I'm on the fence as to whether this is a three or four star book. When it was good it was really good but when it was not it was also really not.
Lady Abigail Worthing has a lot going on in her life after marrying her husband James Monroe, Lord Worthing her sister disappears and her father essentially disowns her. Her new husband leaves almost immediately for the high seas to boot and to top it all off the Abolition movement (something near and dear to her heart) has lost momentum after the death of its leader. Abigail can't really do much about the first two things but she has documents that within the hands of the right people may be the jump-start the movement needs, she just has to get them to them and she's got a plan for that. Having her maids take their place at a play Lady Worthing and her cousin Flo slip off to a secret meeting with the current leader of the movement only to be called away before they could even meet, but Abigail can't pass this up, her sister wants to reconcile. Rushing home Abigail is disappointed to find her sister not there and her dog has run off again, to the annoyance of her neighbor Mr. Henderson. As Abbi and Mr. Henderson rush after the dog, they stumble across the gruesome murder of his estranged wife. Now Abbi must team up with her hated neighbor to find out who killed his wife before both of them end up hanging for it.
That's a lot, isn't it? That's because there's a lot going on in this book. I didn't even mention the fact that Lady Worthing has "visions". Yup, wasn't even gonna go there. There is so much other stuff going on in this book that it all overshadows the most important thing: The Dead Woman. I wish the author had found a lane and stayed in it. It honestly felt like all this extra was fluff because she simply couldn't find a way to move the main plot along. And to be honest with the Abolition Movement that's a perfect secondary plotline but that one is kinda muddled too.
I did *not* like Abigail at all. She was wishy-washy. A wishy-washy character is good to show character development but Abigail really didn't develop at all. Henderson was a better character but not by a lot. He at least wasn't wishy-washy. (If you've read my reviews before wishy-washy characters who can't make up their minds and flip flop constantly are the bane of my existence.) There's a bunch of other side characters as well. Her cousin Flo is into math so there are a lot of really bad math jokes, Flo's uncle and Abigail's godfather is some sort of high ranking official, and Abigail's solicitor who got a thing for widows. Flo is sssooo positive and supportive it's almost fake. Her Godfather is essentially the same I think he is supposed to come across as wise and sophisticated, and her solicitor I'm not even sure why he was there other than to have access to financial records.
Overall I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and say that it's rough to write the first book of a series. I really believe it has a lot of potential; a mixed-race woman hunting down criminals while fighting to end slavery is an amazingly unique plotline in period mystery books so I'll definitely check out the next book.
I want to thank Edelweiss Books and the people over at Kensington Books for the eArc!
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