Part of Lady Darby Mysteries, book 2
First published 2013
Edinburgh, 1830. Lady Kiera Darby has barely recovered from her last brush with murder when her family drags her to the city so her pregnant sister can receive proper medical care. Kiera has no appetite for the social circuit, and even less for crossing paths again with Sebastian Gage, the investigator who complicates her life in ways she would rather not examine. Then an old friend named Michael Dalmay is about to be married, and his older brother William arrives to upend everything. William was Kiera's childhood art tutor. He was also locked away in an insane asylum a decade ago by his own father, and the years have left marks on him. Now a local girl has gone missing, and the rumors swirling around William are growing louder and uglier. Kiera knows the man who taught her to paint. She refuses to believe he is capable of what people are whispering. But proving his innocence means working alongside Gage again, reading crime scenes with the same macabre eye that has already cost her so much standing in polite society. The missing girl is out there. Time is running short. And Kiera cannot afford to be wrong.
Genres: historical-fiction, mystery, crime, adult, detective, 19th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotionally-complex, intricate, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forced-proximity, innocent-suspect, second-chance-romance
Setting: Edinburgh, England
Period: 19th century, 1830
385 pages · Paperback · Penguin Publishing Group
Content warnings: abuse, mental-illness