Queen of Lombard Street by Lisa Kleypas

My thoughts

This book is my favorite read for this year so far and it will take a lot to beat it. This book is the best. It has everything you want from a historical novel to keep you turning the pages... 

 

I laughed so hard in places while reading this book. I also shed a few tears along the way. This will be your new favorite if you read it...

A family of misfits. One hard working young woman and her friend need help with the house she bought. She needs lots of help but as a female who can she turn too for that help. Reina Martin was the child of a Spanish mother and weathly American father. They were not married so that left a stain on her. She was a child who did not understand what it meant to be the product of a single mother. 

Reina and her best friend June live in a big house that Reina bought. It's a fixer-upper of sorts. It needs a lot of cleaning. Reina is a smart young women who works hard. She doesn't have time to do most things so when she can't find help at the local agency she goes to one that offers her just what she needs: Second Chance Employment Agency. It's a place that helps criminal men and women find work. As long as they do what they are suppose to do and don't break the rules all will be good. Reina hires several of these people even though June is dead set against it. June is the cook and goes to cooking school a couple of times a week. She is afraid of these people. Afraid they might kill them in their sleep. 

A lot happens that will keep you laughing. Big belly laughs. The mix of men and women that Reina chose to work for her are something else. But she feels like she did a good job of picking them. 

Reina has a heart of gold and is determined to find a way to help women. Women are not allowed to do much on their own during this time. They are just to feeble minded it seems. Reina wants to open a bank for women. To help them save their money. To make life easier for them. Her best friend and mentor William Farlow is suppose to be helping her. She thinks so highly of him and his opinion matters a great deal to her. 

Reina hires a couple of men, Mad Dog(he named himself as a child) and Norman. Females Belinda Claw who was just a child, Tuppence Higget who was very much with child, and Enid Mox. These people will become family. All of them including Reina and June. The butler, John Pembroke, was my favorite. Of course he was.... 

And a dog, Alan, who Mad Dog insisted they needed to catch rats. 

This is such a good book. It has a lot of great things happening. Mostly good but also a few things to keep you on edge. A love story or two that will have your heart racing. I loved both of those. 

There are a few emotions this story will give you. A true love story, a mix of family, a death, a birth, and a wonderful ending to wrap it all up. 

They were the family each didn't know they needed until they did..

Mary Jane Wells (Narrator); Joe Jameson (Narrator) These two did a wonderful job. Both made this book come alive and kept me wanting more. Their interactions were perfect.

Thank you Avon and Harper Voyager and HarperAudio Adult for the arcs. 

About

From New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas—a sweeping, richly layered Victorian novel about a trailblazing female economist who’s determined to build Britain’s first women’s bank, but she must fight both financial corruption and a system intent on destroying the newly found family she’s created.

In Victorian England, no woman—not even a brilliant economist like Reina Martin—is allowed to open her own bank account. Men will take care of everything, women are told. But Reina knows better. As the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish immigrant mother, she’s haunted by the memory of living with unpaid grocer’s bills and no coal for the hearth.

So together with her mentor, the powerful banker William Farlow, Reina will build the first all-women’s bank, where women can manage their own financial security.

At home, Reina’s domestic staff of recently paroled prisoners are building new lives and becoming a found family. But soon Reina is shocked to discover that her enigmatic butler, John Pembroke, is an undercover police detective. He’s been assigned to investigate Farlow, who’s suspected of financial crime on a scale so massive, it could destabilize the British economy. Pembroke needs Reina’s expertise for a high-stakes nighttime heist to obtain incriminating evidence.

Now Reina faces the agonizing choice of betraying her mentor or turning her back on thousands of working-class families who stand to lose everything. Either way, her dream of the women’s bank may be over.

But courage and sacrifice aren’t limited to the battlefield—they also occur at the kitchen table, where women who believe in compassion and community are working to remake the future. And when the stakes are highest, Reina knows to trust her heart as well as her intellect.

Based on real-life trailblazers such as Mary Paley Marshall, Britain’s first female economist, and financial titan Hetty Green, Queen of Lombard Street brings to light the hidden history of extraordinary women whose achievements should be celebrated. How can we know who we are, if we don’t know who we were?