Orphaned Veronica Speedwell has just buried the last of the two spinster aunts who raised her. She is looking forward to making her own way in the world now, exploring the world while catching butterflies, and possibly allowing herself a dalliance or two with a dashing foreign gentleman. She is shocked to discover an intruder in her home and is shortly thereafter approached by a distraught German baron who insists he has information about her past, and the she is in terrible danger. While Veronica is pretty sure the man is exaggerating his claims, she happily accepts his offer of escorting her to London.
When the baron and Veronica arrive in London, she is promptly deposited in the rather ramshackle warehouse where an associate of the baron’s, known only as Stoker, performs his own scientific endeavours, he’s a taxidermist. Stoker appears to owe the baron a debt of honour and while he’s not happy about it, has to promise to keep Veronica safe. Before she finds out any more clues about her parentage or really has a chance to get settled with her rather taciturn and eccentric new host, they discover that the baron has been murdered.
Stoker believes Veronica is the reason the baron was killed, and therefore refuses to let her out of his sight while they go on the run (Stoker is a prime suspect in the murder) and try to figure out exactly why the baron was killed and by whom, so that Stoker can clear his name and Veronica can (hopefully) discover more about her mysterious past (and why someone might kill to ensure it stays hidden).
Full review here. As of me posting this, the book appears to be on sale at Amazon for $2.99
I feel like Veronica and Stoker are Julia & Brisbane 2.0 that she refined after the Lady Julia Grey series.
That makes me more excited to read the next book in the series. I really like Julia and Brisbane, and see a lot of potential in Veronica and Stoker, but this was very much a book of set-up.