I finished the second book in this series yesterday, and I am already impatient for the next.
If Elizabeth Bennet was crossed with Harriet Vane, you’d have Lady Helena.
Widowed at the start of Lady Helena Investigates, and quite bereft, Lady Helena remains determined (a) not to marry again in a hurry (if ever) and (b) not to allow her brother (the Earl and head of the family) to steamroll her into running her estate his way. Helena is the youngest in a family spread out across the years, with an age difference of 20+ between her and her eldest sister, and 10 years between her and her closest sister, Odelia.
Opinionated, noisy and altogether too much, they descend upon Helena, and are as much a hindrance as a help in her attempts to process her grief at what seems like a completely random, senseless accident.
When handsome French doctor Armand Fortier confides that he suspects there is more to her husband’s death than the inquest determined, Lady Helena is at first resistant. Eventually, however, she finds herself mired in an investigation that delivers way more truth than she’d bargained for.
Helena and her family are exceptionally well drawn and good fun. I cannot overstate how much I enjoyed this first novel! I immediately purchased the sequel, Lady Odelia’s Secret. Well. Odelia is an artist, and has been living independently in the family’s London townhouse for over 15 years. Turns out, she has been quite busy, and not quite as solo as her family had expected.
When Helena, in the market for a rather large series of commissioned paintings, joins Odelia in London, all is revealed. Odelia starts to receive threats, and eventually Lady Helena is once again investigating with the help of Fortier.
We also learn a little more about Fortier’s circumstances, and the reasons he is not free to pursue Helena. Quite swoony, I must say.
While both novels are quite light hearted, as well as fast paced, easy reading… they’re also quite sad. The resolutions to both mysteries really drive home how limited options were (are?) in England for social mobility, as well as the desperate depths those who were not lucky enough to be born with titles can sink to.