2025 Victorian romance. Euphemia Flite is an orphan brought up in a
very special charity school, and forged as a weapon to take down a
particular powerful man. But she will find more goals than that for
her life…
As usual with Matthews, there's solid research behind the
lightweight story—specifically in this case the last days of the St
Giles rookery and the attempts to pass a Married Women's Property Act.
Lord Compton, Effie's target, is known to oppose such an Act… but he
is also Gabriel Royce's blackmail victim, so Effie's mission to ruin
his reputation for probity clashes with Royce's need to keep the man
powerful and supporting his own efforts to get conditions improved in
St Giles, rather than merely smashing it flat and putting up expensive
new houses on the rubble.
Which is a lot more social awareness than many romances aspire to, and
I have to say that Matthews carries it off well: neither of these
people is going to get exactly what they want, and big reforms don't
happen just because one person wants it really hard.
Royce is also not a gentleman, but thanks to his blackmail he is at
least accepted in society (this seems to stretch things a little but
Matthews at least makes it seem plausible). Naturally, they fall for
each other, but they both have important things to do for which other
people are depending on them, and which may (shockingly for a romance)
be more important than falling in love… that's a pleasing tension, and
well resolved.
Not at all a run-of-the-mill romance, then; not even standard for
Matthews, who continues to avoid repeating her effects.