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Edie Cay
Author
A Lady's Resilience
Edie Cay, author

Adult; Romance; (Market)

In 1780, the young Queen Charlotte hosts a ball for her birthday. Jane Laurent has not been to a ball because at age sixteen, she isn’t ready. Raised in the country, Jane appointed herself apprentice to a midwife—a calling she wants to pursue. But the family traipses into London so Jane’s older sister Emma can land herself a lord. The family celebrates when lovely Emma catches the eye of the handsome viscount Andrepont. But the night of the engagement ball, dependable Emma runs away with a soldier instead. The family panics and pushes Jane forward to fulfill the marriage contract with the older and oddly unsettling Lord Andrepont. How bad could he be that pragmatic, reliable Emma ran away? Vasily Nikolaevich Kuznetsov is a man with a past, but at least its far away. Meeting up with Gareth Somerset in a seedy gambling hell outside of Paris was the best thing that could have ever happened to him. Aimless, he follows Gareth to London where he helps his friend win the girl of his dreams, and vows to keep an eye on her while Gareth is deployed to the colonies. But when Gareth’s wife joins her husband in the colonies, and Vasya hears the younger sister is marrying Andrepont, a monster well-known to the seedy underbelly of London, Vasya takes a position as a groom in the lord’s household to protect the sister-in-law of his friend. Years pass, and Vasya watches Jane grow into the formidable and beautiful Lady Andrepont. He can only love from afar, but there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her. And when it comes to murder, Vasya has the experience and the moral flexibility to help…
Plot/Idea: 8 out of 10
Originality: 8 out of 10
Prose: 9 out of 10
Character/Execution: 9 out of 10
Overall: 8.50 out of 10

Assessment:

Plot/Idea: Cay blends regency romance with murder mystery in this solid finale to the When the Blood Is Up series that both reveals new secrets and brings prior events to a gratifying closure. Cay brings great care to her worldbuilding, providing a seamless reading experience.

Prose: Cay’s lush writing captures both the glamour and the hollowness of the era's high society without sacrificing character interiority. 

Originality: As with the other titles in the series, A Lady's Resilience stands apart within the regency romance genre by way of its mystery element. The work also surprises via its focus less on 'who' is responsible for the central murder, but the 'why' behind the culprit's actions.

Character/Execution: The author offers ample backstory for leads Jane and Emma, providing them with contradictions and complexities, while also vividly portraying the challenges and underestimation facing women of the era. Love interests are suitably alluring, while Andrepont proves to be a terrifying antagonist. 

Date Submitted: June 27, 2024

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