And we are back to the regencies. Another Kindle find that I was rather happy to come across accidentally. This is the first of two by Anna Elliot. The second being London Calling. Susanna and the Spy features grown orphan Susanna who is on her way to London after some failed job postings as a governess. On the stagecoach she realizes that she is not far from her grandfather’s estate (of course this is the grandfather who refused to acknowledge her or her mother as he felt they were a bad match).

On the coach is one of her grandfather’s gardeners who alerts her to the fact that her grandfather had recently died from what seemed to be suspicious circumstances. They part at the lodging inn where Suzanna takes a room and debates visiting the manor her father and herself were rudely thrown from years ago. An intruder in her room in the middle of the night and the death of the gardener later and her mind was set… 

We join Suzanna as she debates the potential murderers… her young cousin who wishes to marry a doctor that her family sees as beneath her, the aunt who resents her time in the country, the uncle who inherited the estate or the Captain Clark, a mysterious smuggler and potential spy for the French. 

We actually run into Captain Clark repeatedly… though I have to admit Suzanna does not exactly lay low and let things happen TO her. The mystery is rather surprising in the end and the romance mild. But a great regency era story. I look forward to reading that sequel as well as some of Anna Elliot’s regency novels! 

Susanna and the Spy