A Poisoned Season (Lady Emily Mysteries, Book 2)

In my continuing efforts to try to get a bit of a mystery/romance series similar to the Lady Julia Grey Series, I've pressed onward with Lady Emily. But... let me tell you, these books are just not doing it for me. So, this may be my last read in this series for awhile. Who knows? I may change my mind. In this book, Emily has another mystery to solve related to the death of a gentleman - David Francis. But, the mysteries within this series are very complex to the point, one doesn't really care about who committed the crime. No, there's so much extraneous stuff going on, one gets caught up within the mysteries within the mystery.For example, Lady Emily has a follower who keeps breaking into her home and leaving her nice little bits of jewelry, letters, notes, flowers and so forth. Is this person a villain? Not sure, because someone is definitely trying to do her harm. She also has a supposedly descendant of the Dauphin, Charles Berry, who is setting himself up to be the next Monarch of France and wants her to be his mistress - he's a total jerk. And, there's her sweet little friend, Isabelle, whose mama is setting Isabelle up to be the wife of this future wanna be King. Isabelle's in love with another man who just won't seem to step up to the plate even though Emily does her best to interfere and get them together.Then Emily's good friend, Ivy, is having issues in her marriage with Robert. Again, Emily interferes to the best of her ability, but Emily has major difficulties of her own. It seems her reputation is in serious trouble because folks are accusing her of having a liaison with her long time friend, Jeremy Sheffield, Duke of Bainbridge, which of course isn't true. In fact she's set Jeremy and her friend Margaret up with a fake relationship so they can be free from the matchmakers during the social season. Emily's mother continues to drive Emily nuts, there's problems with Emily's staff - someone among her servants is being disloyal, Emily's trying to get a gentleman to donate a work of art to the museum, there's a very manipulative gent named Lord Fortesque, Queen Victoria's chief advisor who causes a bit of torment and so forth and so on.So, there are many mysteries to solve. See, you've forgotten about the dead man haven't you - what was his name? Oh yes, David Francis. Well, that's because he's really easy to forget because next to all the other stuff going on, he just isn't all that important. In fact, the only reason he's important is his wife's maid will hang for his murder if it isn't all figured out and of course, I didn't want that. But, I didn't really care about David Francis - after all he was dead and there was just too much other stuff going on.Oh, wait a minute - I forgot to mention our Main Guy, Colin Hargreaves, who continues to do his thing in service to the Crown, all the while refusing to even give Emily one single, solitary kiss - no sirree, lest he get carried away, you see, and treat her in a manner that wouldn't befit her ladyish standing. No kisses until she agrees to marry him.**Spoiler** I hated it that Colin was hanging out with the Marlborough Crowd, along with Charles Berry, who was apparently continually talking with the other gents about how and why he wanted Lady Emily and his plans for her as his mistress - can you imagine the nasty comments? Colin listens to this garbage continually being dumped out and doesn't say or do anything about Berry's foul mouth, later explaining to Emily that he has a role to play during these meetings and of course he mustn't disrupt that role (he's a spy). There again, can't help comparing him to Nicholas Brisbane from the Lady Julia Grey books. Boy, oh boy, Nicholas would have taken care of Berry. Sorry, but I digress.Anyway, I'm about to change this to a three star review here if I'm not careful. In fact, these books are better than a lot of others out there if you don't mind all the plotting within a plot. I thought I had a mind that could keep a fairly good grasp on all the maneuverings, but there's way too much going on here for me to truly enjoy the characters. I'm moving on - I understand Joanna Bourne has a new book in her Spymasters' series.

Following the year of mourning for her dead husband, Philip, Viscount Ashton, Lady Emily finds herself much in demand during the London season. Not only is she making progress with her Greek, she graduated from Xenophon to Homer, she is locating antique treasures to be donated to the British Museum! Despite these activities and visits from her girlfriends, Emily is determined to fill her days with more productive work, such as finding the real murderer of David Francis. Meanwhile, a burglar is making the rounds in London and assembling everything that once belonged to Queen Antoinette of France - an exquisite Limoges box, a gilt inkwell, a bible, letters. Lady Elinor Routledge, "one of the finest hostesses in England and a longstanding friend of [Lady Emily's mother] has brought about the engagement of her daughter Isabelle to Charles Berry, presumptive heir of the Bourbon throne of France. A disappointing person, in Emily's estimation, "he lacks completely the generous spirit one likes to find in a monarch. If he could not claim a direct relation to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, society would hold him in much less regard." Berry also has not so subtle designs on Emily herself and slanders her when rebuffed. There is murder, attempted murder, seduction of the helpless, elopement and a trip to Greece. Colin Hargreaves remains Emily's support and follows her to the Greek island.

I read the first one for free on my Kindle Unlimited subscription..and am now caught up, waiting on the next book. All the mysteries have to be solved the "old fashioned" way, with none of our modern day technology. The settings in the books are beautiful.Lady Emily can be a bit "sure" of herself, which can be annoying, but it has gotten her into some interesting situations. If you like mysteries and this time period, definitely give them a read!

Sometimes one needs to kick back and read a book that is light, entertaining and a quick and easy read. This book was a perfect candidate.A Poisoned Season is the second book in the Lady Emily series, cozy mysteries set in Victorian England, with a little romance thrown in.Lady Emily has ended her year of mourning for Philip, her husband of only a few months. She isn't looking forward to the "London Season" at first, but then she begins to be cut by society because of her affinity for learning and independence. Her flirtation with her late husband's best friend is heating up and to top it all off a pretender to the Throne of France, a self -proclaimed descendant of Marie Antoinette, is causing quite a stir in London. Is he the real deal? And what to make of the cat burglar who is breaking into homes and stealing items that once belonged to the French Queen? And who is the mysterious man sending Greek poetry to Lady Emily?This was a fun romp through the mores of Victorian England, when being alone in the same room with a man can ruin a woman's reputation, and many proscribed rules of courtship must be stringently adhered to. As Lady Emily becomes drawn into the various mysteries her life is put into danger and she realizes that there is a spy in her home, determined to ruin her standing in Society. Determined to find the answer to the crimes being committed Emily relies on her wits, and slowly unravels the threads tying the crimes together.This was a quite enjoyable historical mystery, peppered with fictional as well as real characters and the romance between Lady Emily and Colin Hargreaves is moving along at a nice pace. After reading the last page I was ready to move on to A Fatal Waltz book 3 in the series which is already downloaded to my Kindle. Alas a stack of library books stand before it, but I will get there!

I've read her later ones and enjoyed them more. I'm ploughing through this one which is far too long. The story doesn't justify the endless repetitions of the thief sending the heroine missives in Greek and proving tediously elusive.I am also increasingly infuriated by the Americanisms that would be out of place in a contemporary English novel, let alone one purporting to be set in Victorian high society. People simply wouldn't have talked about "figuring thing out", waiting until "the Fall", asking if they could "visit with" each other and worst of all calling an attendant in the British Museum a "docent"!I'll probably finish it but only because I've got this far and want to know what happened but I am losing the will to live...

Every bit as good as the first book in the series, 'And Only to Deceive'. The characters were well-portrayed, mostly believable and likeable. The plot stretched my credibility a bit, but moved at such a pace that I got carried along and didn't think 'could that really have happened then?' until I was considering the plot as a whole after I'd finished reading the book. I was happy to suspend disbelief because Lady Emily is such an engaging character. The novel gives a good sense of how stultifying marriage must have been for women who found the social whirl unsatisfying and longed to stretch themselves intellectually. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

This is a lovely series set in Victorian times - one which I have been looking forward to for a long time having got part way through the Lady Julia series by Deanna Raebourn before it was brought out on Kindle only or very highly priced paperback, and I hope one day that it will be brought back in paperback so I can continue with that lovely series also. This series I can highly recommend for light and interesting reading as Lady Emily sets about solving crimes with such interesting characters alongside her - never a dull moment.

This was different from my usual type of reading material, but I really enjoyed it and enjoyed the fantasies about smart London Society of the period. I shall certainly more by this author, but hope there won't be quite so many American spellings and grammatical differences, as I find them confusing at times.

Great book to