it’s simple. You go ahead. Dr Watson and I will come up on the next coach. Or the one thereafter in any case.” The train was out of the question. Mae was not keen on high-speed travel by anything other than a horse. Not after witnessing the horrendous truck crash.

“And what are you going to do until then, Mae?”

Was that suspicion in his voice? If so, she did not like it.

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Title The Light, Harker Investigates Mystery Three

Author Karina McRoberts

Genre Time Travel Adventure/Romance

Publisher Rocanadon Press

Book Blurb

In this, the third Harker Investigates Mystery, time-travelling lovers Mike Harker and Mae Belle argue over which time they should live in. Mae wins out and they return to the past.

Here Mae takes up her search in earnest; Chan Li, her on-stage partner in magic and possible off-stage lover, has still not been found. As she coos over Chan's children (hers too?), Mike is devoured by jealousy. He leaves for the south coast to search for another missing man. But here be pirates!

Captain Cassandra is not a woman to be messed with. She kidnaps Mike and his friend Billy Stanton, who must watch her gleefully destroy every ship she encounters.

Mike continues to endure strange fits and Cassandra's crew fear the "ghost sailor", intent on throwing him overboard.

Mike is trapped aboard Cassandra's fabulous submarine, the Narwhal. He realises he should never have left Mae; can he ever return to her?

The story comes with copious historical notes, suitable for book club discussions.

Excerpt:

Tonight he had chosen. Tonight it was Tchaikovsky's Valse Sentimentale. They both knew the tune intimately.

An astonishing piece. A sonorous 'cello in a minor key rang out deeply; then, entwining with a capricious piano, quickly swept up into an almost frantic swirling, covering great strides. Charging to major; then, as caress. Falling feather-light, resolving so exquisitely, so gorgeously; almost painful in the intensity of its beauty. Softly, ethereally, to minor. Then reverberating gently to silence.

It was wholly sensual, breathing, alive; transporting them through timeless enrapture. Who knew how long?

But, for time, they did not care. At all.

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