If you are just tuning in, then you will need to know that I have been on quite a historical mystery kick recently. I became completely immersed with Anna Lee Huber’s Lady Darby Mystery Series and Sherry Thomas’ Lady Sherlock Series. Well, I flew through those books and I have been desperate for more, and that is when it was suggested that I pick Deanna Raybourn’s Veronica Speedwell series. The first book is A Curious Beginning and I am sorry to say there is nothing curious about it. Veronica Speedwell has traveled the world taking pleasure in everything it has to offer. She is also a lepidopterist, a person who studies butterflies. She was raised by her two spinster aunts and she finally comes home when the last one dies. However, someone waits for her in the cottage and she is saved by an eccentric German baron. He tells her she is in danger and brings her to stay with his friend, Stoker, who is a naturalist. Veronica decides to go with the baron because he claims to have known her mother, but then GASP, he is murdered. Stoker and Veronica, an unlikely pair, are now stuck together to solve this mystery.

So I want to start out by saying that this review can get a little ranty. I enjoyed the wit and writing of the author but overall it was the plot and characters that did not work for me. So I will start with my biggest issue, Veronica Speedwell. Good god, she was annoying. I think the point was to make her a woman ahead of her time, but it didn’t work out so well. She never stops talking. Never. She leaves her aunts to travel, explore, and have romantic dalliances (BUT NOT WITH AN ENGLISHMAN!!) However, we find out that her aunts were not her aunts at all and the reason they were moving around so much when she was a child was to keep her safe. But then they just cut her loose to travel when she is 18? Then there is a good portion of the novel where Veronica denies that she is in danger, despite ALL OF THE EVIDENCE. But she is known for her investigative mind?

Then we come to the obvious romance part of the story. Veronica Speedwell–a talkative, modern woman and Stoker–a gloomy, grumpy, naturalist. There is obviously chemistry there but Veronica refuses to sleep with a fellow countryman, which she states over and over. –Like you do you boo, but you don’t need to keep repeating yourself.

So overall, it just did not work for me. We kick off with this mystery, but because the characters are on the run, they get distracted along the way and the ending was just so…meh? However, I love the descriptions of the traveling circus, and the author excels at writing action scenes. And the only character I really appreciated was the baron and look how that turned out.