Kate Parker | The Counterfeit Lady

For all of you who read THE VANISHING THIEF, you know Georgia Fenchurch is very protective of her bookshop. In the late Victorian era in Britain, a woman needed either a husband or family to support her or she needed an occupation to put bread on her table. Georgia has no family except the one she's created with others of the Archivist Society who also have no one. Her occupation, her protection from poverty and starvation, is her bookshop.

She inherited the bookshop at seventeen when her parents were murdered. In the intervening years, she's learned how to serve both the current market and antiquarian book collectors, and her bookshop is thriving with her efforts. While she might daydream about becoming the Duchess of Blackford, she knows her shop will provide the fuel to warm her bones in years to come.

With THE COUNTERFEIT LADY comes Georgia's dilemma.

When the cousin of her friend Lady Phyllida is murdered, Georgia promises she and the Archivist Society will learn whether the cousin's husband, arrested for the murder, is the guilty party. But the cousin's husband is Britain's foremost naval architect. Plans to his newest warship, a leap ahead of current designs, disappeared during the murder.

The Duke of Blackford is called on by the government to help rescue the drawings and involves Georgia and the Archivist Society. His plan will help discover the identity of the murderer, but it requires Georgia and her trusted assistant Emma to leave her beloved bookshop for a period of time.

She'll be living in splendor in a Mayfair townhouse, playing the widow of a British merchant in Singapore. The duke's cash, a talented dressmaker, and Lady Phyllida's tutoring can turn Georgia into another person, but what about her bookshop?

How will she keep her bookshop running? Others offer to help, but they know nothing about the business. Sir Broderick knows the business, but he's confined to a wheeled chair. Hint: a new invention makes the situation better, but the heat wave hovering over London makes it worse.

In this meeting of the Archivist Society, the Duke of Blackford spells out part of his plan to retrieve the ship plans:

The duke's gaze fell on me. "We need to dog their heels night and day if we're to recover those drawings. The plan I've devised is tricky. I want to place a member of the Archivist Society in a position to mingle with him in aristocratic society. A position that no one will associate with counterespionage."

Sir Broderick pressed the tips of his fingers together and looked over them at Blackford. "When you came by this afternoon, you told me you had something in mind."

"I want to set up Georgia Fenchurch as a cousin of Lady Monthalf, recently arrived from some part of the empire. I want the two of them residing in a household in fashionable London. I want them to go to the opera, to the theater, to balls and parties. And I want them to befriend Lady Bennett."

Visions of waltzing and attending the opera warred in my brain with thoughts of my bookshop in ruin. "What about Fenchurch's Books? I can't just leave it shuttered for weeks."

"Oh, Georgia, don't sound so middle-class," Blackford said in an annoyed tone. "Our nation's security is at stake."

I couldn't leave my bookshop for that long. Both my business and my reputation would be destroyed. "I am middle-class. My shop is my life. I'll attend social events with you, but my days will be spent as they always are. In my bookshop."

The duke shook his head. "No. You'll have afternoon teas and visits. You'll have to dedicate your life to this role for some time."

I glared at the duke. The devil I would.

The answers to how Georgia solves the mystery, lives like a lady, and saves her bookshop can be found in THE COUNTERFEIT LADY, available August 5th from Berkley Prime Crime.