Death and the sisters

The Godwin family, in 1814, is famous in London literary circles but desperate for funds beyond what they can earn from the bookstore on the street level of their home in a seedy neighborhood. This first in a new series imagines the sisters in the blended family headed by William Godwin, philosopher, author, and widower of Mary Wollstonecraft, pursuing not their literary interests but a murder mystery. Hoping to garner support from Percy Bysshe Shelly, Godwin invites him to dine with the family, which includes teenage sisters Fanny and Mary, daughters of Wollstonecraft, and Jane, their stepsister--all enchanted by the romantic poet. After Shelley has left for the night, Mary slips downstairs to the bookstore and finds a body she first fears is Shelley but is instead one of his circle. When the sisters find a scrap of paper inviting the victim to the shop, Mary and Jane investigate. Fans of the Regency period will appreciate the contrast between high society and the literary class as well as the romantic bantering between the married Shelley and the smitten Mary, along with the jealous Jane.

A teenage Mary Shelley anchors this wobbly first entry in the latest historical cozy series from Redmond (A Twist of Death). The year is 1814, and 16-year-old Mary Godwin is living in London with her father, his second wife, and her four siblings and stepsiblings. When she isn't working in the family bookshop or keeping house for her imperious stepmother, Mary and her sisters spend their time swooning over suave poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a regular visitor to their home. After dinner with Percy one night, Mary discovers a dead man on the floor of the bookshop with a knife protruding from his back, and the family summons two police officers to perform a cursory investigation. The victim is identified as Cecil Campbell, an anarchist poet and former classmate of Percy's. But how did he enter the locked shop, and why was he there? Might Percy be a suspect? Chapters alternate between Mary's point of view and her stepsister Jane's, but the two feel largely interchangeable, and the rest of Redmond's cast is dismayingly one-note. Stilted dialogue ("I am unused to these London manners. I have been in rough Scotland for too long") and a lack of suspense make matters worse. This misses the mark. Agent: Laurie McLean, Fuse Literary. (Oct.)

Redmond kicks off a new historical series by exploring the relationship between stepsisters Mary Godwin and Jane Clairmont. The marriage of philosopher William Godwin, widower of feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, to French/English translator Mary Jane de Vial Clairmont created a blended family like no other. Clairmont's oldest son, Charles, is largely absent from Redmond's story, leaving Godwin's stepdaughter, Fanny Imlay; his daughter, Mary; and Clairmont's daughter, Jane, to mind the family bookstore while their parents struggle to makes ends meet. Despite the daughters' different temperaments, they're united in their disdain for their feckless parents, whose pursuit of political enlightenment leaves them utterly incapable of providing for their large family, which includes not only the girls but Godwin and Clairmont's young son, Willy. The daughters are also united in their fascination with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a frequent visitor at their meager dinner table. Redmond's family saga is punctuated by a murder: Young poet Cecil Campbell is found stabbed to death in the bookstore, and Bow Street Runner Fitzwalter Abel is charged with finding his killer. But the real mystery is whether the Godwin girls will ever make peace with their straitened circumstances and each other. Readers familiar with the ultimate trajectory of the sisters' relationship with Shelley may find this fictional look at its early years unsettling. But Redmond's rendition of the dynamics of this most unconventional family is lively and colorful. A promising series debut for historical mystery buffs. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.