Review: Opulence and Ashes

Opulence and Ashes by Kate Belli is the fourth, and more than likely, final book in the author's Gilded Gotham Mystery series that I've glommed my way through the past couple of months. The author could likely keep things going but if this truly is the end, it's a solid finish to the series that neatly ties up a number of new and existing plot threads.

After the previous books' ho-hum (yeah, I said it) serial killer plot, it was nice to see our crime-solving couple sink their teeth into something a bit more unique, there appears to be a serial arsonist on the loose, but finding connecting threads is proving challenging.  Society reporter Genevieve Stewart and former Five Points gang member turned wealthy man, Daniel McCaffrey, are engaged, mere weeks away from their wedding, and building a new home of their own. They're also continuing their reform work, teaming up with police photographer, Dagmar Hansen to shed light on the House of Refuge, a children's workhouse and conditions in Five Points.  Genevieve is also looking into a fire that destroyed the Sunflower Mission House, a home for women of color who escaped from sex trafficking. 

However, someone isn't happy about what Daniel and Genevieve are doing. Dagmar's studio is set on fire, with both he and Daniel trapped in it, and Genevieve barely escapes a fire set at the home of a doctor providing health care (including contraception, illegal during this time thanks to the Comstock Act) to women. As if this weren't enough? One of Daniel's long-lost siblings, Connor, kidnapped off the streets as a young child and packed off on an orphan train, has returned to New York.  Genevieve and their friend Rupert don't trust the man, but Daniel's feelings are much more fraught and complicated. As the arsonist heats up, so does the danger to both Genevieve and Daniel.  Will they survive to defeat the arsonist and see their wedding day?

The author does a good job ratcheting up the tension in this story. Truly, from the beginning, it's hard to see how all these episodes and incidents tie together other than fire is involved - and fire in New York City during this time wasn't exactly a rarity. It takes time for the author to set the stage and start her characters down a path that ultimately leads to their highest stakes yet - Genevieve getting kidnapped. This is when the story really started to cook for me. Daniel out of his mind and Genevieve in a horrific situation, trapped with other women in a 19th century mental hospital.

I'll admit it, after Genevieve's various bouts of foot stamping and feistiness in previous (and this one as well) entries, there was a certain amount of satisfaction (not the right word, but you get my meaning) to see her get a bit of comeuppance. Should she have been forcibly institutionalized? Of course not - but it sure was fun to read about how she was going to wiggle herself out of that nightmare - and wiggle she does.

Ultimately this last book in the series does what all good last books should do - that is tie everything up, including a few callbacks to earlier entries, to a satisfying conclusion. To that end, I cannot stress enough that these four books should be read in order. With some series a reader can hop around (I do it all the time actually) but not here. The author builds each book off the foundation of the books preceding it which leads us to a very satisfying conclusion, and yes - a happy ending for both romance and mystery fans.

I've had a really good time reading this series. It's the first one I've read in a long time that satisfied both parts (mystery and romance) of my genre loving brain. I'm a little sorry to see Daniel, Genevieve and their menagerie family and friends go, but better a satisfying conclusion than a slow and disappointing descent into banality.

Grade = B

Review: Treachery on Tenth Street

I finished Treachery on Tenth Street, the third book in Kate Belli's Gilded Gotham historical mystery series weeks ago. As in, early July sometime and y'all I just haven't had the spoons to do much of anything involving my longtime hobby (reading, blogging...) lately. But since I blogged about the first two in the series and I'm about halfway through the final book in the series, well the completist in me started getting twitchy so here we are.

This is a tale of two stories for me.  There were parts of it I really liked and parts of it that fell flat. Society reporter, Genevieve Stewart, and her partner in crime, Five Points gang member turned a member of the Astor 400, Daniel McCaffrey, become embroiled in the murder of artist's model Beatrice Holler at the behest of Genevieve's friend Callie Maple. Callie was once a society girl like Genevieve, but she and her grandmother fell on hard times through a series of bad investments. Once grandma died, Callie, citing needing some time alone to figure out her life, slipped into the ether, only to return as an artist's model and wealthy man's mistress. She knew Beatrice casually through their social circle and the police, despite the woman being found with her throat slit, are saying her death was accidental. 

Genevieve and Daniel are still recovering from the events and trauma that happened in the first two books, but Callie is a friend and Genevieve smells a story. The police cover-up boggles the mind until they learn why it's happening. Beatrice isn't the only victim and they want to quell rumors that Jack the Ripper has left London and has set up shop in New York City.

The setting driving this story forward is really different and interesting - the art scene in late 19th century New York and the women within that community living, what would be seen, as very unconventional, even scandalous lives. On top of that it's summer in New York and an infernal heat wave is gripping the city. Unfortunately it's all wrapped up in a rather pedestrian serial killer plot with some uneven pacing. I'll admit, after the more imaginative suspense threads in the first two books, a serial killer feels rather passé. It takes a while for the plot to find it's footing and once we land on Coney Island I was getting bored for something, anything to happen. Luckily it does in Coney Island, and it's rather shocking - but fitting given we're working with a serial killer plot.

Unfortunately the denouement didn't entirely work for me. We get the ol' unhinged and "crazy" culprit, which doesn't fit entirely with that character's actions preceding in the earlier chapters. I don't like to compare one book by an author to another, but frankly that's hard not to do when you're talking about a series, and this one just lacks some of the more compelling juice I found in the first two entries.

That being said, the backdrop of this story is very interesting, the Daniel/Genevieve romance takes a major step forward, and at this point I'm so invested in the world and characters things would have to seriously run off the rails for me to hate this. It wasn't as compelling for me as the first two but it does move things forward and I didn't hesitate to grab the final book in the series.

Final Grade = B-

Library Loot Review: Betrayal on the Bowery

Is there anything better than getting hooked on a series and wanting to glom through the whole thing? Not really.  After finally reading the neglected Deception by Gaslight by Kate Belli in my TBR pile, I wasn't letting any moss grow under my feet.  I immediately went diving into Book 2, Betrayal on the Bowery. 

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+

Review: Deception By Gaslight

Nothing will strike fear in the heart of a romance reader faster than these two words:

Girl. Reporter.

It is a scientific fact that if you wander over into the Too Stupid To Live borough of Romancelandia, 60% of those heroines are girl reporters. 

So it's a wonder that I impulsively downloaded Deception by Gaslight by Kate Belli many moons ago thanks to a Netgalley promo email (yes, another one). Even more shocking? I borderline loved this.

Genevieve Stewart is an heiress, her family members of the Astor 400.  However, firmly on the shelf, she has been making her way in New York City as a reporter for the Globe newspaper. While part of the monied and privileged set, the Stewart family is rather eccentric and it was that eccentricity that led to Genevieve's broken engagement some years before. That lesson learned, she's a talented reporter, but being a woman, has been shoe-horned into insipid assignments.  To break free? She's determined to track down the "Robin Hood of the Lower East Side" - a thief who has been stealing baubles from the wealthy, then sending letters to the Globe full of screeds against wealth and avarice.

While snooping around Five Points (I know, stay with me here...) she overhears some men talking about Robin Hood. Naturally she follows them and naturally she gets into a spot of trouble - but not before seeing a dead body lying in the alley and one of the men, whom she takes to calling Mr. Pineapple Waistcoat, saves her bacon.

So naturally it's a teensy bit of a shock when, while attending a society ball, she sees none other than Mr. Pineapple Waistcoat, who turns out to be Daniel McCaffrey, heir to the vast Van Joost fortune.  Daniel is impossibly handsome, and certainly his fortune makes him attractive to matchmaking mamas, but nobody knows his story. He spent his youth and most of his adult life over in England and from what people can piece together, he was not blood-related to Old Man Van Joost. No doubt about it, there's a story there and given that Genevieve met him in Five Points? She's convinced he's Robin Hood.

Daniel has little use for reporters and frankly dislikes the breed given how they hounded him after he inherited, but of course he's intrigued by Genevieve. "For reasons," he doesn't want her snooping around his life and she's like a dog with a bone on this Robin Hood thing. So he tries to throw her off by dangling another juicy morsel in front of her - that of a newly formed city housing commission looking into living conditions in the city's tenement buildings.

The author basically has three mysteries going at once in this book: 1) Daniel's past 2) Robin Hood and 3) political corruption.  And once Genevieve starts sticking her nose into things, it doesn't take long for the bodies to start dropping and the danger to ramp up. In order to get to the bottom of things her and Daniel need to team up, which is a neat trick since he's not entirely convinced he can trust her with his various secrets.

Not gonna lie, the various mystery angles here did make for a disjointed read at times but Genevieve and Daniel make such a great team and have enough sexual tension to make this one sizzle. Firmly marketed as historical mystery, truly I cannot recommend this one enough to historical romance fans, albeit the Daniel / Genevieve romance is obviously going to carry over for the next three books in the series. 

The historical detail and world-building is pitch perfect, the author hitting all the high and low points of Gilded Age New York City excess and poverty. Plus all the secondary characters add something to the story, my favorites being Daniel's best friend, an impoverished British earl, and his new money society heiress fiancée, who is desperate to escape from under her mother's social climbing thumb.

The various mysteries get tied up at the end (we find out about Daniel's past, Robin Hood is unmasked, the political corruption plot is brought to light) but readers should be warned this one does end on a cliffhanger.  The purpose of the cliffhanger is to lead the reader by the nose directly into starting Book 2, which definitely worked on me since I downloaded it and plan on starting it next.  

Final Grade = B+