I had some difficulty reading this as the author seemed to be afraid of paragraphs that were more than three lines long. This caused her to start a new paragraph after a person had said two sentences, even if that person continued speaking. A rather annoying break from the traditional that a new paragraph indicates a new speaker.

I’m sure I would have enjoyed this better if I hadn’t been jarred from the story often wondering who had said something.

The main sleuth was also a bit much: she’s a wealthy and independent woman who has travelled the world and if her aunt hadn’t send her a maid she would have managed doing her own housekeeping. Somehow I can’t imagine a woman in Victorian times who grew up in wealth would do her own laundry.

I think I would have enjoyed this story more if Mikaela hadn’t mentioned at everything she did or was about to do that she experienced similar (or worse) on one of her travels. Independent and wealthy is par for the course of cozies set in Victorian England - a woman that has to work for a living obviously doesn’t have time to run around investigating things. Having toured most of the British Empire was overdoing it.

Hmm, curious how a story like this would pan out if the female sleuth was a maid.

Still, I enjoyed this book for the most part and Mikaela was quite amusing. Though I would not agree with Brodie’s assessment that she’s “intelligent beyond anyone I’ve known”. I would call her resourceful. Intelligence general prevents a person from doing stupid things.

And as always when a few sentences in a foreign language are spoken: dear editor, please have those sentences checked by someone that knows the language and its speakers beyond what comes out of Google translate.