We're back in Gilded Age New York City and girl reporter, Genevieve Steward (now working the society beat for the Globe) and Daniel McCaffrey (raised in Five Points, now incredibly wealthy) are at the docks to see their friends Rupert and Esmie Milton off on their honeymoon. The two are sailing to Italy and will eventually settle in Rupert's crumbling English estate that Esmie's money will fix. However the ship ends up leaving without them. Marcus Dalrymple, who at one point asked Esmie to marry him, charges into their stateroom ranting about demons, collapses, and dies. In his pocket is a "coin" from Boyle's Suicide Tavern, the coins given out to anyone who can spend the night and not die. It's the roughest, scariest of dive bars and apparently the privileged and fast younger set have been going there because rich people are stupid.
The lead detective who shows up on the scene is known to Daniel, and he realizes quickly this is going to get messy. The man lacks imagination and there's Rupert standing in front of the dead body of a young man who at one point proposed to his wife. Needless to say, Rupert and Esmie are told to not leave town and in order to protect their friends, Genevieve and Daniel are teaming up once again to solve a very messy and dangerous mystery.
This story picks up right where the first book left off, and nearly all the characters and backstory are holdovers. For that reason, I would recommend starting with book one and not reading out of order. Book two started out a little shaky for me, mainly because Genevieve acts a little too Girl Reporter Stamping Her Foot early on for my liking (admittedly my tolerance is beyond low for these sorts of antics). However, once her and Daniel are "hired" to find the missing daughter of a sugar baron and learn her disappearance may be tied to Dalrymple's death it was off the races.
This is where the story gets very, very good. The bodies start dropping (another young man ranting about "demons" throws himself off a rooftop), there's a haunted, abandoned mansion, and our couple soon find themselves in several high-stakes, dramatic scenes. As in, how are they going to get out of this with both of them alive? It made for thrilling, edge-of-my-seat reading and I didn't want to come up for air during the second half, which did not disappoint. There's a pretty darn good twist at the end that I'm ashamed to admit I didn't see coming (which honestly made it better) and the author manages to tie all her various threads together in one big bow.
Another thing I liked quite a bit is that the author doesn't ignore the unsavoriness of the Gilded Age. How exactly the rich got rich (colonization, slavery's legacy, exploitation of workers etc.), the desperate poverty, and the double-sided coin of Genevieve's privilege and the misogyny she faces. It adds layers and nuance to the story, firmly establishing the historical setting without beating the reader over the head with a history lesson.
I still have two books to go, but the romance also takes a step forward in this entry and I feel pretty good (at the moment) recommending these first two books to romance readers. It's four books, so obviously it's a slow burn, but while things between Daniel and Genevieve are complicated for various reasons, they make a good team and they're not dead below the waist. There's some really well done tension between these two that I'm hoping pays off dividends in the final two books in the series. Which, speaking of? Book three is next on tap.
Final Grade = B+
1 comment:
I put the four books in my wishlist after reading your review of the first, and I'm now all the more anxious to get them.
(Though they're all a bit too pricey for my stingy soul--especially when my TBR shelves span the galaxy as it is--but that's what sales are for.)
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