"Antiques Roadshow fans and mystery lovers will delight in this erudite debut and hope for a series featuring the resourceful Josie."   
Kirkus Reviews

Five Stars from "Curled Up with a Good Book"!

This is a very satisfying, tremendously interesting cozy mystery debut by Cleland, featuring an engaging new female sleuth in the form of an antiques dealer.... Read the rest of the review on their site.

Whistle blowers might come off on the high moral ground, but they frequently lose trust among their peers. That's what happened to Josie Prescott, who left her NYC job at a well-known auction house to establish her own company in New Hampshire. Things have gone well for her, but they've been slow—she's had to train a staff from scratch, acquire items, and build a warehouse and showroom. She's excited about her opportunity to land an entire estate of fabulous proportions when she suddenly becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation. After all, the antiques trade can be cut throat in more ways than one. "Antiques Roadshow" junkies will revel in Josie's world; cozy readers will delight in the beginnings of a new, articulate series. Like Oliver, I ask for "more, please."
Molly Weston Meritorious Mysteries

I can’t recall a first mystery I enjoyed as much as I did Consigned to Death. The martini-swilling Josie (she’ll drink one with a burger!) is a great cozy heroine … strong, straightforward and seemingly sophisticated yet vulnerable in some ways. The author has also populated her story with enough terrific secondary characters to keep the series interesting for a good long time. Antique lovers and fans of the Antiques Roadshow will find the book very appealing.
Diana Vickery Mystery News

Consigned to Death has been touted as the mystery readers' 'Antiques Road Show.' It's a decent appellation. Jane K. Cleland, the author, knows a good deal about antiques and their value, apparently from her experiences running an antique and rare bookshop in Portsmouth, New Hampshire before she moved to New York City. Wherever she obtained her expertise, Ms. Cleland knows just how to disseminate it throughout a thoroughly engrossing story without you once feeling you're being taught anything! Consigned to Death is a cozy mystery, with a very realistic heroine and a very believable, suspenseful tale. This mystery is chock full of information about valuable antiques as well as important knowledge on stolen art, all written by a very competent businesswoman as well as a talented, gifted writer. Jane K. Cleland is an author to watch closely. If her success in the business world is any indication, she'll probably soar as a fiction writer!
Alan Paul Curtis Who Dunnit

Ms. Cleland's first cozy mystery is a winner. It keeps you turning pages all the way through to the end!
Diane Kasperski Front Street Reviews

Josie Prescott is having a hectic day, multi-tasking the various parts of her burgeoning antiques business. There is the Wilson collection to arrange for an auction. There is the tag sale to organize and set up. There are the usual paperwork and customer service issues to be dealt with. Which means the unexpected arrival of Chief Alvarez throws a major monkey wrench into the works.

Alvarez wants to know about her visit to Nathaniel Grant's house that morning. Josie tells him she went out there to discuss the sale of his collection, but he didn't seem to be home. She is devastated to find out that not only is he dead, murdered, but also it happened right around the time she was standing out on the porch wondering what was going on. Not a good start to a day.

It gets worse. Guess whose fingerprints are on the knife used to stab Mr. Grant? You got it. Josie's. She has a reasonable explanation, but there is at least one viable motive.

Josie has some past. She was the sole whistle-blower in a well-publicized price-fixing scandal at a major firm, which pretty much blew her career on the West Coast. She relocated to New Hampshire, and is finally getting comfortable with how her new business is doing. She knows that the competition is keen, and sometimes cut-throat, but doesn't expect some of the backstabbing that she encounters while investigating (on her own) the murder of Mr Grant.

Josie has some assistants in her investigations. She cuts a deal with a local reporter, who has access to information she can't get any other way. This obligates her to an exclusive, but it's a deal she can live with. Her lawyer is far more supportive, at least in terms of time and access, than one might expect from that profession. He's a great lawyer and a very good friend. Josie also has a knack for utilizing her support staff at work to great advantage; she asks the right questions of the right people.

Making her life even more complex is the definite and totally inappropriate mutual attraction between Alvarez and Josie. He has the good sense to tell her that they can't be involved while he is working the case, but all the signs are there for an extended romance once Josie finds the killer.

Consigned to Death is a very good first novel. The characters, even the seemingly minor ones, are believable and interesting. The settings, both big and small (New Hampshire, antiques business), play an important part in the telling of the story. There is certainly plenty of potential for a long-running series; if Cleland continues to be write as well as she has in CONSIGNED TO DEATH, readers are in for a treat.
P. J. Coldren  www.reviewingtheevidence.com

Consigned to Death by Jane K. Cleland:  Cleland's debut mystery introduces Josie Prescott, an antiquarian appraiser and dealer in New Hampshire. The reader is immediately sucked into this fast-paced story, as Josie finds herself the primary suspect when an elderly client she was working for is found murdered. Josie is still in the process of rebuilding her life after she left a job where she was a whistle-blower, and her father died. Shes lonely, in mourning, fearful and angry that shes a suspect, so shes determined to prove her innocence and her honesty. With its cliff-hanger chapter endings and the sympathetic character, Consigned to Death will have the intrigued reader racing to the end.
Lesa Holstine http://www.bookbitch.com

The hallmark of a successful author is to take a premise that's been done before, many times before, and make it seem fresh. Jane K. Cleland has done just that with her debut mystery, Consigned to Death, featuring antiques dealer Josie Prescott.

Cleland herself was once an antiques dealer, and her expertise in the field imparts an authentic quality to Consigned to Death. The descriptions of how items are appraised, valued, and even sold at auction are fascinating and are well integrated into the plot.

Authors frequently try to accomplish too much with their first novel, but Cleland strikes just the right balance here. She provides a background story for Josie, but wisely doesn't dwell on it, allowing the reader the opportunity to learn more about her in future mysteries in this series. The adages of Josie's late father provide a moral compass for her, but with at least one being invoked every chapter, one wonders how long Cleland can keep using them without getting repetitive.

Consigned to Death is an absorbing and impressive first mystery, and readers will no doubt look forward to spending more time with Josie in the future.
PJN, Mysterious Reviews http://www.mysteriousreviews.com/

"I was lucky enough to be Jane Cleland's author escort while she was in Dallas/Ft. Worth and I had such a good time!  She is very knowledgeable about rare books and the antiques business and can well hold her own with interviewers.  I sat in on a television interview and a book signing and she never slowed down!  It was so interesting and I learned a lot from her about the book business.  She's very easy to talk with, which was a good thing, as we spent several hours going from bookstore to bookstore as she talked with store managers about carrying her book.  It is so new that most stores didn't have it yet! 

"I hadn't read her book before I met her, so I just devoured it as soon as possible!  I was impressed by not only the story, but how articulate Josie is.  She's someone I'd like to meet!  I have to admit that I was wrong, not once, but twice, about the real killer - that's how good the book is!  The location is well done and I could almost "see" the inside of the house where the murder occurred.  The Nazi art link was a good touch, as something similiar has been in the news in the last few years and probably will be again.  It just seemed so "up to date" and well-written.  I liked most of the characters and I wanted to "slap" only one of them!  I'm looking forward to the second book next year!"
Sherry, Carrollton, TX

"...A delightful addition to the mystery genre with an engaging new heroine. Josie Prescott is a fiercely determined heroine with an appealing personality full of purpose and life. Cleland presents to us the cutthroat world of antiques and auctions. Loaded with insider details of the auction world, Consigned to Death, is a beautifully written mystery, with a deft plot and loveable and detailed characters that pull you into the story and will keep you up into the night until you get to the satisfying finale. I for one am greatly looking forward to another mystery with the charming Josie Prescott."
Andrea Maloney, Spinetingler Magazine: Online Reviews

"As an Antiques Roadshow junkie, I am captivated by Jane K. Cleland’s Consigned to Death. Josie Prescott is an engaging heroine—smart, ethical, and brimming over with antique lore which she communicates so naturally that I never felt as if I were being lectured. Beautifully crafted, thoroughly enjoyable."
Margaret Maron, author of High Country Fall

"Don’t just browse through Josie Prescott’s consignment shop mystery, savor the setting. Consigned to Death in chock full of charm, humor, and intrigue is a cozy city on New Hampshire’s coastline."
Nora Charles, author of Who Killed Swami Schwartz?

"Josie Prescott left a good job at a New York auction house after blowing the whistle on her former employer in a price-fixing scandal. Her new business in a small New Hampshire coastal town is doing well. She is busy setting up an auction when the chief of police shows up to ask questions about a murder. A potential client is dead, and Josie has become a murder suspect. With a great deal to lose and no desire to leave her new life, she must clear her name. Using her knowledge of the art and antique trade, she starts searching for the killer with a bit of help from her lawyer and an enterprising young reporter. The fact that the chief of police is quite attractive--and Josie could use some romance--provides a bit of extra motivation. Josie is a nice addition to the ranks of female sleuths, and the antique-auction milieu provides an interesting background."
Barbara Bibel, Booklist

"Fans of The Antique Roadshow and cozy mysteries will love Jane K. Cleland’s debut mystery Consigned to Death. It’s a real find definitely worth a nod and a bid."
Karen Harper, author of The Fatal Fashion

"Learn from my mistake: Don’t start this one at bedtime. Consigned to Death is a satisfying mixture of suspense and romance set in the highly competitive world of antique auctions. I’m keeping my eye out for the next Josie Prescott mystery."
Donna Andrews, author of Owl’s Well that Ends Well