In the history of the United Kingdom, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria’s reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period, and its later half overlaps with the first part of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe.
Preceded by: Regency era
Followed by: Edwardian era
Monarch: Victoria
Barbara’s rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
Series: A Tate and Bell Mystery #2
Publication Date: 6/24/24
Period: Victorian London
Number of Pages: 320
This dark, complex, mysterious story continues the tale of Crimean War nurse, Gemma Tate, and intrepid Inspector Sebastian Bell of Scotland Yard. Both of our protagonists have moved on from the events in the first book – Gemma has changed jobs and moved out of the home she once shared with her much-loved twin brother, and Sebastian has shaken his addictions and is working diligently to heal from the injuries he received in the last case. However, neither has quit thinking of the other, but neither has acted on those thoughts.
Sebastian was summoned to Traitor’s Gate at the Tower of London where the body of a brutally murdered man was discovered – hanging from a very large meat hook. Who is the victim? There is nothing on the body to identify him, but Sebastian recognizes him as Jacob Harrow, a newspaperman, and witness to the death of Gemma Tate’s brother. Why was his body displayed as it was and in such a disgraceful place? What message is the murderer sending?
Gemma and Sebastian struggle to untangle the twisted threads of the crime back to the Crimea and the sordid things that happened in those fetid battlegrounds. However, the crime comes much closer to home when there is another murder and an attempt on Sebastian’s life.
I found myself staying up late into the night reading ‘just one more chapter’ because there were so many potential criminals and victims and I just had to know ‘who done it’. I had the perpetrator figured out before the end of the book, but I sure didn’t have the motive figured out. If you love stories with complex characters, intriguing mysteries, and a tad of a budding romance, you will enjoy this book. Be warned, it is a dark book dealing with dark, sad times. However, most of this author’s works are dark – but then, murder is dark isn’t it?
I am already looking forward to the next installment in the series which should be released in October.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
The Secret Life of A Lady By Darcy McGuire releases June 14, 2024
Book Blurb
Never Underestimate a wallflower!
Lady Hannah Simmons is a quintessential wallflower, unassuming, dowdy yet ignored by most. But underneath her plain exterior, Hannah is hiding a thrilling secret! Unbeknownst to the rest of the ton, she is Queen Victoria’s leading femme fatale, slipping unnoticed through the streets of London and listening to scandalous whispers from lords and ladies. But with daggers in her stockings and pistols in her pockets, Hannah’s mission is to apprehend a deadly killer.
Private Investigator to the Prime Minister, damaged, yet devastatingly handsome ex-war hero Duke Robert Killian always puts duty first. However, when he finds himself competing with the intriguing Lady Hannah on the same daring task, his blood boils with frustration – and desire! Is it possible to seduce this vexing woman whose not afraid to put herself in danger and achieve the upper hand?
Hannah enjoys Killian’s attempts to distract and tempt her, but she has never faced an adversary she couldn’t overthrow. And Killian has never met a challenge he couldn’t conquer…until now. The gauntlet has been thrown, can they finish their jobs and resist the temptation?
Keep your friends close…and your enemies even closer!
Darcy McGuire is an award-winning New Zealand-born writer now living in the Pacific Northwest. She will write a five-part Victorian romance series for Boldwood, focused on a group of ‘Deadly Damsels’.
Hannah Simons (referred to as Lady in the blurb), works for Queen Victoria as an investigator and an assassin. In this book, her task is to determine who has murdered a young maid and left her in a coffin. Once the perpetrator is found, she is to eliminate him. Hanna is the base-born daughter of a mistress and her aristocratic lover, so she has seen much in her four-and-twenty years. Most of what she has seen and endured reflects very poorly on the male of the species. She was also specifically told to avoid encountering Robert Killian during this investigation. OOPS!
Robert Killian is a duke, a war hero, a lieutenant general, a spy/investigator for the Prime Minister, and a man with a black soul. At least he thinks he has a black soul because he could not protect his men during the Afghan wars. His mission is to identify the peer who has killed a young maid and to bring him to justice before the House of Lords.
I truly wanted to love this book, but I just couldn’t make it to the love stage – but I did like it – or at least the idea of it. It should have had everything I love in a book – a good romance and a good mystery, but, for me, it fell short in both. There were things in the plot that had me scratching my head, things that didn’t quite feel finished, and it sounded much too modern. When you pair all of that with the obvious forms of address errors and other things, I just couldn’t love it. I did like the banter between Killian and his friend and thought that added a nice touch.
This author’s debut novel presents us with Queen Victoria’s hit squad – a female assassin – versus the Prime Minister’s spies/investigators (males, of course) who are set to investigate crimes and bring the criminals to justice in the House of Lords. Yep, strait-laced, prim, proper, Queen Victoria who described the suffrage movement as “mad, wicked folly” had her own private assassin.
I thought the writing style had promise, but this book could have greatly profited from some simple, easy research to learn that a duke (or duchess) is Your Grace, only titled peers can be tried in the House of Lords, and a base-born daughter cannot be addressed as Lady, etc.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Miss Hannah Simmons is a most unusual young woman who has trained to “take care of problems” as a secret operative for the Queen. She is under the tutelage of the widowed Duchess of Dorset, who is also her sort of guardian – as she is the widow of Hannah’s father. To most of society Hannah appears to be a paid companion to the duchess, but in reality, she is using her role to perform missions for the crown. Her current mission is to find and “take care of” the person responsible for the heinous death of a maid. It is during her investigation that she crossed paths with Robert Killian, a retired Lieutenant General and the Duke of Covington, who also happens to be investigating the same murder, but for the Prime Minister. Though they are both after the same person, they have completely different goals for the apprehension and punishment of the murderer. When they both end up at the same house party, they form an alliance of sorts, with leads to places that neither expected. But Hannah knows that the duke could never want anything more from her than an affair, after all he is a duke, and she is a nobody with a questionable past and a lot of secrets. But even knowing that doesn’t stop her from falling in love, but it will keep her from letting him know!
Robert Killian, Retired Lieutenant General and the Duke of Covington, is a decorated war hero and a spy / fixer for the Prime Minister, who carries deep, festering scars from his time as a POW in Afghanistan. Since his return to England, he has done his best to put the war behind him and focus on his estates and his role in Parliament. But occasionally the Prime Minister asks for his help, and it is one of these occasions that leads him to the home of a suspect and Hannah Simmons, the protégé of the Duchess of Dorset. Hannah is unlike any woman he has ever met, she annoys him almost as much as she intrigues him and despite knowing she is all wrong for him and could never be his duchess, he can’t seem to stop thinking about her. Together they make a great team and soon realizes that she is exactly the woman he needs in his life, but convincing Hannah will not be easy and before he can even think about that, they need to stop the killer before he strikes again.
Based on the blurb, I had high hopes for this book, and to be fair, the mystery was well done, the author’s writing style is good, the pace was fine, the characters are likable, the banter between Hannah and the Duke is witty and their chemistry was spot on, but sadly I just couldn’t get in to this book and had to force myself to finish it. Why, you ask? Well, for me it started almost immediately – the fact that the Queen of England would have her personal operative investigating the murder of a servant – who was not even the Queen’s servant – seemed preposterous, not to mention the small fact that Queen wanted the murderer “taken care of” rather than arrested and given a fair trial. Then there were the mistakes – I am a nitpicker when it comes to titles and formal address and I have read many books with mistakes – it has gotten so bad recently that I don’t even mention it anymore, because no one seems to care – but this book is the exception – this is the first book that I have read that EVERY SINGLE title for the characters was used incorrectly – and not even a little bit wrong – EPICALLY wrong. It is clear that the author doesn’t know how to address a titled person or their children. And there were other mistakes – the primary being the assumption that any member of a titled family would be tried in the House of Lords. I was disappointed, this book had the potential to be fantastic, but for me it was just OK because I couldn’t get passed the absurdities and mistakes. So, if these things don’t bother you, I am sure you will enjoy this story.
2.5 stars
*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher. All opinions in this review are my own. *
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