The following books, plus a Summoning of Spirits by Hieber, will be discussed by a panel at Murderous March, March 5, 4:45. The topic: Villains: the Characters we love to hate.

The Ninja Daughter, by Tori Eldrige, introduces Lily Wong, a self-styled female ninja. She has made it her mission to protect women and children, primarily by working with a battered woman’s shelter.

We first meet her as she is being beaten by a thug working for the Ukranian mob. Lily is trying to save the wife and child of one of the mobsters – although Katerina takes her son Ilya home despite Lily’s best efforts.

Several deaths that seem to have no relation to one another, a young woman involved with a married man, and a Korean mob all combine together in an action packed and exciting mystery. The characters are wonderfully drawn, especially Lily. I will definitely read more of these.

It is 1975 and Carmen Valdez, working as a secretary at Triumph Comics as a secretary, is desperate to break into the world of comics. A semi-friend from the office, Harvey, suggests they write a comic together. But then he is found dead, and all the scripts are turned in without her name. Carmen is desperate to discover the murderer, and what happened to her name as co-writer on a comic that becomes a runaway hit?

Another exciting and action packed mystery with an added bonus: the inclusion of the comics in the novel,

Recently widowed, Rebecca Parcell is busy struggling to maintain her farm to care about the War for Independence. But rumors are spreading in the winter of 1780 that she’s a Loyalist sympathizer who betrayed her husband to the British. Her husband was a Patriot, everyone knows. But General Washington knows differently. Rebecca’s husband was a British spy. If she can find out what her husband was doing, Washington will protect her farm.

To figure out what Parcell was doing, Becca must speak to an escaped British prisoner of war: Daniel Alloway. He was the last person to see her husband alive. They join forces – now Becca must fight her growing attraction to this drifter.

A wonderful historical novel about the early days of the Revolutionary War. I hope there is a sequel to this one.