Book review : Mysterious Lover by Mary Lancaster

Mysterious Lover
Crime and Passion Book 1
by Mary Lancaster
My rating: 4.8 of 5 stars

It has been a very enjoyable mystery-romance read !
I would re-read it in my future and that I would recommend it to a friend with my same book genre's tastes.

I was undecided whether to read a mystery with a gothic flavor or a beautiful love story that would involve me and make me dream, when I saw the series title: "Crime and Passion" I thought it was the right mix I was looking for and the cherries on the cake was a character different from the usual duke or bow street runner: a Hungarian soldier and doctor, political refugee, after the Hungarian revolution of 1848 (and the cover with him wearing his uniform also charmed me)... intriguing !! :-D

It turned out to be the right choice.

__THE PLOT ___ We are in London in 1851. The story opens almost immediately with an inexplicable murder: the maid of a rich family, murdered near the opera house, while she should have been at home doing her job. Next to her is a precious dagger and the 2 main characters of the story meet themselves, for the first time, at the crime scene:
Lady Grizelda, daughter of the maid's employer and the first to discover the body and Dragan Tizsa, a soldier in the Hungarian revolution, now a political refugee in England, employed as an assistant doctor.
The first thought of both is that the other is the culprit, but logic says otherwise. Unfortunately in the past (and perhaps even nowadays) the less well-off classes are those immediately accused by the law, while the rich... you know how it is!
Now each of the 2 characters has a personal reason to find the culprit.

___ THE CHARACTERS and WHY I LOVED THEM TWO __
I liked the characters straight away due to the fact that neither of them is the usual "winner" in society, but neither of them isolates themselves from the world or gives up, both do their best to live with dignity and to give dignity to the less fortunate.

It is true that Lady Grizelda is the rich daughter of a very important duke in the high society circle, but despite her privileged situation, she is a girl who usually remains in the shadow of her more charming sisters and brothers.
Griz, 24 years old, does not stand out for her beauty and wears glasses, which was considered a disadvantage in frivolous aristocratic society, especially during the events of the season, in finding a husband. However, this does not affect her vitality and her spirit, in fact she doesn't feel like an outcast at all, on the contrary she is dynamic, intelligent and really enterprising.
She doesn't cry over the fact of remaining a spinster, she decide to be a spinster for the rest of her life by embracing its advantages: independence (of course thanks also to the allowance of a rich family), dedicating herself to reading and knowledge and above all giving herself the opportunity to look at the world with different eyes from those of her former society: without social class barriers and helping those who were less fortunate than her.

Dragan on the contrary, possesses the beauty that everyone notices at first glance, but he is a political refugee, he has lost everything: homeland, family, friends and the possibility of completing his studies at university and creating a future for himself.
He has never been rich, although belonging to a noble family of lesser rank, but he does not use his beauty to take rich women into his bed, on the contrary he works as a doctor's assistant and has no illusions about a love life and wedding, because he does not earn enough to create and support a family.
However, he fights for his ideals, for freedom of thought, for everyone's right to vote and to help other refugees.

---> The attraction that immediately arises between them is not just an aesthetic fact, it is an affinity that they feel as together they ask questions around, look for clues, get into dangerous situations and get each other out of trouble during the adventure of an escape at breakneck speed.

___ A GOOD BALANCE BETWEEN MYSTERY AND ROMANCE__ the mystery is well thought and if at the beginning it took me a few chapters to feel taken by the investigations and the romance, after the first 20% of the book, I was completely immersed in reading and I savored any new discovery about the circumstances that led to the murder and the alleged perpetrators.

The possible hypotheses are numerous and all plausible. Suspicions fall on different people from time to time, which always left me in suspense while reading and wanting to guess myself who the murderer was and why.

The real culprit will truly be a surprise, a twist that I would never have imagined and which gave a touch of originality to the story !

As for the love story, it grows slowly but steadily and although there are no hot scenes, the agitation of the soul, the thought focused on the desire for the other and on the desire to spend more time together, the acceleration of the heartbeat, the excitement that comes from the birth of a feeling that brings new life into the lives of both , the sudden kisses that defy the rules of social classes, managed to excite me and make me feel the butterflies in the hero and heroine's stomachs.

The only one small and not too explicit sex scene is in the final part of the book, so even if the series is called "crime and passion" I would define it as a cozy mystery-clean romance ( well cozy and clean except that very short sex scene ), so nothing bloody or shocking and no hot sex scenes between lovers.
That is my favorite genre and I really liked it, but of course those who are seeking for stronger emotions will have to look elsewhere.

___ IS THERE ALSO A HISTORICAL PART? __ As I have already said, we are in 1851 and the book mentions the Hungarian revolution. Apart from this, there are no historical notions included in the novel, which I usually appreciate a lot.

However, the author manages to make the reader feel the atmosphere of the time.
The mean alleys, the flower sellers in Covent Garden, the prostitutes and their brazen and derisive way of speaking, the well-furnished living rooms and the parade of guests with bows and smiles, the false flattery of the world of the rich, the dedication of the servants and the desire to be able to rise in rank by moving from the class that serves to the one that is served... these are all well-described details that help the reader to enter perfectly into the setting of that time.

The series offers, so far, 3 other books and a Christmas novella.
Each book finds Dragan and Griz as detectives ( ___WARNING : SPOILER__[ who became husband and wife ]___SPOILER END, but focuses the romantic story on another couple (friends or relatives of Dragan and Griz).

I will DEFINITELY read the other books in the series and I really hope that the writer continues this saga by adding new adventures and refocusing the love interest on the couple Griz and Dragan. :-)

__ A FINAL NOTE ABOUT MY REVIEW : I'm from Italy and English is not my mother tongue, I tried my best but please forgive me for any grammar or form errors in my text )

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