Lady Margaret Kingsley is a wealthy young lady who could easily stay at home and be looked after in comfort. But she is a determined person who does not want to be defined or defeated by the fact that she is a wheelchair user with serious health struggles. Her own
physical abilities may be limited, but she is a gifted and valuable member of the Daughters of Genius Society, a secret team of single ladies who 'gallivant about London solving crimes'. While the others are out and about however, Margaret prefers to stay behind the scenes. Her skills are in invention, not investigation. Or so she believes. But then Margaret begins to notice that inventions made by ordinary people, people who in many cases really need the monies their ideas should be earning for them, are being fraudulently attributed to the invention empire of Alvan T Harrison.
Meanwhile Charles Noble laid aside his concert pianist career to care for his family after his father's stroke. He takes a leave of absence from his job with the kindly trio of Bailey, Barton, and Westland to take up the temporary role of event coordinator for Alvan Harrison, preparing for a huge event to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Harrison's business empire. But he is distracted by a alluring young lady in a very interestingly adapted mechanical chair... and by the unsettling things which begin happening in his new employer's factory.
Margaret and Charles are going to have to work together to solve the mystery, and step well outside their respective comfort zones to do so, but Charles is convinced that Margaret's prime suspect, Alvan Harrison himself, is innocent of the serious offences which Margaret is equally sure he's guilty of. 'Rusted cogs!' as Margaret says, 'that was going to make working together rather complicated.'
I really enjoyed the first book in this series, A Lady's Guide to Marvels and Misadventure, and if anything, this next volume is even better than the first. The plot is cleverly structured with plenty of twists and turns, while not being too complicated to keep up with. Both leading characters are interesting, complex, believable and appealing. I felt invested in both of them right away. I also really like the fact that this author creates peripheral and supporting characters who are properly described and have some depth and quality, and who are interesting in their own right. No 'padding' and 'bit parts' here!
It's a gift to write people as well as this author does, and she manages to write their respective struggles with their own health issues and family pressures utterly convincingly and without any awkwardness. Margaret's physical limitations aren't glossed over, and her frustrations about her disability are significant in the portrayal of her character, but although they are part of who she is and how she works, and her chair is a masterpiece of mechanical wizardry, it is Margaret herself who shines through. I loved that when Charles first sees her (and is immediately attracted by her beauty and elegance!) it is Margaret he sees, and he only later notices her wheels. And when he does, he isn't at all bothered by them. Similarly, Charles' own more emotional struggles are well portrayed and feel real, and never slide into mawkishness. He, like Maggie, is a whole person, not a token 'emotionally-troubled' character. And, in Maggie, it is wonderful to have a book with a heroine who deals daily with disability and the physical and emotional struggles that brings, while we the readers are entirely engaged with who she is, including and not in spite of her disability, and how she and Charles will solve the mystery - and when she will realise he loves her, and she him.
I highly recommend this to anyone who loves a good mystery, a gentle 'he falls first' love story, an historical English setting (there's a very well constructed sense of time and place in this novel), and a little bit of steampunk-esque mechanical magic sprinkled throughout.
As an aside, there are loads of cleverly dropped references to other books, films or TV shows, which it becomes fun to spot. In my reading notes I jotted down references from Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, While You Were Sleeping, Babe (The Sheep-Pig), Charlotte's Web, MacGyver, Little Women, Oliver Twist, Beauty and the Beast (I love 'Lumiere's Fine Dining'!) and Pride and Prejudice! Not to mention one of Mark Twain's lesser well known books. All perfectly inserted, some more obviously than others, so as never to jar or to look as though they'd been forced into their places in this highly enjoyable story, but little 'nods' which felt a little like finding sparkly bits of treasure as I read. I wonder if there are others which I missed? I'm pretty sure there are.
I can't wait for book three...!
Edited to add in that there is excellent information at the back of the book about the characters in this series. Each of the members of The Daughters of Genius Society are inspired by real life women. Lady Margaret Kingsley is inspired by Margaret E Knight (1838-1914), who was a self-taught engineer and a prolific inventor who created her first invention at the age of twelve after witnessing a factory accident. Her invention was a safety mechanism to prevent the same thing happening again. One of her inventions was stolen by a Mr Annan, but Miss Knight did not just sit back and take this, she took Annan to court, winning her case and receiving the patent to her design.
NOTE: I read a pre-publication version supplied by the publisher. No review was required. All comments and opinions above are entirely my own.
