Daughters of Night

Having enjoyed The Square of Sevens I was very much up for reading more by Laura Shepherd-Robinson and Darren reckoned this was better than the book it’s a sequel to so I went straight to this. And this was also really well written and imagined and hugely enjoyable.

The story centres on Caro Corsham, who finds herself pregnant while her husband is away at war. Oops. Oh, and it’s 1782, which is a bit of a complication. Then she finds an erstwhile friend dying of a stab wound which also complicates things. Especially when the friend turns out to be a prostitute and Caro seems to be the only person who thinks the murder is worth investigating. The writing here is great, what I really noticed was all the detail. Eighteenth century London absolutely bounces off the page, fully formed with all kinds of little bits of info coming at you in every sentence. This isn’t just an overload of research being thrown at you either, it’s all worked into the landscape of the story and utterly delightful.

There’s numerous other great characters and whilst the plot isn’t nearly as tight as The Square of Sevens it’s still very well done. Once again this one comes highly recommended from me. And I think the ending of the book is open enough that we might see more of what happens to Caro, or the other characters, in the future. I can hope anyway!