Series: A Lady's Guide, #1
Traits & Tropes: detective hero; reporter heroine
Genre/Setting: Historical; Victorian; England; 1865
Publication Date: 11.10.20
Heat Level: 2.5/5
Rating: 3/5
Since her husband’s death Lady Katherine Bascomb has turned his newspaper into a success and become quite infamous as a columnist. She’s tired of ladies being kept in the dark and decides to begin a new segment informing London’s female population about a killer preying on the city’s inhabitants and harming women. But when her writing leads to the arrest of a man Katherine is being wrongfully accused, she escapes to a friend’s country house party to avoid the media circus and determine how to right the wrong she inadvertently caused. Far from relaxing, she stumbles upon a murder scene on her first day in the country. When the lead detective arrives from London and denounces Katherine’s ill-fated attempt at an informative column, she determines to aid him in his investigation and undo the damage.
Thanks to Katherine’s column Detective Inspector Andrew Eversham’s stellar career is threatened. He refuses to go along with his superior’s railroading of an innocent man and so finds himself demoted and relegated to the country to investigate what his superintendent believes to be a copycat of the serial killer plaguing London. Eversham doesn’t believe in coincidences and is suspicious when Katherine winds up being a key witness in the new murder. He tries his best to keep her from ruining yet another case but is surprised to find her outlook to be a bit helpful. Katherine is equally surprised by Andrew’s skill and the anger between them rapidly becomes a completely different sort of heat. But before they can determine where a relationship between them might lead, they must stop a killer before he strikes again.
I’ve got some mixed feelings about this one just because it frustrated me so much. The heroine was the cause of much of this pique because most of her behavior and dialogues seemed more like they belonged to a recalcitrant child than to a strong, independent lady. Her constant harping about how women should be allowed to do more wasn’t wrong of course, but her actions repeatedly worsened the problem, making herself, and by extension women, look bad. Kate put herself and others in danger with her over-estimation of her own abilities. She knew nothing about police work, showed very little care for Eversham and the damage she’d already done him, and even after admitting her mistakes, she still repeated them, always thinking she knew better than anyone else. This just smacked of abject arrogance to me. I did appreciate her awareness and ability to admit to being wrong, but when she then repeated this behavior anyway, those admissions were cheapened for me. Besides that, I did enjoy the storyline and the mystery aspect here, although it definitely took precedent over the romance. There was only really one gratuitous scene between Andrew and Kate and despite their working together, a lot of which was mostly Kate trying to undermine him and do her own thing, I didn’t really see them as a couple. They had the enemies to lovers spark, but it never felt like it progressed much beyond that to me and their relationship seemed a bit cobbled together. Overall, I adored the mystery here and found the whodunit aspect to be well done, I just didn’t click with this heroine and I wanted more romance. I also think the ending felt rather abrupt and an epilogue would’ve made it seem less slapdash, but things may be more wrapped up in the next installment of the series. Valentine was an interesting enough side character for me to want to continue in hopes his story is next.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/4294136636
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3617212174
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