Y. S. Lee

This is the first in a series featuring Mary Quinn (nee Lang), a Chinese-English young woman rescued from the gallows by some formidable women who have founded a school for young woman at risk. Having raised and educated her, so that she might become a teacher and be able to support herself, the headmistress now asks Mary is she’d like a more advanced position. The school, it seems, is but a front for The Agency – an organization of women detectives providing undercover investigations. No one, it seems, takes notice of women, so they are perfectly placed to observe and collect vital information.

Mary’s first assignment is to be the companion of a spoiled teen daughter of a wealthy merchant who, it seems, is committing insurance fraud. Placed in the Therold household, Mary is told to observe and report, but she should not be taking action. Her eagerness to impress cannot be suppressed for long, however.

Mary is intelligent, inquisitive, observant and compassionate. She is also self-possessed, resilient and quite capable of getting herself out of a jam, though Victorian gentlemen are prone to coming to her rescue regardless of her own abilities.

I had previously read book two in the series and enjoyed it, but wanted to start from the beginning to get more of Mary’s background. I look forward to reading more books in this series, and more from this author.… (mer)

Another fun historical mystery with Mary Quinn, this time investigating a mysterious death at a very overdue construction project for Westminster Palace. Mary disguises herself as a boy and returns to her hardscrabble roots in the impoverished parts of London. The mystery resolves in the final tenth of the novel, and while there are threads supporting it I didn't pick it out until the characters realized it as well.

I really appreciate having a biracial character in historical fiction (a rarity) who also isn't whitewashed on the cover- some of the complexities of having multiple parts of your identity pop up here, and because this is 1850s England, are quashed down (for now, I assume- feels like a future plot thread to me).… (mer)

Things are going missing at Buckingham Palace, so Mary is undercover as a domestic! Much like a visual novel detective story though, this seems like a rather low stakes assignment... until the Prince of Wales is witness to a murder and a lady-in-waiting behaves oddly. Mary must also face her past to figure things out, and it's one of my favorite things in this series that a mixed-raced identity is in a historical setting, but also treated as it would be in said era.

This is also unintentionally the second book I've read this summer where Queen Victoria plays a relevant plot role, haha- just at different ages.

Potential reader triggers: threat of sexual assault, suggestion of prostitution, drug use, [hazy] description of a murder.… (mer)