Friday Memes: Smoke and Mirrors by Elizabeth Peters (Barbara Michaels)

 Happy Friday everybody!

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Check out the links above for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Beginning:

The face was thirty feet high. Dark hair crowned it, like a hillside streaked with snow. the yard-long lips curved gently, with just the hint of a smile. The eyes were mesmerizing, not only because of their size; by some trick of the setting they seemed to stare straight at the viewer, demanding his attention.

Friday 56:

Nick dropped to one knee, snatched her hand, and raised it to his lips. "Thank you. Thank you! The gracious enthusiasm of your response overwhelms me. You have made my day. Your ineffable condescension--"

"Oh, get up! I have to finish adding these checks."

This week I am spotlighting Smoke and Mirrors by Elizabeth Peters. This one is a blast from the past for me. Back in probably the 1980s or 1990s, I didn't miss anything by Elizabeth Peters or Barbara Michaels. I likely read this one then but didn't keep a copy. I couldn't pass up the chance to read it again when it was a recent Kindle Daily Deal.

Here is the description from Amazon:

An idealistic young woman finds working a political campaign can be murder in this romantic suspense novel by “a master storyteller” (Mary Higgins Clark).
 
Young Erin Hartsock arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition—and little interest in politics. However, when she’s offered a position on a congresswoman’s campaign for the Senate, she’s more than happy to flee her dead-end job to take on what she expects will be boring administrative work . . .
 
But as the campaign heats up, disturbing events follow. There’s a string of dangerous fires, a violent attack, and a seemingly accidental death. Erin begins to wonder about her colleagues all while they grow suspicious of her. Someone’s got a secret—and with the election looming, Erin must quickly uncover who’s behind the chaos before she becomes a prime candidate for murder.