After finishing her mission at the clocktower construction site, Mary Quinn has accepted her first role as a fully-fledged member of the Agency. Several months of trying to forget James Easton have been somewhat successful and Mary has taken the place of parlor maid at Buckingham Palace serving Queen Victoria.
Her mission is simple in aim: find who has been stealing trinkets from the royal residence. But it becomes more than a simple search and find.
Anne and Felicity, the managers of the Agency, have been tense. Their fraught relationship begins to affect Mary's work when valuable information fails to reach her; cracks in the facade between Anne and Felicity appear and begin to snake their way through the Agency as a whole. Mary finds herself depending only on the resources she can supply with her own two hands as the situation becomes more complicated and more dangerous.
Prince Bertie, Her Majesty's heir apparent, witnesses the murder of his friend at the hands of a Lascar, and Mary worries it is her father recently reappeared. In his trauma the prince latches on to Mary as the only sympathetic ear without her own agenda--and pushes his attentions beyond acceptable boundaries.
Balancing her work and her personal agenda against the consequences of interacting with the monarch and royal family tax Mary, but do not prevent her from seeking the truth. When the mysteries become more coherent and are explained to her satisfaction, Mary is still left with a desire for something more. Teen readers and young adult will enjoy the passionate banter back and forth between Mary and James and fans of historical fiction will enjoy the elaborate glimpse into historical England.
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