Reina Martin is an intelligent woman who has created her
own fortune. Unfortunately, sheβs also the
illegitimate daughter of a peer. She belongs to neither the
middle class nor the nobility. Because of her status,
sheβs afforded more leeway than most women.
Her hard work in economics has gained her a fortune, thus
allowing her to purchase a home. When she realizes she needs
help running the house, she learns that no one wants to take
on the work. So Reina thinks outside the box for a solution.
She finds her hired help at a program for people paroled
from prison.
One of the men, her new butler, isnβt who he claims
to be. In fact, heβs there undercover. He has come to
find out whether Reina is in cahoots with her mentor, who is
under investigation for fraud. He believes that she is
guilty, but the more time he spends in the house, the more
he comes to care for her.
Lisa Kleypas is best known for her historical
romances. While this book does have romance, it is more of a
historical fiction novel. Much of the novel centers on the
home life of this eccentric group of characters who find
themselves caring for one another. I loved the novel's
feminist slant, complete with a list of people who broke
barriers during the Victorian era: women and men of color.
If youβre a reader of her romance novels, youβll
find an Easter egg. I hope more books like this one, about
extraordinary women in history, are in the works.
From New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas—a sweeping, richly layered Victorian novel about a trailblazing female economist who’s determined to build Britain’s first women’s bank, but she must fight both financial corruption and a system intent on destroying the newly found family she’s created.
In Victorian England, no woman—not even a brilliant economist like Reina Martin—is allowed to open her own bank account. Men will take care of everything, women are told. But Reina knows better. As the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish immigrant mother, she’s haunted by the memory of living with unpaid grocer’s bills and no coal for the hearth.
So together with her mentor, the powerful banker William Farlow, Reina will build the first all-women’s bank, where women can manage their own financial security.
At home, Reina’s domestic staff of recently paroled prisoners are building new lives and becoming a found family. But soon Reina is shocked to discover that her enigmatic butler, John Pembroke, is an undercover police detective. He’s been assigned to investigate Farlow, who’s suspected of financial crime on a scale so massive, it could destabilize the British economy. Pembroke needs Reina’s expertise for a high-stakes nighttime heist to obtain incriminating evidence.
Now Reina faces the agonizing choice of betraying her mentor or turning her back on thousands of working-class families who stand to lose everything. Either way, her dream of the women’s bank may be over.
But courage and sacrifice aren’t limited to the battlefield—they also occur at the kitchen table, where women who believe in compassion and community are working to remake the future. And when the stakes are highest, Reina knows to trust her heart as well as her intellect.
Based on real-life trailblazers such as Mary Paley Marshall, Britain’s first female economist, and financial titan Hetty Green, Queen of Lombard Street brings to light the hidden history of extraordinary women whose achievements should be celebrated. How can we know who we are, if we don’t know who we were?
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