Lady Emily Ashton, a widow, astounds her fellow socialites by drinking Port, studying Greek, resisting remarriage, and – perhaps most scandalous of all – reading in public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Poisoned Season is the second book in the Lady Emily series, and was a lot more enjoyable than the first for me. I felt that the plot\/characters\/setting\/etc. were better laid out and easier to follow. In this novel, Emily competes with her romantic interest, Colin Hargreaves, to see who can unmask her secret admirer\/solve two murders\/denounce a pretender to the French throne\/catch a jewel thief. If Emily wins the bet, Colin will spend some time in Greece with her, and if Colin wins, Emily must marry him (the latter being much<\/em> less offensive than is sounds as Emily is quite in love with Colin and has just been maintaining her widowed status to retain her independence for a while). In case you haven\u2019t guessed, this is an action-packed novel.\u00a0 \u201cIt was true that I found most of society tedious, but I had never intended to make my casual acquaintances feel it so keenly.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Presentation Style<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I have to commend Tasha Alexander for writing in such an honest style. There are elements of Lady Emily that are quite unconventional (the scholarly interests, the port) and truly scandalous to society. As rumors continue to circulate about her throughout the book, and she estranges an increasing amount of people, Alexander gives us a clear picture of the conflict it created for Emily. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The above quote is a piece of how she\u2019s torn between living her own lifestyle and maintaining the status quo for the sake of those around her. The only thing that\u2019s slowing down her radical self is the fact that her reputation is harming those even remotely acquainted with her. We see this struggle, not described in fancy language or strong emotional words, but in plain speak that evokes emotion and lets the reader identify with the character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other scenarios in the book are similar in their honesty, and, to be fair, their reality. Instead of the more typical character who simply pushes negative thoughts out of their mind to focus on the task at hand, or constantly asks \u201cwhat if..?,\u201d Emily just does. She cries. She drinks. She reads. She puzzles. She does the important society things when required and doesn\u2019t blow things off because her investigation is a priority. Alexander creates a heroine who actually knows how to balance her curiosity with her courtesy. Emily is rebellious-within-the-lines and I really appreciate that about her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emily and Colin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In historical mystery fiction, a female heroine would have to be naturally curious and somewhat intellectual, so it\u2019s not a surprise that many main characters are fairly free-spirited. Alexander does a good job with Lady Emily as she\u2019s a clear-headed female who\u2019s definitely head-over-heels for Colin, but not so much so that we have to hear about it the entire book. The relationship between the two is a playful one, and their bet throughout the book is amusing to follow. Big things are at stake for both of them – but I think they both know the outcome of the wager, whether they win or lose. It is a pleasant touch by Alexander. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The detail of romance is nicely added, but it\u2019s not what\u2019s keeping me reading the book<\/em>. Lady Emily and the mystery itself make you want to keep turning the pages. However, I think we do get fed enough information on the couples\u2019 relationship, and I have no further questions about it at this time (which is very satisfactory!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Wrapping Up?!?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s hard to believe that I don\u2019t have a ton more thoughts on this book. I just really enjoyed reading it. It\u2019s totally different than Lady Darby (even with the common themes of widow-turned-romantic, investigations, and societal pressure) (see \u201cA Grave Matter\u201d post), but no less entertaining. The writing is good, clean, and honest. The main character is easily identified with. The plot itself is intricate, and the secondary characters are charming (or irritating, depending on the character) and add a lot of life to the novel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t think I\u2019m as<\/strong> enamored with Lady Emily as I am with Lady Darby, but I think it\u2019s because Lady Emily is still in the process of finding herself, whereas LD did that fairly quickly. I look forward to who Emily becomes and what other crimes she may solve. Author: Tasha Alexander Lady Emily Ashton, a widow, astounds her fellow socialites by drinking Port, studying Greek, resisting remarriage, and – perhaps most scandalous of all – reading in public. A Poisoned Season is the second book in the Lady Emily series, and was a lot more enjoyable than the first for me. I feltContinue reading “Title: A Poisoned Season”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,157,165,236,283,338,405],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-a-poisoned-season","tag-historical-fiction","tag-historical-mystery","tag-london","tag-murder-mystery","tag-regency-novel","tag-tasha-alexander","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/tasha-alexander-a-poisoned-season-e1563325604900.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":693,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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