Friday Memes: Scandal Above Stairs by Jennifer Ashley

Happy Friday everybody!

Book Beginnings on Friday is now hosted by Rose City Reader. The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Check out the links above for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Beginning:

May 1881

The clatter of crockery on the flagstone floor broke my heart. I knew without turning that it was my platter of whole roast pig, the crowning glory of the vast meal I’d spent days creating for the supper party above stairs in this grand Mayfair house.

Friday 56:

“He is not my Mr. Thanos,” I said stiffly. “And he is quite a different sort of person than Sir Evan Godfrey. You know this. Mr. Thanos is a kind man, if a bit featherheaded about ordinary life.”

Cynthia waved this away, though her cheeks grew pink. “Oh, he’s all right. Don’t take offense. But men do become titillated at the thought of females in gentlemen’s  clothing— do not tell me they do not.”

This week I am spotlighting Scandal Above Stairs by Jennifer Ashley. I got this review copy from Penguin's First to Read program. It is the sequel to last year's Death Below Stairs. Here is the description from Amazon:

A mystery of stolen antiquities has Kat Holloway setting aside her apron once again for the intrigues of the upper echelons of Victorian London

Priceless artwork has gone missing from the home of a wealthy baronet, and his wife stands to take the blame. When Kat's employer asks for help in clearing her friend's name, Kat trades her kitchen for the homes of Mayfair's wealthiest families. Soon antiques are disappearing not only from the extravagant households of connoisseurs and collectors, but from the illustrious British Museum.

As the thefts increase in frequency, Kat calls upon her friend Daniel McAdam, who has already set himself up in a pawnshop on the Strand as a seedy receiver of stolen goods. When a man is murdered in the shop, Kat must use all of her wits to see that the thieves are caught and justice is done.