Diana Spaulding mysteries by Kathy Lynn Emerson
I read these a few months ago and didn't realize I never posted on them until I found this writeup. Whoops?
The Diana Spaulding Mysteries are a quartet of mysteries set in 1888. The main character, Diana, is a widow who works as an entertainment reviewer for a New York newspaper, and gets bullied by her editor (the older brother of a school friend) into finding out whether or not a popular horror novelist (whose books Diana hates, despite thinking the man himself is exceptionally Tall Dark and Handsome) is a serial killer. Who targets nosy female reporters.
Yes, I spent a significant amount of the first book going "You are lusting after a man who may or may not be a serial killer who may or may not target nosy female reporters. you are a nosy female reporter following him around. ABORT. ABORT."
But, I mean, despite some serious questioning of Diana's life choices in the first book (and she spends a lot of the series questioning her own life choices, for that matter) I enjoyed these. I don't know if it was always intended to be a quartet, or if it just ended up that way, but overall, they form a pretty solid story arc. In between finding dead bodies and figuring out who made them that way, Diana and her eventual fiance spend a lot of time travelling around and dealing with their respective families, mostly Diana's, with a lot of focus on Diana's estrangement from her family, caused largely by her marriage to an actor (about the only thing her father was ever right about was the fact that her husband was scum, not that disowning her was the right response), and her trust issues, largely caused by the same actor. There's also a lot of focus on what marriage meant, both good and bad, at the time, though the narrative (and Diana's) POV is distinctly modern in that regard at times.
But then "fiction" is just as important a part of "historical fiction" as the other half is.
There are also theatre troops, Madams, exceptionally eccentric authoresses, conartist uncles and whatnot running around a lot.
A pretty solid series, overall, and mostly very enjoyable.
The books are:
Deadlier Than the Pen
Fatal as A Fallen Woman
No Mortal Reason
Lethal Legend
The Diana Spaulding Mysteries are a quartet of mysteries set in 1888. The main character, Diana, is a widow who works as an entertainment reviewer for a New York newspaper, and gets bullied by her editor (the older brother of a school friend) into finding out whether or not a popular horror novelist (whose books Diana hates, despite thinking the man himself is exceptionally Tall Dark and Handsome) is a serial killer. Who targets nosy female reporters.
Yes, I spent a significant amount of the first book going "You are lusting after a man who may or may not be a serial killer who may or may not target nosy female reporters. you are a nosy female reporter following him around. ABORT. ABORT."
But, I mean, despite some serious questioning of Diana's life choices in the first book (and she spends a lot of the series questioning her own life choices, for that matter) I enjoyed these. I don't know if it was always intended to be a quartet, or if it just ended up that way, but overall, they form a pretty solid story arc. In between finding dead bodies and figuring out who made them that way, Diana and her eventual fiance spend a lot of time travelling around and dealing with their respective families, mostly Diana's, with a lot of focus on Diana's estrangement from her family, caused largely by her marriage to an actor (about the only thing her father was ever right about was the fact that her husband was scum, not that disowning her was the right response), and her trust issues, largely caused by the same actor. There's also a lot of focus on what marriage meant, both good and bad, at the time, though the narrative (and Diana's) POV is distinctly modern in that regard at times.
But then "fiction" is just as important a part of "historical fiction" as the other half is.
There are also theatre troops, Madams, exceptionally eccentric authoresses, conartist uncles and whatnot running around a lot.
A pretty solid series, overall, and mostly very enjoyable.
The books are:
Deadlier Than the Pen
Fatal as A Fallen Woman
No Mortal Reason
Lethal Legend