The Kirkus Review
Having established herself as the preeminent sleuth in Swampshire, Regency-period debutante Beatrice Steele hangs out her investigator’s shingle in London, partnering with Inspector Vivek Drake, whose first case with her got him drummed out of the police force.
Someone is after the founders of NAGS, the Neighborhood Association of Gentlemen Sweetbriarians. After wealthy NAGS cofounder Walter Shrewsbury is bashed and stabbed to death shortly after receiving a note saying “Confess, or die. Your choice,” and celebrated detective Sir Lawrence Huxley comes to suspect Percival Nash, the star of Figaro III: Here We Figaro Again, Nash approaches the partners of DS Investigations asking them to clear his name.
It’s an uphill battle for several reasons. The evidence against the overbearing Nash is significant; Huxley thinks he’s incapable of making a mistake; and Nash doesn’t have a convincing alibi for this or the other murders that predictably follow after the other NAGS cofounders receive identical notes. Beatrice’s biggest challenge, though, is that in order to investigate properly, she has to somehow get herself invited to the events restricted to the exclusive Rose list of debutantes and persuade her social superiors to reveal indiscreet things to her, all while assuring her goal-oriented mother and Helen Bolton, the aspiring playwright who’s agreed to serve as her chaperone, that she’s spending every waking moment courting a proposal from an eligible suitor or two.
Seales adroitly walks the line between decorous Regency dialogue and manners and Beatrice’s acidic contemporary sensibility. The delectable result will enchant fans who thought that Bridgerton would have been even better with a higher body count.
As a dunderheaded supporting character announces, “Wit in the face of tragedy is admirable.” So true.
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The Publishers Weekly Review: A Terribly Nasty Business
Screenwriter Julia Seales follows her previous book, A Most Agreeable Murder with a jaunty sequel that finds Regency era sleuth Beatrice Steele swapping the provincial environs of Swampshire for London’s hustle and bustle.
Though she still seeks a rich husband to supplement her family’s rapidly waning fortune, Beatrice has legitimized her detective work by forming a PI agency with Insp. Vivek Drake. The dashing Sir Lawrence Huxley reigns as London’s preeminent detective, however, and handles all the city’s most important cases, leaving Beatrice and Drake to deal mostly with clients who’ve lost cats, dogs, or eyeglasses. Everything changes on the night that Walter Shrewsbury, a prominent member of the Neighborhood Association of Gentlemen Sweetbriarians, is murdered at the Rose, an exclusive private club. Sir Huxley is convinced that opera star Percival Nash is the killer, but Nash, who maintains his innocence, hires Beatrice and Drake to find the real culprit.
Author Seales doesn’t stray too far from what worked in the first book, probing the strict class and gender divides of Regency England while keeping the plot moving at a steady clip. This series deserves a long run.
Book Q&As with Julia Seales about A Terribly Nasty Business
Interview by Deborah Kalb
Julia Searles is a screenwriter based in New York and the author of a previous book in the ‘Beatrive Steele’ mystery series A Most Agreeable Murder.
Q: A Terribly Nasty Business is your second novel featuring your character Beatrice Steele--do you think she's changed from one book to the next?
A: Beatrice’s passion for justice and exuberant approach to crime-solving remain the same from the first book to the second. But as she moves from small-town Swampshire to the big city, she meets new challenges.
Self-doubt, new etiquette and social structures, romantic pressures, and the fast pace of Regency-era London are just some of the obstacles she must face. Beatrice learned to trust her instincts in book one - now, these instincts are put to the test.
Q: What inspired the plot of A Terribly Nasty Business?
A: I was very inspired by the Bluestockings of the 18th century - particularly their advocacy for women’s education and patronage of the arts. I was also inspired by the secret societies of this era, as well as the assembly halls where the “marriage markets” took place. The idea of these three groups sparked the idea for the plot.
Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything especially surprising?
A: Three very helpful books were Brilliant Women: 18th-Century Bluestockings by Elizabeth Eger and Lucy Peltz, Jane Austen, the Secret Radical by Helena Kelly, and The Time Traveler’s Guide to Regency Britain by Ian Mortimer.
Though the Beatrice Steele series has many anachronisms (it is a comedy first and foremost!), I am a huge Jane Austen fan, and I find the Regency era endlessly fascinating.
The most surprising discovery is usually how many similarities I find between the past and present. Advocating for education and the arts, as well as fighting against censorship, remain topical today.
Q: The writer Ashley Winstead said of the book, “Seales’ perfect blend of satire and earnestness reveals a deft hand, equally capable of loving and poking fun at the tropes she employs.” What do you think of that description?
A: As a huge fan of Ashley Winstead’s work, I am SO honored by her words! I like to think of the Beatrice Steele books as a pastiche. Though I make fun of mystery and romance tropes, it’s always from a place of love. Jane Austen did it best in her work Northanger Abbey - I only hope to follow her literary example.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am working on several projects - some inspired by Jane Austen’s work, and some inspired by my home state of Kentucky. (The parallels between the manners of the South and the manners of Regency-era England have always struck me!)
As a lifelong avid reader, I am endlessly grateful that I get to write every day. It still feels like a dream!
Julia Seales is the author of A Most Agreeable Murder, and a screenwriter based in New York. She earned an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA and a BA in English from Vanderbilt University. She is a lifelong Anglophile with a passion for both murder mysteries and Jane Austen. Julia is originally from Kentucky, where she learned about manners (and bourbon).