An all-female detective agency righting wrongs at the end of the nineteenth century; infiltrating a scandalous upper class world straight out of Bridgerton and using their wit and bravery to unmask a villain.
Eighteen-year-old Isobel Stanhope is keeping a lot of secrets. There's the fact that she's head over heels in love with a Duke who doesn't know she exists; there's the fact that her family is penniless but nobody in society knows about it; and then there's her job at the Aviary, an investigative agency run by women that specializes in digging up scandal on powerful men.
When Izzy finds herself pulled into a case that involves gaslighting, blackmail, and missing jewels, as well as the Duke who holds her heart, can she and her friends untangle the web of secrets and lies to uncover the truth and protect the innocent? And when the stakes are so high, what happens when the crush she's been hiding begins to turn into so much more?
This is a hefty book! Even though the print is nice and big, it still takes a while to read.
And that's good, because there's a lot going on here. It would feel horribly rushed in a shorter book, but here each part of the story - Izzy's home life, her work, the Society dances and events that feel like another job, her friendship with Teresa (who is absolutely one of the best parts of the book) - and that's not even getting into the heists or undercover missions or anything else! - is given space to breathe and feel organic.
I won't say too much about the missions, because I don't want to spoil them, but there are some very satisfying moments! I liked that no one is super human here - when they're injured, they're injured, and they're not leaping tall buildings or solving the Millenium problem in their off time. It's all very normal stuff. Plus, although the romance parts played out exactly as I expected, there were some surprises elsewhere - a revelation I was expecting about Mrs Finch turned out to be fake, unless it was a misdirection to set up another book!
Speaking of, I dearly hope there are more books to come in this series. It's so much fun and I think there are a lot of places it could go from here!
The Agency for Scandal publishes on the 5th of January, 2023. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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