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Publication Date: Available Now from Open Road Media.

Thank you to the author and publisher for the review copy via netgalley

An heiress breaks free of social conventions and attempts to solve the mystery of her father’s disappearance in 1842 Philadelphia in Cordelia Frances Biddle’s first Martha Beale mystery.
When her father fails to appear for lunch at their country estate, Martha Beale knows something is wrong. The family’s faithful dogs discover Lemuel Beale’s hunting rifle by the river, but there is no sign of the millionaire financier. Refusing to believe he is dead, his daughter—and sole heir—begins a discreet investigation with the help of the mayor’s aide, Thomas Kelman.

This was a fairly intriguing historical crime mystery, to be honest however I was a bit up and down with it. Certain parts of the story had me hooked – the sense of time and place, a womans’s role in that place and Martha’s attempts to break that and track down her father are all well done and the ambience surrounding the society of the time is authentic. However, I wasnt really fond of Martha as a character – I found her annoying a lot of the time – although to be fair, as we reached the end of the story she did come into her own a little bit more, the journey she  took often had me shaking my head.

The mystery element IS well done for sure – although the heart of the book can be found more in the society portions of the novel – and I was compelled to find out what was what. As this is the first book in a series I will be very interested to see what is next for Martha. If the author can keep her character moving forward, I can see this developing into an interesting series and one which I would like to keep up with.

A solid 3* read with the potential to become much more.

Happy Reading Folks!