A young aspiring writer finds romance and mystery in Paris! For fans of Mary Shelley, Daphne du Maurier, Diane Setterfield and Laura Purcell.

A daring adventure or a foolhardy affair…?

1814, London

It isn’t easy being the daughter of the great Mary Wollstonecraft, harder still to navigate life without her. Sixteen-year-old Mary Godwin is desperate for excitement and trapped in a family she feels stifled in, under the watchful, disapproving glare of her stepmother, she is constantly battling for her father’s attention and approval.

So when the young Romantic poet, Percy Shelley, comes blazing into her life, she falls quickly and deeply in love with him. But Percy has plenty of demons. He is already married with a second child on the way, and he turns up to the Godwin family home with a bottle of laudanum, declaring he will end his life if he cannot be with Mary.

William Godwin forbids contact between them, but Mary’s heart aches for the man she believes to be her soulmate. And so she agrees to elope to Paris.

The excitement of the journey soon wears off and they arrive in the city weary, travel-sick and penniless, though luck finally seems to be on their side when they meet a man who offers them money to find his missing wife.

But with Mary becoming increasingly homesick and concerned for her future, will her love affair with Percy be all she had hoped for? Could the search for the missing wife set her on a new course of self-discovery?

Or will her first daring adventure prove to be her downfall…?

THE MISSING WIFE is the first book in the Mary Shelley Investigation series: thrilling Gothic murder mysteries with a tenacious literary heroine working as a female sleuth.

THE MARY SHELLEY INVESTIGATIONS SERIES:
Book One: The Missing Wife
Book Two: The Lost Girls
Book Three: Death at the Altar

My Review

Because this book is based on real life characters, I did quite a lot of reading around the subject. While I knew a bit about Mary Shelley and her mother, the great writer and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, I never knew that Mary Shelley was only 16 years old when she ran away with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, the same age as I was when I read her Gothic novel Frankenstein. But in spite of Percy being five years older than Mary, he appears very spoilt and childish – in fact Mary seems far more mature. I found him very silly at times, even though he was a talented writer and poet. He also had a wife, a child and another on the way.

When Mary and Percy elope, Mary’s half-sister (from her father’s second marriage after Wollstonecraft died eleven days after giving birth to Mary) travels with them. The trio keep running out of money, staying in less salubrious hotels as they progress to Paris. They do however manage to afford to buy a donkey called Napoleon.

But then their luck changes, or so it appears. They are hired by a grieving husband, who wants them to find his missing wife. He will pay well – half now, the rest when they find her – so off they go, travelling across France to a place called Troyes, their luggage being carried by Napoleon. It must have been a strange sight.

Things don’t quite go to plan though, and they soon become embroiled in a dangerous situation. Should they continue with their quest, or give it up and return to England, accompanied by shame and disgrace? We shall have to see, but suffice to say that the story got more complicated towards the end, and far more exciting and entertaining.

Many thanks to @lovebookstours for inviting me to be part of #TheMissingWife blog tour.

About the Author

Donna Gowland is a writer and teacher who lives by the seaside with her family and schnauzer dog. A lifelong lover of literature, Donna published her first poem while in junior school and has written prize-winning poetry, short stories and non-fiction (and is also an award-winning singer and dancer).

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