CBR16 Book 65: "The Mimicking of Known Successes" by Malka Older

Page count: 169 pages

Rating: 3 stars

CBR16 Bingo: Earth Day (while this novella is set off-Earth, a lot of the plot involves conservation efforts to try to reintroduce healthy biodiversity on Earth)

Mossa is investigating the mysterious disappearance, most likely a suicide, on one of the human colonies on Jupiter. Mossa discovers that the missing man worked at the colony's university, where conveniently for her and her further investigation, Mossa's ex-girlfriend is a scholar working with others to try to recreate the ecosystems of Earth before it collapsed.

Pleiti is surprised to see Mossa, but flattered that she wants assistance. Mossa presents as very likely neuro divergent, very focused and usually rather unconcerned about the feelings and reactions of those around her. She's a dedicated and experienced investigator, but digging into the case with the help of Pleiti just keeps making things more confusing, and strange. Will Mossa be able to solve the puzzling case, and might she have a new chance with Pleiti, after breaking it off with her so many years ago?

I think there was too much sci-fi here, and not enough of the mystery to grab me. Mossa and Pleiti were fine as characters, but I was never really invested in the case they were working together on, nor did I really care about the world-building, although the colonies on Jupiter sounded pretty neat. I didn't hate this story, but considering it's a novella of less than 200 pages, it shouldn't have taken me three days to finish. I just didn't feel compelled to keep reading, because the story and characters were merely OK. To others, this might be a great read, but I really wasn't feeling it. At least it allowed me to complete my Earth Day square on the bingo card, which means I have actually completed the whole card, and the bonus square. Before I thought of this novella, which I have owned in e-book for a while now, I was probably just going to skip this square altogether. So I don't regret reading it, I just don't think I'll revisit it, or remember the plot too well a couple of months from now.

Judging a book by its cover: While the book itself left me merely whelmed, I really like the cover. The reds and oranges of the background, the tiny sci-fi details in the background and only a silhouette to give an impression of what the characters look like. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 51: "The Earl Who Isn't" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 370 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Smart Bitches Summer Bingo: 2024 Summer Release

Disclaimer! This was an ARC from the author. This has not affected my opinions or my review. I have also paid actual money for my own copy of the book because Courtney Milan is on "my pre-order immediately when she announces a new book" list. 

Andrew Uchida works very hard to collect and cultivate seeds, plants, and vegetables, and every time he learns of a plant or vegetable that one of the diverse residents of the little town of Wedgeford misses from their homeland (Wedgeford has inhabitants who have ended up there from all sorts of corners of the globe, many of them from Asia), he does his best to figure out a way to grow it, to allow said resident to feel a bit more at home in their new homeland. He also helps run the inn that his mother, aunt and uncle own. 

Andrew has also hidden a secret for most of his life. He is, in fact, the eldest legitimate son of the Earl of Arsell, and his mother is technically a countess. Now his father (who he has never met) is dying, and Andrew is very determined not to have to become an earl. So when Lily Bei, the woman he has loved for most of his life, returns from China after seven years away, and excitedly confides in him that she has proof that he is next in line to the earldom, he isn't exactly thrilled. While he hates having to lie to and dissemble with Lily, he also can't have her "help" him by securing him a noble title he desperately doesn't want. Complicating things further, Andrew is very aware, from stories his mother told him, that the relatives of the Earl of Arsell are extremely ruthless, and are not going to accept a half-Asian man as the heir to the title. If they discover that his mother is still alive, and has a son, they are likely to try to do away with both of them.

Fear for the safety of himself, but mostly his mother, is also the reason why Andrew never told Lily how he felt about her before she was sent off to China by her grandfather. Before she left, they shared one night together (because Lily wanted to make sure she wasn't married off to anyone and made sure to ask her best friend to help divest her of her pesky virginity). Now Lily is back, and more irresistible than ever, but Andrew just cannot bear anything happening to her or any potential children they might have. 

Lily believes Andrew sees her as nothing but a good friend. She also believes her grandfather sent her to China because he was disappointed in her when she tried to join the English suffragist movement. In China, instead of learning to be a dutiful wife, she became even more radicalised and learned to use a printing press. Now she has bought one of her own and intends to print translated poetry in order to inspire universal suffrage. Never one to entirely fully understand subtle language or social cues, Lily always felt like the odd one out in Wedgeford, growing up. She is surprised to discover that many of the people she thought disliked her or wanted nothing to do with her are delighted that she's back and eager to include her in their social circle. 

The Earl Who Isn't is the third and final book in Courtney Milan's The Wedgeford Trials, about the inhabitants of the fictional village of Wedgeford in the south of England, where a large number of immigrants, especially of Asian descent have settled down and made new homes for themselves. It was established early in the series that one of the unspoken rules of the town is that newcomers aren't really asked about their past, where they came from, or why they have moved there, allowing them the possibility of a blank slate and a chance at a new beginning. In this book, we discover part of why this rule came to be. 

Andrew Uchida has been a supporting character in both the previous two novels in the series and Lily has been mentioned, although she was away when both of the other couples in the series got their happy endings. There are cameos from Chloe and Jeremy (or Posh Jim), as well as Andrew's cousin Naomi and her husband Kai, and the young and implausibly named Mr. Wilderhampsher plays a fairly significant part in the story.

In my opinion, Courtney Milan has yet to write a bad book. Some are on my all-time favourite romances list, but all are good and I always learn new things when I read them. In this, while the romance between Andrew and Lily was sweet, I found that the personal developments of each of the protagonists as well as the growing relationship between Andrew and his previously unheard-of younger brother took up more of the story than the actual romantic plot. So that makes me unable to rate it more than 4 stars. 

Judging a book by its cover: All three books in this series have had excellent covers (a far cry from the photo-shopped wedding dress covers of The Worth Saga novels). I love the colour of the woman's dress (although it seems way more bright and colourful than anything Lily is described as wearing in the story), I love the way the couple is embracing and gazing at each other. Really well done. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR16 Book 28: "What is Love?" by Jen Comfort

Page count: 345 pages

Rating: 5 stars

CBR16 Bingo: Games

Straight-laced university professor Teddy Ferguson has had a record-long stint of victories on the popular trivia game show Answers! when his confidence and entire existence are rocked by the appearance of the beautiful and confident Maxine Hart. She ruins his pre-show ritual by eating a specific doughnut by stealing it directly in front of him, taking one bite and then throwing it in the trash. One very memorable kiss and the fact that Maxine completely obliterates him on the game show means Teddy can never forget her. He can't believe that he was beaten by a self-taught, smart-mouthed high school dropout with ADHD. 

They don't see each other again until it's been over a year, when Maxine and Teddy have both been invited to compete in a special high-stakes tournament, featuring the only undefeated champion of the show, Hercules McKnight. Teddy persuades Maxine to take part, but both need to improve their weak areas (Teddy is far too cautious when gambling on categories, and Maxine has a lot of gaps in her knowledge base) and Maxine declares that they will train together. She unceremoniously shows up at his house in New Jersey with most of her worldly possessions, including her pet snake.

Maxine's entire way of living is chaotic and impulsive, while Teddy thrives on order and routine. Nevertheless, in the weeks before the tournament, they manage to find methods to assist and train the other. Among other things, Maxine takes Teddy sky-diving, to make him face some of his fears, and Teddy devises some very creative ways of making Maxine learn in a way that ensures that potentially boring facts will be burned in her memory. The sizzling chemistry they experienced during their first encounter means they can't live and work together in close quarters without eventually acting on their mutual attraction - but can their romance survive when both are determined to be the all-time winner of the Answers! tournament?

Because I finished this book towards the end of April and have been dreadfully negligent with getting my reviews written, I no longer remember in detail all the reasons why this is a five-star read to me. Chaotic and seemingly disorganised meets ordered and buttoned up (until it reaches a certain point and they always turn out to be incredibly passionate) is a trope that tends to work for me, and Maxine and Teddy were both so much fun to spend time with. I loved them individually and as a couple and wanted only great things for them.

I liked the preparation for the trivia contest and learned a whole bunch of cool stuff over the course of the book. That's never a bad thing. I had fairly high expectations for the book since my friend Rochelle/Emmalita gave it a rave review back in March. If she loves a book, I'm unlikely not to love it too. This was my first Jen Comfort novel, but it certainly won't be my last. 

Judging a book by its cover: A fairly simple, but quite cute cover, with bright, cheerful colours. The two people standing by gaming podiums are both wearing things the protagonists are described as wearing at various points in the novel, so that works too. While headless cover models is sometimes off-putting, I kind of like it here. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR16 Book 23: "The Murder of Mr. Wickham" by Claudia Gray

Page count: 320 pages

Audio book length: 12 hrs 3 mins

Mr. Knightley and his wife, Emma (formerly Miss Woodhouse), have been happily married for several years. They are inviting a number of friends to a houseparty; Mr. and Mrs Darcy of Pemberley with their son Jonathan, Colonel and Mrs. Brandon (no children yet, as they are very newly married), Captain and Mrs. Wentworth,  Edmund and Fanny Bertram and Miss Juliet Tilney, daughter of  Henry and Catherine Tilney. Unfortunately, they also receive an unexpected and unwanted addition to the party, Mr Wickham, who has unfinished business with several of the members there. The Knightleys would love nothing more than to send him away, but stormy weather forces them to give him accommodation.

As well as a complicated family history with some of the guests, other members of the houseparty or their close family are now in debt to Mr Wickham, and there are tensions and a lot of awkwardness. Then the loathsome Mr Wickham turns up dead, clearly murdered. The officers investigating seem convinced the guilty party is one of the servants, but Jonathan Darcy and Miss Juliet Tilney, are convinced the real killer is one of the other guests. Miss Tinley is the only one who didn't have any prior connection to the murder victim and Jonathan Darcy is Mr. Wickham's nephew. They conclude that since they are likely the only ones who couldn't have killed him, they should investigate and try to figure out who actually murdered the avaricious and unpleasant Mr Wickham before some innocent servant is hanged for the crime. 

As their investigation progresses, it turns out that Mr. Wickham was possibly even more despicable than previously suspected, and would happily engage in blackmail as well as dodgy business practices that made others lose their savings. Pretty much everyone at the house party seems to have had a motive to kill the man. Jonathan Darcy is also pleased to discover that Miss Juliet doesn't seem worried about or affected by his rather unusual behaviour - he is somewhat lacking in traditional social graces.

This is high-level Jane Austen fan fiction, published as a historical murder mystery. Gray speculates what the lives of various popular Austen characters might be like after the romantic stories in each of their novels ended. To someone like me, who has read and greatly enjoyed, most of Austen's books (Not you, Mansfield Park, never you), it was fun to revisit these characters and see where Gray has imagined them ending up. Edmund Bertram is still rather boring and his wife Fanny is about as interesting as plain bread, but even their subplot ended up being interesting to me. 

Jonathan Darcy is clearly written as neurodivergent and struggles with social interactions. His family know him and make allowances for his sometimes odd behaviour, but in a new place with new people, especially one as tense and occasionally awkward as the aftermath of a murder, he struggles to conform. He manages to be open about his challenges to his new friend Juliet, who doesn't seem to be scared or put off by it and they become close friends over the course of the investigation, even when the case starts looking more complicated. 

I listened to this as an audiobook, narrated by Billie Fulford-Brown. She has a pleasant voice and manages to differentiate the various characters well. The only other book by Claudia Gray I've read was A Thousand Pieces of You, back in 2017. It was fine, but not very memorable, and I never got around to reading the second and third book in the trilogy. This book, on the other hand, was a fun and entertaining read, and I pretty much instantly wanted the sequel (see my next review) I am also very excited about the third book, where we are graced with the presence of the formidable Lady Catherine DeBourgh).

Judging a book by its cover: I like the simple, but evocative cover art style. The manor house, the various silhouettes in the window, and the lightning bolts. I question how there can be a fierce lightning storm and a visible crescent moon at the same time, though. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 9: "The Widow of Rose House" by Diana Biller

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo: Came out more than 4 years ago

CBR16 Sweet Books: New (new author)

It's 1875 and Professor Samuel Moore is doing marvellously, thanks to the many inventions he and his family are coming up with. What he really wants to do, though, is investigate and possibly prove the existence of ghosts, and to do that, he requires an introduction to the infamous Mrs. Alva Webster, a widow with a scandalous reputation. Sam doesn't really care about Mrs. Webster's apparently lurid past, he just wants to set up his instruments and investigate the old house she has purchased in upstate New York. Liefdehuis is rumoured to be haunted, possibly by multiple ghosts and he'd love a chance to make new discoveries. He does notice that Alva Webster is very beautiful, but at least initially, the science angle is the most important to him.

Alva Webster does indeed have a terrible reputation and a dead husband. All the rumours and scandalous gossip were started by her abusive husband after she took the courage to leave him once they lived in Paris. She was even looking into getting a divorce when he was killed during a robbery in Monte Carlo. Now her dream is to restore the once grand mansion, Liefdehuis, and document her process while doing so, hopefully resulting in a book on decorating and interior design. However, her odious brother-in-law is blackmailing her and the contractors she hired to start the restoration work at the house refuse to work, claiming there are ghosts there who scared them all nearly out of their wits. Samuel Moore keeps sending her letters, wanting access to the house, and eventually, she relents and lets him have access to the house, provided he promises to exorcise any ghosts he may discover as part of the process. 

Sam Moore is clearly a scientific genius, and while he's largely oblivious to social cues and what is considered polite and proper, he's also very observant and good at reading people. Having grown up in a loving family who all share a love of science and exploration, his life has been a very different one from that of Alva. The daughter of rich, but cold and status-hungry parents, she was married off to her husband (who needed a rich wife) after he seduced her when she was only 17 and who certainly didn't want anything to do with her once all the scandalous rumours reached them from across the ocean. The few times she's tried to contact them, her mother sends a harried maid out to shoo her away. She went from an emotionally abusive home to a physically abusive husband and even when she's trying to move on with her life and pick up the pieces of her tattered reputation, she's unable to forget because of her blackmailing brother-in-law. So she's naturally rather bitter and skittish, and while it's obvious that Sam finds her very attractive (he's not a man to hide his intentions or feelings), she is reluctant to get involved with anyone new.

This is set in the Gilded Age, mostly in New York, but with some flashbacks to Alva's life in Paris. While not as wealthy as her parents, Alva still has some of the fortune she came into her marriage with, but if she keeps having to pay her unscrupulous brother-in-law every month, she will struggle unless she manages to get her book finished and published. She keeps the truth from Sam as long as she can, since she's not used to having anyone to rely on or to support her.

Sam Moore is basically a big golden retriever of a man. He's tall and blond and clearly neuro-divergent in some way (most of his family seem to be, as well). Most of the time, he is accompanied by his best friend, Henry Van de Berg, a lawyer who makes sure that his patents are registered and that he and his family are paid what they are supposed to for their brilliant engineering solutions. Henry isn't exactly sure that making Mrs Webster's acquaintance is a good idea, but once Sam gets an idea in his head, he will pursue it tirelessly. So despite the potential complications of Sam's involvement in Alva Webster's life, he supports his friend. 

A novel featuring ghosts and a haunted house might be more of a paranormal fantasy. This is more of a straight historical romance with some supernatural elements. Minor spoilers, Alva's house actually IS haunted, and she and others are not imagining the horrible experiences they have with the ghost. But it's not the main focus of the story, for all that it plays an important part.

I really enjoyed this book and loved pretty much all the characters in the story. As far as I can see, Biller has written a novel about Sam's brother, but I hope she decides to give Henry a novel in the future as well. Possibly Sam's younger sister, as well. Either way, this delightful book ensures that I will check out Biller's other novels sometime later this year. 

Judging a book by its cover: Based on the cover image, I would have believed this book to be a much more straightforward historical novel. I certainly didn't expect a romance with paranormal elements. I suspect some readers picking this up would be surprised at getting a romance, while a lot of romance fans may have missed out on this one since it looks rather very different from most historical romance covers.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 8: "The Secret Service of Tea and Treason" by India Holton

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 5 stars

Alice Dearlove works for the secret organisation the Agency of Undercover Note Takers, or A.U.N.T., staffed by spies and agents disguised as ladies' maids, butlers, footmen, and other household staff who mostly go unnoticed by the higher classes, but are usually in a position to see and hear everything. She's one of their top agents, known within A.U.N.T only as Agent A. Usually, Miss Dearlove works alone and gets excellent results while doing so.

Now she faces one of the biggest challenges of her career. Not only does she have to cooperate with someone on her next mission, but her partner is none other than her biggest rival within A.U.N.T., the elusive Agent B, Daniel Bixby. Now Agents A and B have to learn to work together, while also pretending to be married. There's a plot to assassinate the queen, and Alice and Daniel have to pretend to be pirates, happily married, and fool an entire houseparty full of eccentric, murder-happy ladies and their husbands while trying to locate the potential weapon and foil the plot. 

Since they're consummate professionals, both Alice and Daniel are determined to complete the job quickly and efficiently while remaining strictly platonic the whole time. When more public displays of affection aren't necessary to play their parts, of course. Obviously, wanting to be convincing in their assumed roles, they might have to practice the duties of husband and wife in the privacy of their own rooms, as well. It's not like they'd get carried away and fall for one another, just because they are forced to be fake married, sharing a bedroom (with just one bed). After all, A.U.N.T doesn't allow for any affection between agents, and once their mission is done, Alice and Daniel will be going their separate ways, possibly never seeing one another again.

This might not be a 5-star book for all readers, but as the culmination of the Dangerous Damsels trilogy that India Holton started with The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels works on pretty much every level for me. Alice Dearlove and Daniel Bixby, whose acquaintance the reader makes briefly in The League of Gentlewomen Witches get their own novel and a chance at their own HEA, since clearly from their first meeting in the previous novel, they are perfect for one another. 

Both found in orphanages by A.U.N.T and raised under the strict tutelage of the organisation's teachers and trainers to become secret agents for the crown, neither Alice nor Daniel have ever really felt like they fit in among their fellow spies or people in general. It's quite clear from the description of them,  and their reactions to and thoughts about certain things, that they are both neurodivergent, and while this is not something likely to have been acknowledged in Victorian times, be they the real ones or the alternate history one we meet here, it's nevertheless a fact and makes them both excellent at their jobs, but not very good at making personal connections. 

Daniel Bixby worked undercover for several years as the butler of charming pirate captain Alex O'Reilly, gathering intel for A.U.N.T and making sure the pirates never caused too much havoc and destruction. He has great difficulty admitting that he and Alex actually became friends and that he cares for both the now-reformed rogue and the witch the pirate fell in love with. 

Alice Dearlove is the perfect ladies' maid and can serve the most infuriating of spoiled aristocrats, devious pirate matrons, or meddling witches. She hasn't really ever had any friends since the organisation doesn't exactly encourage emotional attachment to anything or anyone. She also gets very defensive by light touches and has no understanding of idioms or metaphorical language. Once Daniel discovers this, he's very helpfully tells her "Idiom" every time someone uses figurative language that baffles her. It was a very cute recurring gag and endeared me further to the man.

In various flashbacks, the reader is given insight into the rather dark upbringing both agents have had, in an organisation that doesn't really care for its employees as people, only pawns to move about on a large political gameboard. It helps that they share a lot of the same experiences, albeit in slightly different ways, but it also makes them both very aware of how difficult a potential happy ending would be for them, as A.U.N.T certainly wouldn't let them marry and be together.

Of course, Alice and Daniel, helped in parts by Ned, Cecilia, Alex, and Charlotte, end up with a very lovely HEA in the end. Alice has actual friends who care about her and they're all part of a bigger found family they have dreamed of for their entire lives. This book was a very quick read and made me very happy. India Holton's writing has gotten sharper and wittier with each book, and I'm very excited to see what she will publish next. 

Judging a book by its cover: Once again, it is an adorable cover and I really love the lavender shade of the background. I especially like the traditional spy movie poses of Bixby and Dearlove, with them in period-appropriate servants' attire instead of evening wear. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 86: "Make You Mine This Christmas" by Lizzie Huxley-Jones

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 5 stars

#CBR15 Passport Challenge: Recommended by a friend (I'm not sure if I would have ever discovered this book if it wasn't for the amazing Narfna/Ashley

A lot of contemporary romances get described as rom-coms, and in a lot of cases this is just lies, spouted by the publishers to get more people to pick up the books. Make You Mine This Christmas, on the other hand, is both romantic and very funny. I could easily see it as a film in my head.

Haf (it's a Welsh name) lives in York and is overworked and underappreciated doing social media for an environmental charity. She's depressed because her parents are going to Madeira for Christmas, and she is probably going to have to face Christmas all alone. Her non-binary flatmate and best friend Ambrose drags her along to a holiday party, where she meets the handsome Christopher, who is clearly very posh and admits to working in finance in London. The two hit it off, in a deeply platonic way, but quite a bit of booze makes them decide to kiss (awkwardly) under a piece of mistletoe anyway. Because fake relationships have to start somewhere, they are seen kissing by Christopher's ex-girlfriend Laurel, who is there with her boorish new boyfriend Mark, and Laurel just assumes that Haf is Christopher's new girlfriend. To save her new pal from a mortifying explanation to his ex, Haf plays along and agrees that yes, they are dating.

By the next morning (the two fell asleep on Haf's couch watching TV), Laurel has apparently told everyone who knows Christopher about his new flame, and his parents insist that he bring her along to family Christmas. Haf doesn't have any plans, Christopher clearly doesn't feel comfortable telling his parents that what Laurel saw was just a big understanding, and the agreement to fake date is formed. Ambrose thinks they are both idiots. Ambrose is not wrong.

On her way to meet Christopher in London, Haf browses a bookstore at a train station and has the perfect meet-cute with a very beautiful and mysterious woman, with whom she flirts awkwardly, and who recommends she buy Carol by Patricia Highsmith (excellent lesbian flirting strategy there). Unfortunately, the alluring bookshop woman disappears before Haf can get any contact details from her. Cue a little time later, when it turns out that the sexy bookshop lady is none other than Christopher's older sister, who will also be spending Christmas with the family. Haf is pretending to date Christopher but fancies the pants off his sister. Neither sibling seems able to be entirely honest with or able to stand up to their wealthy, but well-meaning parents, who welcome Haf into the family with open arms. 

This book has:

- Fake dating, and the many lies that accompany such a scheme

- A whole bunch of excellent queer representation, including our bisexual heroine and her non-binary bestie (Ambrose is amazing, and they steal every scene they are in or mentioned in)

- Lovely fat representation. Haf is plus-size and entirely unashamed about it. The imposing Laurel ends up sewing her a ballgown (for reasons) and there is quite a bit of conversation about how hard it is for larger-sized women to find clothing that isn't either a sack or purchased online

- A very nice sibling relationship between Christopher and Kit 

- The awkwardness of pretending to date one sibling (who you feel nothing sexual about at all) and wanting to jump the other sibling (who you very much feel a lot of sexual things for)

- A lot of rich people, who mostly are very nice, if a bit clueless

- Disastrous gingerbread house construction

- Successful gingerbread house construction

- A ridiculous chase sequence through an outdoor Christmas fête, which ends with our heroine having to wade into an icy cold and slimy duck pond to save a baby reindeer from a vicious goose

- A fair amount of pining

- An actual, honest to god, Christmas ball

- Loyal dogs

- Children forced to pull on their big-person pants and be honest with their parents about what they want to do with their lives

- Some final act complications, resulting in a very touching declaration of love at a London train station

There were absolutely parts of this that gave me the same feeling as when reading Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall. That is by no means a bad thing. I absolutely see why Narfna/Ashley was so enthusiastic about this book, and the many quotes she included in her own review of the book are so much funnier in context. This is clearly going to be a book I revisit for comfort re-reads in the years to come. Now I need to see what else this author has written - I want more!

Judging a book by its cover: As cartoony covers go, I actually think this one is very sweet. We only see the characters from the back, yet to the reader, it's very obvious who each of them is supposed to be. I love that the little cartoon Kit has her walking stick and emerald green coat and that it's obvious that Haf is indeed plus-size. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 77: "Two Wrongs Make a Right" by Chloe Liese

Page count: 351 pages

Rating. 3.5 stars

Official book description:

Jamie Westenberg and Bea Wilmot have nothing in common except a meet-disaster and the mutual understanding that they couldn't be more wrong for each other. But when the people closest to them play Cupid and trick them into going on a date, Jamie and Bea realize they have something else in common after all—an undeniable need for revenge.   Soon their plan is in Fake date obnoxiously and convince the meddlers they’re madly in love. Then, break up spectacularly and dash everyone's hopes, putting an end to the matchmaking madness once and for all.   To convince everyone that they’ve fallen for each other, Jamie and Bea will have to nail the performance of their lives. But as their final act nears and playing lovers becomes easier than not, they begin to What if Cupid’s arrow wasn’t so off the mark? And what if two wrongs do make a right?

This is an opposites attract contemporary romance, that I've also seen marketed as enemies to lovers. The protagonists are never enemies, they just really dislike each other a lot the first time they meet, and said evening keeps going more and more disastrously wrong until they find themselves locked in a cupboard together and kind of feel like kissing each other. Both Jamie "West" Westenberg and Beatrice "Bea" Wilmot are single by choice. West suffers from anxiety and is the only pediatrician in a family of successful and highly ambitious surgeons (his family, even his Mum, are all awful). His ex-girlfriend chose a position working for his father over him, so now he's just a workaholic so he can't be set up on dates. Bea's former boyfriend turned out to be a controlling, emotionally abusive d*ck, and she doesn't really feel comfortable telling her twin sister Jules, or any of their friends the truth about how the relationship ended. Bea is also autistic and has a bunch of sensory issues. There's a whole bunch of stuff she can't eat, and a lot of clothing she just cannot bear to wear. West comes across as a buttoned-up, disapproving know-it-all to Bea, she comes across as overly clumsy (she literally spills two different things over him the first night they meet), chaotic, opinionated, and a picky eater.

West's roommate Jean Paul and Bea's twin sister Jules are dating, and in fact, get engaged on the evening West and Bea first meet. They then trick them into texting one another under their middle names for a week and agreeing to a blind date, because they are so convinced the two will be perfect together. West and Bea both come to really enjoy their flirty text conversation, only to be filled with disappointment and, in Bea's case, righteous fury once they show up for their date and discover that they've been tricked. Not entirely sure why fake dating is going to get them revenge, but all of these stories have to get the couple to come up with a preposterous plan for some reason. 

Of course, it turns out that while they are very different, they also complement each other really well. Bea doesn't care that West works a lot, because he's a doctor helping children, and that's a very noble calling. West keeps trying to find ways to take care of Bea without making her feel smothered, like filling his freezer with frozen vegetable soups he's made, because she finds it so hard to eat vegetables, and even soups are sometimes horrible to her. 

So the main romance is actually quite sweet, and the whole fake dating thing is just a way for them to stop disliking one another and actually spend some quality time together. I really didn't like the subplot with Jules and Jean Paul, however. He seems to have a complete personality transplant from the start of the book to the latter half, and his motivations for setting up West and Bea seem rather unhinged, frankly. West's entire family of condescending, rich people surgeons were also implausibly awful.

I've seen this book on a bunch of Best of 2023 lists, and it's been given rave reviews by authors I like, such as Ali Hazelwood, Helen Hoang, and Talia Hibbert. It was a perfectly ok book, but I'm not sure I see myself ever re-reading it. There are better romance retellings of Much Ado About Nothing out there, such as The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You by Lily Anderson, and Speak Easy, Speak Love by McKelle George. Both of those are YA though, so if you want sexy times in your romance, this might be the one for you, after all. 

Judging a book by its cover: I don't know why, but I really dislike the art style of this cover. I don't know why I hate the way the characters are drawn, but I do. Which is a bit strange, as they look a lot more like the protagonists are described than on a lot of these sort of cartoony covers. I can't tell you why, there's just something that rubs me the wrong way about this. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 60: "Half a Soul" by Olivia Atwater

Page count: 260 pages

Rating: 4 stars

This book is marketed as Howl's Moving Castle meets Bridgerton. I suspect anything by a slightly less known author writing in the Regency era is now sold as X meets Bridgerton. Before the Netflix success of Julia Quinn's novels, I'm guessing it would be X meets Jane Austen. Obviously, just because it's set in the Regency era, it isn't necessarily anything at all like Bridgerton, and that's absolutely fine, and might, in fact, make more people interested in it. I do see the Howl's Moving Castle comparisons. This does have an absent-minded master wizard with poor social skills (because he really doesn't care what anyone thinks of him) and a pragmatic, young woman who seems entirely unfazed by his rudeness. Mostly, what this reminded me of was Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell but with a central romance plot and a happy ending. But I guess not comparing a book to a thousand-page tome emulating hefty Victorian literature, complete with tons of footnotes to an audience who often wants light-hearted escapism might not be the best sales pitch. 

I have had this book on my TBR list for years but was to move it to the top of my reading list by my friend Desdemona, who can be very insistent when she decides to be. She also made me see that it fits into at least three of my current reading challenges and provided me with free therapy via Messenger conversation, so it felt like the least I could do was read this. For some reason, I'd convinced myself that this was a fairy tale retelling of some sort. It is not. The series name Regency Faerie Tales comes from the fact that these books are set in the Regency era, and feature faeries rather prominently. 

Miss Theodora "Dora" Ettings had half her soul stolen from her by a sinister faerie gentleman wearing an abundance of fancy coats when she was a child. She was saved from having her entire soul stolen because her cousin Vanessa stabs the faerie in his leg with sewing scissors. Hence the adult Dora keeps the scissors under her pillow at night and carries them around in a leather sheath during her waking hours. The loss of half her soul has made Dora rather distanced from strong emotion (she describes it as only having the feelings with the long tail), so she doesn't seem to feel fear, embarrassment, or anger, but neither passionate joy nor love. Vanessa is the person closest to her, and she describes the feeling of being near her as being warmed by a lantern. Because of Dora's peculiarities, and the fact that her parents are both dead, no one really expects Dora to make a good match, and she'll probably end up living with Vanessa as a spinster aunt to her children once Vanessa finds a husband.

Vanessa insists that the only way she will find a suitable husband is if they go to London, and her mother (Dora's aunt) reluctantly agrees, deeply disgruntled about the fact that they have to drag Dora along. Vanessa is determined to get herself and Dora to London to meet the famous court sourcerer, Lord Elias Wilder, popularly known as the Lord Sorcier. While he apparently has atrocious social skills and seems to disdain the entire ton, he was instrumental in helping the British fight the French and has been given his title by the Prince Regent himself. If Britain's foremost magician can't help Dora restore her missing half a soul, then surely no one can.

Left mostly to her own devices in London, while her cousin is swept away to dress fittings and the like, Dora runs into the magician and his best friend, Albert Lowe, in a bookstore, and said best friend just happens to be the son of an influential society matron, landing Dora and Vanessa personalised invites to the big ball she's hosting. Dora's aunt is forced to let Dora come along and at the ball, she has further interactions with the surly sorcerer, as well as his jovial nobleman bestie. When in the bookstore, Dora glanced into a mirror and saw herself with the Lord Sorcier at the ball, her dress stained horribly with red. After this scene comes to pass exactly so (the red turns out to be punch, not blood, thankfully), and Wilder finds Dora outside in the garden, trying to wash her dress in a fountain, he reluctantly agrees that Dora's case is rather a serious one. She is entirely heedless of the potential scandal of being found mostly naked in the garden during a society event and doesn't seem even vaguely embarrassed by the incident. He's also intrigued by how easy Dora can scry, and see both the past and future in mirrored surfaces. 

Vanessa's mother and her high society friends have decided that the ideal match for Vanessa would be Lady Carroway's eldest son, while Dora can probably be foisted off on Albert, Lord Wilder's best friend. They full-on lie about how helpful and charitable Dora is, forcing her to accompany him on his rounds to tend to the city's poor, which means she sees firsthand both the dreadful conditions that much of society lives in (letting her understand Elias' anger and disdain with the wealthy). She also becomes involved in investigating the strange plague that seems to be affecting some workhouse children, making them suddenly fall asleep and never wake again. Elias is wracking his brains trying to find the cause and save the children, so far to no success. 

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that the mystical sickness plaguing children and Dora's predicament with her missing soul end up being connected, and only by venturing into Faerie itself with our grouchy hero and Dora be able to save the day. 

When you pick up a Regency romance with a fantasy twist, you're not really expecting to deal with rather scathing social commentary as a central part of the plot. While some of the story takes place in grand houses and impressive ballrooms, Atwater's novel also shows the reader the deplorable conditions of workhouses, the unfairness of the class divide and touches briefly on just how frightful the Napoleonic wars actually were and why the surviving soldiers might not be able to just forget about the horrors they had experienced. 

Dora is a wonderful heroine, and while they give it a magical explanation, her total lack of strong emotion and social graces reads as her being neuro-atypical. She discovers that even missing half her soul, she is perfectly capable of experiencing love and happiness, it just takes a bit more for her to recognise the emotions. Elias is a brilliant man, completely unimpressed by riches and society trappings, who feels deeply angry about all the unfairness he witnesses and how incapable he is of helping all the poor souls whom he wants to save. He's clearly barely tolerated in high society, with the exception of at Lord and Lady Carroway, since he saved their son's life in the war and even fashioned him a silver hand to replace the one he lost in battle. 

This was a fun read, and the author has written two more books in the series. I'm not sure I immediately want to pick those up, however, as this story doesn't feel like it needs sequels. All the major storylines are finished off neatly, and I'm not sure reading a story or two that feels only loosely connected to this is necessary. So the writer might have wanted to connect the stories a bit more

Judging a book by its cover: I like the simplicity of the cover, with the green and gold and the scissors that play such an important part of the story front and centre. 

CBR15 Book 37: "The Heart Principle" by Helen Hoang

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Official book description:

When violinist Anna Sun accidentally achieves career success with a viral YouTube video, she finds herself incapacitated and burned out from her attempts to replicate that moment. And when her longtime boyfriend announces he wants an open relationship before making a final commitment, a hurt and angry Anna decides that if he wants an open relationship, then she does, too. Translation: She’s going to embark on a string of one-night stands. The more unacceptable the men, the better.

That’s where tattooed, motorcycle-riding Quan Diep comes in. Their first attempt at a one-night stand fails, as does their second, and their third, because being with Quan is more than sex—he accepts Anna on an unconditional level that she herself has just started to understand. However, when tragedy strikes Anna’s family she takes on a role that she is ill-suited for, until the burden of expectations threatens to destroy her. Anna and Quan have to fight for their chance at love, but to do that, they also have to fight for themselves.

OK, so anyone looking for a light-hearted, fluffy romance read should very much look elsewhere for their fix. Ms. Hoang took more than three years to finish this novel because she was going through a lot of the same things as her protagonist Anna in her actual life. In her afterword, Hoang writes that this book is half memoir and the hardest thing she's ever written. She was going through severe writer's block and autistic burnout because her mother got severely ill and required a lot of intensive care from her family. In the novel, it's Anna's father who gets very sick and is taken home by his family to be nursed by his close family members. This happens when Anna is already struggling with anxiety, depression, and undiagnosed autism. 

The early parts of the book, when Anna and Quan first meet and get to know each other are the easiest to read, even with Anna's perfectionist struggles to master her music. However, as the challenges keep building for the couple, the book also gets a lot heavier in its subject matter, and it actually took me a full 18 days to finish this book, despite its relatively low page count, because I kept having to put it down and didn't really want to come back to it too often, since the struggles Anna has in her personal life, and the difficulties she and Quan have to make their relationship work were really kind of bumming me out.

Nevertheless, Hoang is a good writer, and the heavy topics in the book feel all the more real since they're based in part on the author's own experiences. I don't regret reading the book and finishing the series, and I deeply sympathise with Ms. Hoang for having to go through such a hard time - but she probably got a better and more heartfelt book out of it in the end. 

Judging a book by its cover: As animated romance covers go, you could do a lot worse. I love the bright red background and the subtle heart behind the elegant woman, seemingly traced by a rider on a motorcycle is a nice touch. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR13 Book 10: "Act Your Age, Eve Brown" by Talia Hibbert

Page count: 320 pages

Rating: 5 stars

Eve is the youngest and seemingly flightiest of the three privileged Brown sisters. She's always felt like the odd duck in the family, neither as focused nor as intelligent as her two older sisters and completely unable to settle on anything for very long. When she abruptly closes down her wedding planning business after one single event (a generally very successful wedding, that nevertheless descended into some chaos after Eve took it upon herself to liberate all the doves that the bride had wanted, and was left with a large bill to reimburse the animal wranglers), her long-suffering parents have had enough. They demand that Eve get a job, any job, and hold it down for at least a year. They'll freeze her trust fund payments until she can prove herself thusly. Deeply frustrated with herself and the whole situation, Eve goes driving and ends up a bit lost.

Jacob Wayne needs to hire a new chef for his B&B asap, after his previous one won the lottery and popped off to Scotland with her boyfriend. None of the candidates he's seen so far live up to his exacting perfectionist standards, and no matter what his best friend (the local pub owner) tries to do to persuade him of each candidate's virtues. Jacob knows he's not easy to work for or with (his autism makes it difficult for him to casually interact with people), but he's not willing to settle when it comes to the quality of his B&B's food. Eve comes barrelling in, soaked through because of a sudden rainstorm, with no apparent resume, and applies for the job. It takes him about two seconds to conclude that she's 1) wholly inappropriate for the job and 2) that he finds her inexplicably and incredibly attractive. After a series of unfortunate events lead to Eve backing into Jacob with her car and breaking his arm, she feels that she pretty much has to stay around to help him with the running of his B&B until he is better, even though she finds him insufferable and robotic and he finds her unreliable and chaotic.

This wouldn't be a very good romance if our protagonists didn't overcome their initial antipathy towards one another and found some common ground. Because of Eve's many different attempts at a career over the years, she turns out to actually be really good in the kitchen. While her charm and bubbly personality don't really do anything for Jacob, to begin with (she did land him in the hospital with a broken arm and a minor concussion, after all), she seems to be a big hit with the guests at the B&B and aptly handles not just the various breakfast orders, but baking for the afternoon teas. Jacob's not exactly thrilled to discover that she's living in his spare room, but despite his suspicions and misgivings, has to admit that Eve is a good cook and that she throws herself into helping with the housekeeping and other duties in the establishment while Jacob recovers. 

Having been presented with Jacob's big pile of handwritten employee handbooks (that he never really intended for anyone to read), Eve comes to understand how important order, a clear system and predictability is for Jacob. She has no problem with his neurodiversity, having grown up with sisters who are clearly both also on the spectrum. Over the course of the story, Eve comes to realise that her own struggles are also due to her being on the autism spectrum, without ever having been diagnosed as such in the past. She finds a connection and acceptance with Jacob that she's never felt in her own family, for all that her sisters love her deeply. 

Take a Hint, Dani Brown was one of my very favourite books last year, and I was very eagerly expecting this third book in the series, despite having found Eve a bit annoying as a supporting character in her sisters' books. I needn't have worried, however, because once I got to read about Eve as the star of her own book, I came to love her just as much, if not more than both of her unusual sisters, since Eve, despite having grown up in a wealthy and loving family, always felt like a failure and the black sheep. She needed my love more, if you will. 

As well as having a wonderful pair of protagonists, who start out as short-term enemies, this romance has a great cast of supporting characters, from Jacob's best friend and said friend's formidable twin sisters (all three characters will be the stars of Hibbert's next romantic trilogy, and I am super excited), to Jacob's aunt, who ended up raising him and his brother after his parents just really abandoned them on her doorstep. Eve's two sisters and their lovely boyfriends also make appearances, of course, as does her colourful grandmother and yoga teacher/wife. I feel like we didn't really get a sense of the Brown parents until this book, and while I understand their frustration with Eve, feel like they could maybe have made a bit more of an attempt to get to know their youngest in a more in-depth way rather than just wash their hands of her temporarily. 

Because 2021 seems determined to constantly challenge me, this is so far the ONLY book I have been able to finish, all month. I can already see myself revisiting it often. I am so happy I have discovered Talia Hibbert as an author, and hope that some of the earlier books of her career can help break me out of my extended reading slump. This was a great read, and I heartily recommend it to anyone wanting a good romance to take their minds off the seemingly never-ending pandemic.

Judging a book by its cover: I don't love this cover as much as I did the one for Take a Hint, Dani Brown, but the whole series has adorable covers, in very pleasing colours and has made me at least partially rethink my antipathy to the cartoon trend that is so popular now. For these books, the covers really fit. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.  

#CBR12 Book 45: "The Rosie Project" by Graeme Simsion

Page count: 304 pages
Rating: 4 stars

#CBR12 Bingo: White Whale (on my TBR list since early 2014)

Don Tillman lives his life on a fairly rigid schedule. He eats the same things every week, he has set aside a certain amount of time for work, exercise, cleaning his flat and so forth, and any deviations that force him to change the schedule makes him annoyed. He doesn't socialise much, except for the occasional dinner with his best (and pretty much only) friend Gene and his wife Claudia. The few times he has been on dates, it has tended to be disastrous because the woman always turns out to drink too much, or smoke, or show up late or have some other absolutely unforgivable flaw. Yet Don would like a wife, as he is rather lonely. He creates a multi-page, detailed questionnaire, created specifically to rule out all the women with which he will clearly be incompatible. Gene helps him process the many responses he gets and promises to send some of the promising candidates that pass, to meet him.

When Rosie Jarman shows up at Don's office, he is baffled. Rosie quite clearly fits none of the criteria Don looks for in a life partner. She's messy. She smokes. She doesn't exercise regularly. She clearly enjoys way more alcohol than is advisable. Yet assuming that Gene sent her as one of the women who had "passed" the questionnaire, Don invites her to dinner at a fancy restaurant, but it has to be moved to his flat, as he refuses to wear the jacket stated in the restaurant dress code, has a physical altercation with one of the bouncers and they are forced to leave. Rosie seems to think it's all very amusing.

Despite Rosie not fitting any of Don's carefully selected criteria, he had a wonderful evening with her and can't stop thinking about her. Then he discovers that Gene sent her to talk to him about a genetics question (he's a DNA expert), not at all because she might be a suitable life mate for him. She is frankly appalled when she hears about the Wife Project survey, and wonders how any woman would be willing to complete such a thing. She is, however, looking for her biological father, and Don has the knowledge and tools available to help her. He's not even sure why he decides to offer to help her find her father, but it allows him to spend much more time in her company. As the search continues, and Rosie and Don keep having strange and wonderful adventures, trying to collect the necessary DNA samples they need, Don is forced to consider whether the scientific method might not always be the correct way to approach life.

This is one of those books that has been on my TBR list pretty much since it came out. I bought it as an e-book in 2014 and have almost started it a bunch of times, but for some reason, it just never happened. It wasn't even that I was worried I wasn't going to like it. It's a romance, after all (even though it is, unusually, written by a man). 

It's a sweet opposites attract stories, and while he's never diagnosed as such in the book, it's very clear that Don is neuro-atypical and that he has ASD (formerly known as Asperger's). I've seen a lot of comparisons to Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, probably because he's the best pop culture example of someone neuro-diverse. I also liked this book tons more than The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie, a historical romance that famously features a hero with ASD. Don is a much more likable, if somewhat initially inflexible and set in his ways, hero.

As the story progresses, it becomes very clear that Don is perfectly able to change his ways to accommodate others, he just needs longer to get used His friend Claudia is absolutely right when she says that he'd make someone a very good husband someday. He's extremely intelligent, he's very physically fit, he's a great cook, he's a loyal friend (even when said friend keeps behaving in a manner Don disapproves of). He has an excellent memory and gives thoughtful gifts. He just needs to learn that all relationships require compromise and some give and take.

Rosie is a great character, but she too needs to develop and grow and has quite a few unresolved issues because of her uncertain parentage. It's clear that she loves her stepfather and he her, but they are very different people and it's understandable that she wants to try to discover who her real dad is. 

My least favourite character in the book was Don's friend Gene, who has an absolutely amazing wife, but nevertheless has a project where he needs to sleep with women from as many countries in the world as possible. It's clear that while Claudia may have initially agreed to an open relationship, the openness is pretty one-sided (she does not seem to have other partners) and Gene keeps lying to his wife about where he's been and what he's been doing, which I found infuriating. Thankfully, he too improves over the course of the story.

Since this book came out in 2013, Simsion has written two sequels about Don and Rosie. I'm not sure I feel the need to read those, this works perfectly well as a self-contained story. 

Judging a book by its cover: Like many other of my books, this one has had a number of different covers over the years. There's a bright red one with a heart trail and a little cyclist, there is one with a lobster featuring prominently (I'm assuming this is because Don eats lobster regularly), but I really like this cheerful yellow cover with the main characters (Don with his trusty bike) and Rosie with her wild hair facing each other in colourful silhouettes.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 14: "A Study in Scarlet Women" by Sherry Thomas

Page count: 336 pages
Audio book length: 11 hrs
Rating: 4.5 stars

I keep struggling to summarise the plot in a good way, so I'll just let the blurb do it:

With her inquisitive mind, Charlotte Holmes has never felt comfortable with the demureness expected of the fairer sex in upper class society. But even she never thought that she would become a social pariah, an outcast fending for herself on the mean streets of London. 

When the city is struck by a trio of unexpected deaths and suspicion falls on her sister and her father, Charlotte is desperate to find the true culprits and clear the family name. She’ll have help from friends new and old—a kind-hearted widow, a police inspector, and a man who has long loved her.

But in the end, it will be up to Charlotte, under the assumed name Sherlock Holmes, to challenge society’s expectations and match wits against an unseen mastermind.

True fact, with the exception of a couple of extremely abridged and adapted easy reader short stories that we've used as examples of classics when teaching my pupils (which I doubt are really very representative of the real thing, as both the plot and the language have been simplified to an utterly ridiculous degree), I have never read a single Sherlock Holmes story. I have watched both the Guy Ritchie directed movies, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. I watched the first three seasons of the BBC Sherlock, including the Christmas special, but steered clear of the disastrous fourth season, because the show's creators were clearly not taking the story or characters anywhere I was interested in going and life's just too short, you know? My husband and I have so far enjoyed the first five seasons of Elementary (or The Adventures of Mr. Elementary and Joan, as we like to refer to it, as its protagonists are quite a ways away from the original source material by now, and it's just another amusing TV procedural). I've read several YA books with teen sleuths inspired by Sir Conan Doyle's stories, and yet I have never felt the need to read one for myself. I find the concept of the Sherlock Holmes a lot more interesting and appealing than I suspect I would the actual character.

Now, Sherry Thomas, on the other hand, is an author whose career I've followed since she started publishing back in 2008. The only books of hers I haven't read by now are the last two in her YA Elementals trilogy, but I aim to get around to that too. So when she decided to stop writing excellent, if somewhat angsty historical romances, and decided to start gender flipping Sherlock Holmes, I knew I would have to read this books eventually.

For several months now, the pressures of my very time-consuming job and trying to cope with mothering a beautiful, cheerful, but absolutely demanding toddler has been wreaking havoc with my ability to concentrate. On bad days, I feel about two steps away from a complete burnout, and I seem to mostly just want to mindlessly scroll through social media on my phone, as it demands little to nothing of me. For most of my adult life, reading has been an escape and a means of relaxation for me, but since I returned to work in November, it's been hard to find the time, enthusiasm or energy for books. However, when I started the audio books for Ms. Thomas' Lady Sherlock books, I finished the existing three books in less than a week. I found myself making excuses, just so I could listen more and the books absolutely captivated me. As this is a rare feeling nowadays, it made me all the more grateful.

Now, having never read the actual source material, I can't compare it as a reimagining. I can just speak for what works remarkably well in Ms. Thomas' books.

All of the modern depictions of Sherlock Holmes (be it the ones set in actual Victorian times, like the movies, or in the modern era, like the TV shows) portray him as in some way neuroatypical. It seems likely, based on what we now know about the autism spectrum, that Sherlock Holmes is probably on it, if a very high functioning individual. Sherry Thomas' Charlotte Holmes is certainly not like other women of her era, and her portrayal fits into this same pattern. We are told that Charlotte didn't choose to speak until she was four years old, but when she did, it was to make a fairly astute deduction. Sherry Thomas has also chosen to give Charlotte Holmes an older sister, who is much more afflicted by ASD, and needs to be kept under constant supervision, as she cannot take care of herself. So neurodivergence is absolutely something of a theme in these stories.

When we meet our unusual heroine at the start of the book, she has just been publicly ruined and finds herself ostracised from polite society. Unwilling to deal with the scorn of her disappointed parents, Charlotte leaves home and tries to fend for herself. Her sister Livia worries terribly about her, and due to some uncharacteristic lapses in judgement, Charlotte almost finds herself desperate and destitute, when she makes the acquaintance of a widowed actress, Mrs John Watson, who is intrigued by her powers of deduction and observation and offers to hire her as a ladies' companion.

Even prior to her ruination, Charlotte had entertained herself by occasionally assisting the London Metropolitan Police with enquiries (aided by her longtime friend Lord Ingram), using the pseudonym Sherlock Holmes. Thanks to a series of murders being publicised in the press, the name of Sherlock Holmes has become well known, and Mrs. Watson proposes a clever scheme in which Charlotte can earn a living, without anyone discovering that she, a mere woman and publicly disgraced to boot, is in fact the master detective. The two women begin soliciting clients and meeting them in rented rooms, with Charlotte posing as the detective's sister (and Mrs. Watson occasionally pretending to be Mrs. Hudson, the housekeeper), claiming that the great man himself has been struck down by an illness and has to remain bedridden. Charlotte goes into the bedroom next door and "consults" for a few minutes, and then helps the clients. The business savvy Mrs. Watson makes sure the clients pay a suitable fee for the consultation.

The high profile murder case in question is one Charlotte is most eager to help solve, as it casts suspicion on both her father (his mistress is one of the murder victims) and her sister Livia, who was one of the last people to see one of the other victim's alive, and they were witnessed having an argument. With some help from Lord Ingram (who is still unhappy that Charlotte will not accept his protection directly), Charlotte is able to advise Inspector Threadles, the man in charge of the investigation. It turns out to be a much more complicated and involved case than it seemed at the beginning, uncovering some truly horrific secrets and conspiracies to cover them up.

There is so much to love in these books. While Charlotte is frighteningly brilliant and her emotional register is not the same as those around her, she's by no means unfeeling and is in fact capable of great affection and feelings of loyalty. She just doesn't outwardly show a lot of emotion and processes things differently than others. Outwardly, she looks deeply frivolous and silly, with golden ringlets, a propensity for ribbons, ruffles and flounces and a love of food, especially sweet things. She loves to eat, but knows she cannot support "too many chins".

These books are so very feminist, with capable and very different women in so many roles. There's Charlotte, her sisters Livia and Bernadine, there's the excellent Mrs. Watson and there are women in more villainous roles. There's Inspector Threadles' wife, whose father is a wealthy industrialist, but who married "down" because she loves him. I doubt women feature much in the original Sherlock Holmes stories, except perhaps as victims, which is another reason why I'm in no rush to read any of them.

Adding to my enjoyment of this book was Kate Reading's pitch perfect narration. I've heard her narrate a number of historical romances in the past, and her arch and proper tones suit this sort of material so very well. A lot of audio book narrators struggle with a large cast of characters, but Ms. Reading manages to give each character a distinct and believable voice, be they male or female, and her narration is now how I hear all these characters in my head. I highly recommend the audio books if you haven't already checked this series out.

Judging a book by its cover: I'm a sucker for a good Victorian dress, and this impressive red one is especially lovely. There seems to be quite a trend of Victorian-set, lady-led mysteries with similar covers, I seem to recall the first book in the Veronica Speedwell series featuring another beautifully attired woman moving away from the reader.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.