Mystery/Chick Lit/Historical Fiction

Just read 2 books that fit into all those categories. The first was Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear. It was heavier on the mystery and I think it is actually a sequel to a book called Maisie Dobbs, which I suspect of being better than this one. This was a good book, but it kept referring to interesting stuff in the first book that I hadn't read.

The second cross genre book was a little heavier on the chick lit side. It was the Deception of the Emerald Ring by Lauren Willig and it was so fun! I bought it because it said "Pride and Prejudice lives on" on the front so I thought it was a retelling or something. Well, I was originally disappointed when it showed NO resemblance to P and P and I had been drawn in! But it turned out to be a fun adventure. It is also part of a series, and this is a series I plan on working my way through. Here is a teaser:

"In the course of her long career as de facto keeper of the Alsworthy menage, Letty had confronted all manner of domestic disruption, from exploding Christmas puddings to indignant tradesmen, and even, on one memorable occasion, escaped livestock. Letty had bandaged burns, coaxed her little brother's budgie out of tree, and stage-managed her family's yearly remove to a rented town house in London.

An attempted elopement was something new.

The whole situation was straight out of the comic stage: the daughter of the house hastily packing in the middle of the night with the help of her trusty (and soon to be unemployed) maid, the faithful lover waiting downstairs with a speedy carriage, ready to whisk them away to Gretna Green. All that was needed was a rope ladder and an irate guardian in hot pursuit.

That role, Letty realized fell to her. It didn't seem quite fair, but there it was. She had to stop Mary.

But how? Remonstrating with Mary wouldn't be any use. Over the past few years, Mary had made it quite clear that she didn't care to take advice from a sister, and a younger sister at that. She responded to Letty's well-meaning suggestions with the unblinking disdain perfected by cats in their dealings with their humans. Letty knew just how Mary would react. She would hear Letty out without saying a word, and then calmly go on to do whatever it was she had intended to do in the first place.

Rousing her parents would be worse than useless. Her father would simply blink at her over his spectacles and comment mildly that if Mary wished to make a spectacle of herself, it would be best to let her get on with it as quickly as possible and with as little trouble to themselves as could be had. As for her mother...Letty's face twisted in a terrible grimace that would undoubtedly lead to all sorts of unattractive wrinkles later in life. There was certainly no help to be found from that quarter. Her mother would probably help Mary into his lordship's carriage.

Letty looked longingly at the (fire) poker. She couldn't, though. She really couldn't."