Barbara’s rating: 3.7 out of 5 Stars
Series: A Verity Lark Mystery #1
Publication Date: 8/23/22
Period: Regency London
Number of Pages: 330
I enjoyed this tale, but that is because I am thoroughly familiar with this author’s other series, Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries. As a matter of fact, the way I discovered this sister series is by reading the latest BHC mystery and seeing the blurb for this book. I love that there is a sister series – and that they are inter-related. It will be interesting to watch them unfold. If you have read none of the BHC books, this first book in the new series will probably leave you a bit befuddled. So, to help a little bit …
Beatrice Hyde-Clare is the six-season spinster who up and married the most eligible ton bachelor, Damien Matlock, the Duke of Kesgrave. The little Duchess of Kesgrave keeps solving murders – with her besotted husband’s full help and cooperation. This makes great fodder for the renowned gossip columnist Mr. Twaddle-Thum who likes to refer to the duchess as Her Outrageousness. Twaddle-Thum takes great delight in featuring the duchess and her exploits in his newspaper column. Verity Lark, the lead in this series IS Mr. Twaddle-Thum, and several other aliases used in her reporting and information gathering. Verity is also the illegitimate half-sister to the Duke of Kesgrave. While Verity knows who Kesgrave is, he has no idea he has a half-sister.
For me, the mystery got a bit lost in all of the BHC references, but if you parse out all of that, it was a pretty solid mystery and I enjoyed watching Verity work her way to the solution. I also enjoyed the introduction of Lord Colson Hardwicke who I definitely hope will work out to be Verity’s version of Kesgrave. Hardwicke seems to challenge Verity in ways nobody else does – and her reactions to him are interesting. I always have to have a romance in my mysteries and I’m looking forward to seeing theirs develop.
There was a lot of series set-up in this first book and that is another reason I feel the mystery was a tad lost in it all. The establishment of Verity’s background, her friends and their backgrounds, and the many disguises used by Verity in order to further her reporting and information gathering takes up a great deal of page space – but it is needed to firmly establish the setting going forward. Verity is a fun, interesting, and complex character who I am sure I’ll enjoy getting to know. It will be fun to see when/if she and Kesgrave actually meet and how that goes. Will they have a relationship or will they just each go their own way?
For me personally, this book was a definite 4-star rating. However, for someone who is unfamiliar with the Beatrice Hyde-Clare series, I’d guess it would come in at somewhere around the 2.5 to 3-star mark. I think this was a necessary book to set up the series and get everything started – and I think the next book will be a bit more of the same, but after that, I’m hoping that it will find its legs and stand on its own because I really do like the characters and the idea behind the series. So, maybe we’ll have BHC and Verity related enough to mention, but not constantly as in this book. I do hope Kesgrave and Verity come to a friendship and we’ll see them mentioned in each other’s series, but not be the main focus of the series. It will be interesting to see how the author handles the relationship beyond the second book (where, yes, Kesgrave and Verity meet).
I can recommend this book because it is filled with attractive, intelligent, very likable characters – but – you really need to be familiar with the BHC Mysteries series OR you need to be willing to parse through all of that and figure out where it all fits. Good luck and happy reading.
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