The second in the Lady Emily Ashton series. A man claiming to be Louis-Charles great-grandson is making his way in society. After meeting him Emily hopes he is not really the heir to the royal family. At the same time items belonging to Marie Antoinette are being stolen. And David Francis, a many of her aquaintance, is murdered. Lady Ashton begins to investigate the murder, but soon has other mysteries to solve. I liked this book much better than the first one. I find myself liking Lady Ashton more and more. I like the way she tries to help out all the people around her including servants.I can't help but compare this series to Deanna Raybourn's Lady Julia Grey. Both women are widows and both find themselves investigating crimes. The first book of both series the women are trying to find who murdered their husbands. I thought this book, A Poisoned Season, was better than the first and didn't find myself comparing as much between the two series. Emily Ashton has found solace since her husband's death learning to read Greek, study's Homer and is also involved in antiquities. While Julia Grey doesn't do that. I think the further in this series I read the more differences I will find. ( )

At the beginning of the London season, young widow Lady Emily Ashton hopes to avoid as many social obligations as she can to allow her more time to pursue her newly found interest in Greek literature and antiquities. It doesn't take long for her to find other distractions from the superficialities of the season: catching a cat burglar who specializes in items once owned by Marie Antoinette, solving the murder of an acquaintance who was also one of the cat burglar's victims, and identifying the mysterious suitor who leaves her gifts and notes written in Greek.

I enjoyed the book, but not quite as much as the first book in the series. It took a while for me to become fully absorbed in its pages. I attribute this to the number of plot threads and the setting that needed to be created for each thread. At various points Emily had trouble deciding which investigation was the most pressing, and I shared her puzzlement. There were an awful lot of characters to keep track of, yet surprisingly few suspects among them. Some of the characters disappeared from the action for long periods of time only to reappear again many chapters later, like in a Dickens novel. Emily's sudden passion for scholarly pursuits seemed more out of place in this novel than in the first. It has been quite a while since I read the first book in the series and I would have benefited from a reminder of Emily's motivation for her Greek studies, which the previous book explained.

Readers who like the characters in the Victorian Mysteries by Robin Paige will likely enjoy reading about Lady Emily Ashton and her circle. ( )

I enjoyed 'A Poisoned Season' much more than the first in the series. The mystery, subplots, characters all seemed more interesting, better developed, however, sometimes the writing seemed 'flat' though less so in this book than the first. ( )

I loved the first of the series and this one kept me up reading all night as well. Emily is a wonderful heroine. She continues to mature as a character, exploring what she wants from her life, sometimes making a few mistakes along the way, but she is quick to recognize her mistakes and learn from them. Colin continues to be very attractive, very forward thinking for a Victorian gentleman when it comes to equality of the sexes. I loved his challenge to Emily about his proposal. I never had any doubts as to how that would turn out, but it was entertaining.

The story is engaging, with a nice balance between the serious and the humorous. The moments between Emily and her dragon of a mother were funny -- and the scene with Queen Victoria was a hoot. Getting that wry British humor to sound right can't be easy for an American author, but Ms. Alexander manages it very nicely. My only quibble with the book is that the mystery wasn't quite as intense as in the first book, but then the first book's mystery was so intensely personal: Emily discovering who murdered her husband and why.

This plot is a bit more fanciful in that it deals with the descendants of the Lost Dauphin of France, the son of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI. There's also a character introduced in relation to that subplot who is very interesting in his own right, and I wouldn't mind seeing him pop up again later on.

The cast from the last book is back, but with smaller parts. Ivy and Robert are having marital difficulties. Margaret still smokes and drinks, and spends most of her time being supportive of Emily (well, when she isn't off concoting some strange scheme with Jeremy, the Duke of Bainbridge.)

Even though the mystery didn't feel as intense, it baffled me for a good long while because there were so many subplots involved. By the time I did figure it out, it was about the time Emily did as well.

WONDERFUL book! Suspense and romance, couldn't be better. :) ( )