Lady Helena Investigates is a well written tale from the point of view of Helena, an aristocratic widow in 1881 England, shortly after the sudden and seemingly accidental death of her husband Justin. Jane Steen managed to capture the era of writing perfectly and I felt like I was reading a contemporary to Jane Eyre or Little Women, but unfortunately I struggled with this book from the very beginning and this book felt like 391 pages of prologue.
I will admit that a main reason that I did not like this book is that it was something other than I thought it would be. The description made it seem like the death and Fortier's theories of murder would play a larger role but was surprised to find that not to be the case. In fact there are a couple of mysterious deaths and other things that I would have expected Helena to... investigate. Essentially she uncovers the truth about things without any effort whatsoever in a strange deus ex machina fashion, only those revelations do not bring the narrative to a close. ALSO the murderer literally had the WORST MOTIVE EVER and confessed on their deathbed for no reason.
While I know it was true of the period, I was also bothered by Helena's meekness and the fact that her family kind of bulldozed over her. I know that through the course of this book she is coming into herself and learning to stand up for herself, but personally I prefer female characters that are consistently strong and did not see that with Helena. Her brother's meddling and wanting to leverage her wealth for his own gain really just rubbed me the wrong way. And her sister Blanche is absolutely insufferable. And what is with trying to get her to remarry 9 days after her husband is dead, especially given the period's convention of a widow being in full mourning for a year?
It's like living in a pride of lions. The moment anyone in this family weakens, they're shoved to the margins and forced to feed on the scraps of attention the rest deign to throw their way.I found this more of a period/historical drama with a slow burn romance being hinted at than a mystery and little character development - the entire book read like a prologue to me, so it is possible that the characters will be fully fleshed out in subsequent books in the series, but I do not think that I will continue with it.
cw: xenophobia, treatment of women as objects/unable to make decisions on their own
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Aspidistra Press, for providing me a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.