Devil-May-Care

By: Elizabeth Peters

Narrated by: Grace Conlin

Ellie is young, rich, engaged, and in love. In the carefree days before marriage and new responsibility, she decides to house-sit at Aunt Kate's palatial estate in Burton, Virginia. With its nearly invisible housekeepers and plethora of pets, Ellie feels right at home. But when she opens an antique book about the town's aristocracy, she finds disturbing secrets that extend to her own family.

Suddenly, Ellie's interest in the past is attracting a slew of unwelcome guests - some of them living and some perhaps not. Unwittingly, she has aroused a terrible vengeance that is now aimed at her.

©1997 Elizabeth Peters (P)1997 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

"No one is better at juggling torches while dancing on a high wire than Elizabeth Peters." (Chicago Tribune)

Needed a Different Reader

The story was ok, not bad, but a bit convoluted to work as a believable plot. The reader was painful to listen tol. Every characters voice seemed to be an imitation of characters from old tv shows;Miss Ellie from Dallas, Jennifer Hart from Heart to Heart. Very distracting to listen to and made it difficult to hear the writers voice coming through their own character.

Witty all encompassing humour

this covers it all, from the supernatural, to football, to witchcraft,to politicians. A very fast moving story.

A hard to find peters book

So happy to have found this! I own every one of Peters books except this one. Plots, humor, characters, twists and turns... And a marvelous central character, Kate, reminiscent of Amelia Peabody.

Great !!

I loved this book and the reader was fantastic. Funny and serious. Great enjoyable.

Great narrator

Fun way to learn about history without letting the romance overpower the main plot.
Whether writing as Elizabeth Peters or Barbara Michael’s, the author’s smart dialogue and insouciance makes my day

Adored This Book!

I have always liked Elizabeth Peters but I had no idea she had written this book or some of the others that are not in any of her series. The narrator was perfect!

Most Curious

A ghostly mystery.
I liked that no character insisted on the supernatural. Yet, what was it? Kate was a most powerful person throughout. Her many animals added to the enjoyment and engagement in the story.

Basic romantic mystery, set in the early 20th Century. Peters’ Egyptology series about the Emerson family is much better.

The story was fairly boilerplate; I knew the end by the time I had read the first chapter. I read on, trusting Peters to advance the story, but no such luck. The series was fairly successful, so perhaps later novels were better.

A gothic with humor

Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters writes her unique blend of gothic romance and mystery with tongue in cheek and an enjoyable cast of characters. From a distance of thirty years, it’s interesting to see how society has, and has not, changed. In fact, if I were writing this ten years ago I’d have thought it more dated than it feels now, when so many social issues that I had thought were safely in the past have been resuscitated.

Dated but fun

If you only know Elizabeth Peters through the eyes of Amelia Peabody you’re in for a surprise. This is a traditional mystery / gothic novel. There’s a spooky old house, an aunt who doesn’t mind being taken for a witch, and an old love story. If you don’t take a minute of it seriously then it’s a lot of fun to listen to.