Stalkers in Victorian London

I chose to read this book as part of the Adult Reading Round Table meeting about Romantic Suspense. Romantic Suspense isn’t a genre I typically dive into, so this was a new one for me and I ended up being very pleased!

Calista Langley runs an introduction agency in Victorian London, which basically means rich single people pay her to have other rich single people come over and meet one another. It’s like one giant Bumble meetup. She’s a smart self-starter and works hard to keep her business afloat with the help of her brother, Andrew. Problem is, there is an unnamed man out there who is obsessed with her, leaving trinkets with her named carved into them for her, as well as breaking into her home and leaving one on her bed.

It’s a little Phantom of the Opera with less melodrama and singing.

In order to figure out who is stalking her, she goes into business with popular crime author Trent Hastings, whom she met when he came to her agency in regards to his younger sister. Eudora is attending her salons and Trent wants to make sure she’s not being taken advantage of, all while falling for Calista. Because of Trent’s knowledge of the crime world, he and Calista investigate her stalker and a series of murders in order to catch the perpetrator before he gets to Calista.

While not my usual genre, I would absolutely read some Amanda Quick novels again. Her writing was easily acceptable and her short chapters made the story feel as though it was constantly moving forward, which I appreciated. She also writes quite good banter and dialogue, which is really nice in a historical genre book like this. I find that often, books that are a meld of genres often rely to heavily in one way or the other, but I thought this had a pretty even balance of mystery/suspense and a budding romance element. It was enough to keep me interested all the way til the end and I finished the book in one sitting. Trent was a great male lead character and I adored Calista’s character. She was a self-made woman who took care of her family, as Trent also did, but there was enough angst and “how much overprotecting is too much” on both sides that the relationship had some actual weight to it.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. I’m a sucker for Victorian London as a setting, and Amanda Quick’s writing style worked well for the genre.

Title: Til Death Do Us Part
Author: Amanda Quick
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9780399174469

Three Descriptors: Atmospheric, Banter-filled, Compelling

Read Alikes:
A talent for trickery by Alissa Johnson
Echoes of evil by Heather Graham
The obsession by Nora Roberts
The mark of the midnight Manzanilla by Lauren Willig
If I fall by Kate Noble