I found Kate Ellis a few months ago and have found her books to be amongst the best I have read.
The formula is always the same (history linked beautifully with the present day) but all the better for that.
The pace of the novels is very good and the characters believable; some clearly rather unpleasant but are real people in a real world. The portrayal of the central characters offsets the crimes very well.
Kate Ellis's grasp of history is excellent and the combination of the past and present is riveting.
I guess the only downside is that I have few left to read and can only hope she writes more ..very quickly.