This post's purpose is to collect my common tags in one place, so readers (and I!) can easily access entries on several subjects.

Deanna Raybourn, Silent In The Grave: a mystery set in Victorian London. It's first person, from the pov of a woman (Julia Grey) whose husband dies at the beginning, and later she suspects it's murder. She learns how to be a detective as she goes, with the help of investigator Nicholas Brisbane. Brisbane's many talents and Interesting Secrets are revealed as the book progresses, and there is a nifty subplot involving a bird whom I suspect will feature in future books

Brisbane becomes more and more Swoonily Interesting as the book goes on, and I am hoping he does not become So Interesting that the narrator is excluded. Her naievety might have been exacerbated in this book by her inexperience as a detective, so might improve.

All in all, this had much more of a romance feel to it than the C.S. Harris Regency mysteries.

( Spoiler that gives away solution to mystery. )

Other than that, I liked the book. I got the second one, just to see.

Meredith Duran, The Duke of Shadows: I really, really liked this book, and was irresistibly reminded of Judith Ivory as I read it, particularly in the second half, which was set in London. It wasn't the prose that reminded me, but the setting and tone, and perhaps something of the characterization.

I noted in the author's bio that she's a doctoral student in cultural anthropology, and I think it showed in her portrayal of the 1857 Sepoy War, and how she demonstrates the war's effect on both the Indians and the British colonialists. There's another level of tension going on in the two characters themselves, both between them and society, and between themselves: Emmaline is an artist who chafes at the strictures placed on women, who doesn't fit in England and doesn't fit in staid British Indian society either, and Julian is the mixed-race heir to a dukedom who fits nowhere and is trying to make his own place in the world, formulate his own identity. (Cue "torn between two worlds!" blurb.) I really loved the evolution of their relationship, and especially the way Emmaline has to struggle to see the Indian point of view. I loved that the war tore them apart, leaving them both devastated and angry, and that it took time for them to reestablish their relationship. I loved that both of them had terrible, terrible angst and the best remedy for it was each other. I loved that Julian was a good guy, who never tried to trick or take advantage of Emmaline, and that Emmaline felt what she felt and was whom she was. I also liked that Emmaline's cousin, in the second half, was a real confidant and friend to her, a nuanced character, not just the usual "flighty chaperone" type.

Things I didn't like as much: yet another Evil Plot related to Evil Person Who Is Easy To Identify. Related to that, I would have liked to see a bit more prejudice directed at Julian--a lot of what we see comes from Evil Person, which doesn't seem realistic to me. It's true that being heir to a dukedom would counterbalance, but I still imagined a lot more casual racism from other peers and talking about the issue in oblique ways, which would lead to more juicy plot tension. Ironically, there's more of the British characters taking issue with him being part Indian in the first half, which takes place in India, than when Julian's in London. To me, that made the first half more uniquely interesting than the second, which had a more standard plot wrapping the tension-filled reunion of Julian with Emmaline.

I haven't enjoyed a new author this much in a while. I would buy another Duran book in a heartbeat. I hope she writes more!

Sherry Thomas, Private Arrangements: This is a romance of a romance gone wrong that takes years to mend. It's told in alternating present-day (Victoria Period) and flashback to the beginnings of the couple's relationship. I don't normally like flashbacks, but the author used them skillfully to draw out the characters' tension and pain almost unbearably. The reader knows from the opening section that the couple's marriage led to essential separation for ten years, so reading their hopeful early encounters is exquisitely painful. There is hope throughout, but it isn't until the characters themselves decide to proactively salvage their relationship that it actually happens.

The heroine, Gigi, is an extraordinarily complex character whom I loved. This book is worth reading just for her; she is active in her own destiny from the start, and it is her action that initially betrays Cam, the hero, and causes him to marry her; however, I felt Cam's reaction was a bit extreme, despite his youth at the time. He is shown to regret his reaction later on in the book, but he doesn't act to show Gigi he forgives her until it's almost too late. Gigi, I felt, was more excusable in using guile to obtain a marriage which she thought would fulfill her, given she'd been trained all her life by her mother to do that very thing, and given that she'd just narrowly escaped being trapped in a different marriage with little possibility of happiness and self-fulfillment. She's just seen what lay in store for her, and she is more trapped by society than Cam is. Cam is betrayed, true, but I felt he was almost looking for a reason to get out of his previous relationship, and in fact truly did want Gigi. It was that which made me find it unlikely he would nurse his grudge against Gigi for so long, unless it was pride alone that prevented him from forgiving her. Perhaps given the period, his excessive pride, or stubbornness, is less startling. Gigi, however, almost immediately regrets her betrayal and tries various methods to redeem it, over quite a long time, before finally giving up. It's only when she's given up that Cam is driven to try and regain her, and he does so in a prideful, manipulative way for as long as he can, until he realizes that unless he acts otherwise, he will lose her.

There's a subsidiary romance between Gigi's widowed mother and a neighboring Duke which I really enjoyed, and which offered some intriguing parallels to Cam and Gigi's relationship.

The prose was excellent, an added bonus. I am definitely adding Thomas to my "must read" list.