A reluctant lady sleuth finds she's investigating her own family.

Step into Lady Helena Whitcombe's world with the first novel in a series that will blend family saga and mystery-driven action with a slow-burn romance in seven pause-resisting investigations.

Sussex, 1881. Lady Helena Scott-De Quincy's marriage to Sir Justin Whitcombe, three years before, gave new purpose to a life almost destroyed by the death of Lady Helena's first love. After all, shouldn't the preoccupations of a wife and hostess be sufficient to fulfill any aristocratic female's dreams? Such a shame their union wasn't blessed by children...but Lady Helena is content with her quiet country life until Sir Justin is found dead in the river overlooked by their grand baroque mansion.

The intrusion of attractive, mysterious French physician Armand Fortier, with his meddling theory of murder, into Lady Helena's first weeks of mourning is bad enough. But with her initial ineffective efforts at investigation and her attempts to revive her long-abandoned interest in herbalism comes the realization that she may have been mistaken about her own family's past. Every family has its secrets - but, as this absorbing series will reveal, the Scott-De Quincy family has more than most.

Can Lady Helena survive bereavement the second time around? Can she stand up to her six siblings' assumption of the right to control her new life as a widow? And what role will Fortier - who, as a physician, is a most unsuitable companion for an earl's daughter - play in her investigations?

A new series by Jane Steen, author of the House of Closed Doors series that has delighted thousands of fans. If you're looking for a pause-resisting Victorian mystery saga, here's where you start!