eyes.2c Reviews

A Lady in Disguise: A Novel (The Daughters of Hampshire #3) by  Sandra Byrd                                   An engaging mystery and romance set smack in the middle of the Drury Lane theatre district of London in Victorian times. There's treachery, mystery and fear. Young children, the 'pantomime children', discarded when too old or when the season is over and who are lured into darker employment in London or taken to Paris are at the heart of the matter. Miss Gillian Young is a talented seamstress whose father, a hitherto respected inspector in the police force, has recently been killed in a mysterious 'accident'. Gillian is left with nothing but puzzles, and fear.  What happened to her father? It seems he is being accused of corruption and more. Few of the constabulary turns out for his funeral. Gillian is determined to find out the truth, despite the menacing warnings she...

Mist of Midnight: A Novel (The Daughters of Hampshire) by Sandra Byrd  A mysterious romance with a touch of the Gothic. Rebecca Ravenshaw left England as a child 20 years ago, bound for India with her well to do missionary parents. She is one of a handful who survived the Indian Mutiny. After harrowing months and harrowing dreams, with her family dead, her life destroyed, she returns to England to her family home, to take up her life and claim her Hampshire estate, her inheritance and her place in society. Her arrival elicits consternation and disbelief.  A young woman claiming to be her had convinced the family solicitors that she, the imposter, was Rebecca. The young woman has since died under suspicious and terrible circumstances. For Rebecca, the shock of having her identity stolen, of being left in limbo with an uncertain future, feed into and highlight her tragic past. Having suffered terribly, Rebecca finds herself cast into a society that withholds itself. Here s...