Above the Bay of Angels
by Rhys Bowen
4 stars
Isabella Waverly is a servant girl in London, and is afraid she’ll be doing this the rest of her life. Then, on her one afternoon off, she observes a young woman get hit by an omnibus. As the woman is dying, she thrusts an envelope into Bella’s hands. It is a job interview for a cook at Buckingham Palace. Bella knows how to cook, and feels that this might be her only opportunity to escape her current situation. She gets the job and assumes Helen Barton’s rightful position. All is going well–she is learning a lot and enjoys cooking for Queen Victoria. She is chosen to accompany the queen to France for the summer, and can hardly believe her good fortune until she is blackmailed by Helen’s brother and a member of the queen’s royal party dies from possible food poisoning. Since she cooked the last meal, she is under suspicion of murder. How could one little lie possibly get her into this much trouble?
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