BkRv: A spy is worth 1,000 secrets

Book Review: A Spy In The House (Book One Of The Agency) by Y.S. Lee

Historical | Mystery | Series Book 1

First Line (ARC): She should have been listening to the judge. Instead, Mary's attention was focused on the flies swarming around her ankles in the prisoner's dock and their primary interest: the pool of stale urine at her feet. It wasn't hers. Some poor fool must have lost control of his bladder earlier in the day, but the puddle would remain until...well, until long after her case was finished, at any rate.








A lady never divulges her secrets, especially when she has been tasked to spy on a rich merchant's shady finances under the guise as his spoiled daughter's companion. Mary Quinn sets out to prove with this mission that she can be what the Agency is looking for: a sensible female investigator with a keen sense of intuition and quick thinking. However, the investigation turns rather sour - and not just due to the Great Stink of the Thames River - when Mary uncovers nothing of use beyond trivial gossip and encounters an unexpected obstacle by the name of James Easton who tests her patience as he appears on the scene, unannounced, unwanted, and undeniably unbearable. Eventually her patience pays off, but when Mary starts to get the hang of this spy business, she soon discovers that some of her own secrets cannot stay buried for long...

A Spy In The House makes a stunning appearance with its vivid and sometimes not-so-dainty Victorian imagery and a rather spunky heroine who is not afraid to get her skirts muddy. Mary Quinn proves to be a woman not to be trifled with, and she certainly does not need to be rescued like some feather-brained damsel in distress.

I really enjoyed the historical details that Y.S. Lee wove into the story, and there were times when I felt a little woozy after reading about the smelly Thames. It was interesting to not read all about dress-fittings and dance cards, but instead the covert ops to the less-than-sparkly docks and immigrant refuge house. There were a lot of aspects of Victorian nuances that usually gets lost in historical romances, such as who you can meet inside a church. What also makes A Spy In The House unique is that it also gives us a healthy dose of cultural awareness in that Mary Quinn is not a pure Englishwoman, but instead a mixed background with roots that she rather not discuss in polite society.

And what is a spunky heroine without an equally clever gentleman hero (though quite unnecessary since she can save herself)? I loved the bantering between Mary and James and the mishaps that they managed to fall into. James proved to be an adequate ally when needs arose, even though Mary couldn't quite trust him with her secrets.

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Disclosure: Publisher > T2T Tour

Get the Scoop on... Y.S. Lee

Please welcome Y.S. Lee to The Epic Rat as part of the awesome Traveling To Teens blog tour for her recent release of The Agency: A Spy In The House which is about a young Victorian woman who takes a covert mission as a lady's companion in hopes of learning if the lady's merchant father has been sinking his own ships for financial gain.

Without further ado, Y.S. Lee provides us with a little more insider info of life in the Victorian England and how it isn't all ballgowns and frivolities that the romances would like us to believe.

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Hello! This is the 4th of 8 guest posts I’m making as part of the T2T blog tour. As an ex-professor and writer of historical fiction, my theme is Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About the Victorians. Yesterday, I talked about Victorians of Colour at Reading in Color. Today’s topic is Victorian Poverty.

There’s a great book by B. Seebohm Rowntree called Poverty that I read while researching my PhD thesis. It’s definitely not a light read, but today I’m going to discuss one of its central revelations: the idea that poverty is a cycle, rather than a fixed condition. Working families in the nineteenth century went through five distinct stages, says Rowntree. Here’s how it works:

1. A girl is born into poverty. This lasts through early childhood, until she and her siblings are old enough to earn money and contribute to the family income (which is young! See my post about Extreme Child Labour at Books by Their Cover).

2. When she’s a bit older, she works while living at home. She’ll earn more than she needs to cover her share of the rent and food, and this is her chance to save some money. She gets married and uses her savings to rent and furnish a home of her own.

3. When her savings are gone, she and her husband will again sink into poverty, which lasts until their own children are able to start work. This time period fluctuates according to how many children they have.

4. When the children are earning money and living at home, she experiences another period of ease, with enough to eat and perhaps a chance to save a little.

5. When the children leave home and she is too old to work, she sinks back into poverty because she’s never earned enough to set aside money for her old age.

This sounds melodramatic, but in fact it was the condition of millions in Victorian England. What’s astonishing is how hard these poor people worked to try to keep body and soul together. It’s a long way from the glamorous dresses and elegant ballrooms we often picture when we think of the Victorian age, but this was the experience of more people than not. That’s why, in my novel The Agency: A Spy in the House, I tried to balance scenes of affluent high life with those of urban grit. The two coexist all the time, and it’s one of the jobs of a novelist to show you the underside.

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Thank you, Y.S. Lee, for sharing such great insights to the Victorian life! Feel free to check out the other tour stops for more guest posts, reviews, and interviews!

Don't forget to enter her "If I Were A Spy..." contest here!

The Agency Blog Tour Participants
Bookworming in the 21st Century | GreenBeanTeenQueen | Steph Su | Books By Their Cover | That Chick That Reads | Reading in Color | The Epic Rat | Chick Lit Teens | The Story Siren | Rebecca Herman | Ticket to Anywhere