LecClier K. (SierraK) - , reviewed on 11/19/2016 + 194 more book reviews

Second book in Freydont's Gilded Age mystery series. This one picks up right where the first one ends, set just a few weeks later in the summer of 1895. The story opens with an elaborate birthday party at the Grantham estate, featuring a play which is staged in an outdoor theatre erected for the party. Deanna Randolph has attended the party and play and learns that one of the actresses is from an upper class New York family and has run off to join the acting troupe. Deanna's mother, who is away in Switzerland, has requested Deanna to contact the young actress Amabelle and try to convince her to return home. The story quickly escalates when another member of the acting troupe is murdered and the body is found in the conservatory of Bonheur, the house belonging to Gwen Manon and where Deanna is staying for the summer while her mother is in Europe. Deanna becomes involved in trying to solve the murder to clear Amabelle's name.

This was a good mystery which kept me guessing until the end. But for me the best part of this book is the series heroine Deanna and her "friend" Joseph Ballard. Deanna is an intelligent young woman trying to find her passion in a more modern world, rather than just settling for a convenient marriage arranged by her parents. Joe is also a young man from an upper echelon family, but he also is resisting society's expectations of him living a life of pleasure; he would rather tinker in his workshop trying to perfect new machines to improve his family's sugar processing business.

I highly recommend both books in this series, and I'm looking forward to the next one in this series, which can't be published soon enough for me!

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