[amazon_link id=”B002PJ4IIO” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]Title : And only to decieve

Author : Tasha Alexander

Publisher : William Morrow

Genre : Historical fiction, Mystery

Rating : 3/5

Lady Emily Ashton is newly widowed. Having been married to her husband wealthy Lord Philip Ashton only a short while before his death in Africa, she knows very little about him; her having married him having been a matter more of convenience than of love. In mourning she finds her husband’s journal and learns about his penchant for collecting art and artifacts. As she delves deeper she finds herself interested in many of the same subjects and begins her own quest for knowledge.

With her burgeoning knowledge, she realizes also that the husband she never knew was deeply in love with her, and is distraught at the fact that she has not appreciated the man when he was alive. However when she discovers some notable pieces of art in her husband’s art collection, and discovers that similar pieces in the Museum are but copies of the originals, and that the Museum Curator is unaware of this fact, she suspects that her husband may have been involved in some shady deals. Her suspicions are further bolstered when her late husband’s friend Colin Hargreaves begins to ask her questions about certain art pieces her husband might have owned.

When Colin finds out that Emily is making enquiries of her own he politely asks her to stop her investigations for her own good. His warning, along with other unfortunate incidents unnerve Emily, but she resolves to continue on with the help of Lord Andrew Palmer. Will she be able to solve the mystery ?

Now, I picked up this book because of similarities to the Lady Julia Grey series. Both are set in Victorian England, and both feature intrepid young (widowed) women who attempt to solve mysteries in their households. However although the description on the back cover of this book looked interesting, it didn’t live upto that promise. The mystery itself turned out to be kind of tepid, and the character of Lady Emily Ashton didn’t grow on me. I found her petulant, wishy-washy in her decision making and someone who didn’t think things through before jumping to conclusions. Also, this is Victorian England, so women are expected to behave a certain way, in keeping with feminine decorum. Emily voices many times the fact that she finds this stifling and challenges some social conventions in her own way (much to the horror of her very traditional and annoying mother), but I didn’t find that the independent streak lasted very long, and seemed rather superficial.

I doubt that I will be picking up a sequel. If you like historical mystery novels featuring strong female leads, I’d recommend Deanna Raybourn’s writing instead.