Fairly interesting but nothing outstanding. It's the first book in a contemplated series so if you like it look for more.

Liberty Lane was waiting for her father to return to England but instead she received word that he was killed in a duel in Calais. She doesn't believe it and goes to Calais to find out what really happened and to bury him. While there she is approached by two different men who want to know what she knows about a mysterious woman her father was with. One man abducts her but she manages to evade him and make her way back to Dover. In Dover she learns that King George is dead and that she is the owner of a fine racehorse that her father won at cards. Then she is approached by the first man she met in Calais who asks her to take a job as a governess to spy for him. Since she needs a job and the manor she will be living in is near a stable that can take the horse she agrees. While "little Vicky" ascends to the throne, Liberty tries to learn all she can about a plot to bring another claimant to the throne. ( )

Light, fun, quite readable murder mystery?? thriller?? set at the very beginning of Queen Victoria's reign. I liked the heroine and many of the other characters a lot, they were people I enjoyed spending time with, even the nasty ones were fun to read about. I think characterization may be this author's strength.

The mystery didn't really work except as an excuse for Liberty Lane to have adventures. She didn't so much discover solutions as stumble onto them, or have them explained by other characters. But I enjoyed the adventures and the places she went in pursuit of them.

I also had some difficulty reading this as really belonging to the beginning of Victoria's reign. For a number of small reasons - clothes, attitudes, decor, slang it really felt a lot more late Edwardian than early Victorian.

So I can't recommend it without some qualifications, but I did enjoy it and will keep an eye out for others by the same author. ( )

June 1837, She should have remained in the care of her sour aunt in Chalke Bissett, but Liberty Lane was never one to obey instructions. Eager to be reunited with her beloved father, she heads for Dover. But her hopes of surprising him as he steps off the boat are dashed by an anonymous note informing her that he has been killed in a duel at Calais, and commanding her to remain where she is and speak to no one. Thomas Jacques Lane -- radical, romantic, scholar, republican, gambler and devoted father -had led an unconventional life. His movements in the days leading up to his death are a mystery, but of one thing Liberty is certain: he would never have taken part in a duel, for it went against everything he believed in. And if the author of the anonymous note expected her to swallow this lie and meekly obey his command to stay put, he had severely underestimated Liberty Lane. With no resources bar her own wits, she immediately sets sail for Calais in pursuit of the truth -- and her father's killer.There she encounters a m And as the nation prepares to celebrate the coronation of young Queen Victoria, Liberty uncovers a treasonable plot which could lead to another vicious civil war!

My Thoughts:

I was really looking forward to this book. I had read the reviews on here and I went out and got me a copy of the book.

I am sorry to say that I didn’t enjoy the book as much as what I thought and hoped I would. The first part of the book I felt was a little slow. I quite got into the book a little more in the middle sections and then towards the end I was bored again.

The story line was OK and with the royal connection too it should have been right up my street. I felt that I was not connecting with any of the characters. Liberty herself I felt was rather like a modern day Nancy Drew dressed up in bodices and bonnets, trying to solve her fathers murder but being drawn into other people mishaps along the way.

I think I will leave Miss Liberty to her own devices in the other two books. ( )

A Foreign Affair, by Caro Peacock, takes place in both England and France during 1837. It dates back to the death of King William IV and the accession of Queen Victoria. I found this book in a little used book store in my home town and immediately grabbed it because it looked to be a historical fiction novel due to the fact that the cover stated it took place in Victorian England and the look of the cover itself. Once I finally got around to reading A Foreing Affair, I soon realized it's not really historical fiction but more of a mystery/thriller that takes place in Victorian England. Since I'm an avid Historical Fiction reader I must admit I was a little disappointed by the lack of historical facts. However, once I got passed the fact that this novel was a mystery and not historical fiction, I thoroughly began to enjoy it.

A Foreign Affair is the first novel of three in the Liberty Lane series. Liberty Lane is a young lady who runs away from one of her aunts to meet her father in Calais. Her father has been away for sometime and is finally returning to her. Liberty soon discovers, upon arriving in Calais that her father has been shot fighting in a dual. Unable to accept the fact that her father died in a dual, Liberty finds her self immersed in a whirl-wind of danger, deception, and corruption. Not knowing who to turn to or even to trust, Liberty decides to take matters into her own hands and see that justice is done.

Caro Peacock did an amazing job in keeping up the suspense. I have to admit the beginning was a bit dry and not to be rude but boring. Although, once I got passed the first 30 pages or so I just couldn't put the book down. I found myself in the library at school finishing the last 20 or so pages because I wanted to know what happens and how it would end. Then I realized I should have been studying for my exam. I've already bought A Dangerous Affair, the second novel in the Liberty Lane series and I know I will be rushing out to get the final novel soon. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good thriller that keeps you wanting to know more. To check out more of my reviews click here: http://allthingshistoricalfiction.blogspot.com ( )

The Liberty Lane books by Caro Peacock have seemingly undergone a rather confusing repackaging for the US market, retitled as 'A Foreign/Dangerous/Family Affair' instead of 'Death at Dawn/Death of a Dancer/A Corpse in Shining Armour', and faced with different cover designs. The positive reviews that prompted me into borrowing the first in the series from the library, to test the water, were obviously written by American readers, so some confusion ensued when looking up the books for myself! I'm not complaining - both versions fit into the generic branding of 'historical fiction', only the US covers suggest a later era than the UK illustration - and the publishers probably know what they are doing, but it does seem rather like overkill in this case.

Moving onto the book itself, Caro Peacock's heroine and her first adventure would also seem to suggest an American author, or at the very least, a story written for the American market. Liberty Lane, who sounds like either Superman's girlfriend or a porn star, is a young lady raised by an unconventional father of a republican persuasion (Liberty's brother, only mentioned in this instalment, is called Thomas Fraternity - and as Liberty quips, had her mother lived long enough, there would probably have been an Equality to add to the family also!) Not only does she echo her father's belief in the French and American constitutions and resent the unfair balance of power in her own country, but Liberty has been educated beyond the means and requirements of her class and gender - she can speak French, Spanish and Latin, read music and play the piano, guitar and flute, can ride like a champion and enjoys the opera! All are standard talents for the independent lady detective, empowering at the same time as allowing access to the upper classes, and Liberty is no exception. She is aware of social conventions, and her role in them as a woman forced to support herself, but her upbringing allows her some freedom to buck tradition and the laws of etiquette - walking without a chaperone, talking to strange men alone, addressing those 'above her station', and of course, dressing and behaving like a young lad instead of a young lady.

The narrative and dialogue also tend to make Liberty's proto-Victorian adventures accessible to a modern audience (the story is set in 1837, somewhere between the death of King William IV and the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne). Although the author has done her research - and there is a list of further non-fiction reading in the back of the book to prove it - the conversations are for the most part quite informal and only lightly flavoured with historical form and address. My only sticking point is that the Queen is referred to as 'Little Vicky', when she would have been known as 'Little Drina' if anything (her full name was Alexandrina Victoria), but that's only minor artistic licence in a book where Disraeli becomes an important secondary character! Read as an enjoyable historical mystery and not a faithful reproduction of pre-Victorian society, then the story is both informative and entertaining.

I quite liked Liberty, despite her unusual name and modern thinking, and found myself thoroughly captivated by the conspiracy she stumbled upon after her father's death. The Mandeville family, particularly Celia and the children, were vividly drawn, and the villains lacked only dark mustachioes to twirl - the double-play amongst the family was also well-handled and quite surprising (I never try to get ahead of the plot, so I'm easily shocked!)

A quick, light read, which I shall hope to replicate soon, with the other (double) titles in the series! ( )