{"id":3218,"date":"2019-11-15T12:04:06","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T17:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mayliang.us\/?p=3218"},"modified":"2019-11-15T12:04:06","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T17:04:06","slug":"book-review-the-hanover-square-affair-by-ashley-gardner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/?p=3218","title":{"rendered":"Book review:  The Hanover Square Affair by Ashley Gardner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/858572.The_Hanover_Square_Affair\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.gr-assets.com\/images\/S\/compressed.photo.goodreads.com\/books\/1309202378l\/858572._SX98_.jpg?ssl=1\" alt=\"The Hanover Square Affair (Captain Lacey, #1)\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/858572.The_Hanover_Square_Affair\">The Hanover Square Affair<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/15295.Ashley_Gardner\">Ashley Gardner<\/a><br><br> My rating: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/show\/3049965184\">4 of 5 stars<\/a><br><br><br>This book is the first in a historical mystery series. The protagonist is a veteran of the Napoleonic wars and has returned to England with no money, no prospects, and PTSD. This is no light-hearted and frothy mystery but, rather, a gritty story that exposes the underside of London life, some of the horrors of the war and the after-effects for the returning soldiers. (Think more in the style of C.S. Harris and less in the style of Georgette Heyer.)<br>Captain Lacey isn&#8217;t a particular likeable character in the first book, although he has some excellent qualities to him. There is a complicated back story for him, which makes him an interesting and somewhat mysterious character. Sometimes the hints thrown off about his back story come across as a bit manipulative, but you do want to learn more about him. Captain Lacey&#8217;s unpredictability and depression weave through the story like a train wreck&#8211;you know what&#8217;s coming but you can&#8217;t look away.<br>I actually would give this book 3.5 stars, but I also tend to give debut novels of a series the benefit of the doubt. I will definitely read the second in this series to see how the character grows and (maybe) flourishes.<br>Fans of the Sebastian St. Cyr novels should definitely check this series out! <br><br> <br><br><br> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/list\/1396812-may\">View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Hanover Square Affair by Ashley Gardner My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book is the first in a historical mystery series. The protagonist is a veteran of the Napoleonic wars and has returned to England with no money, no prospects, and PTSD. This is no light-hearted and frothy mystery but, rather, a gritty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40],"tags":[560,336,115,108,561],"class_list":["post-3218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-ashley-gardner","tag-books","tag-historical-mysteries","tag-mysteries","tag-the-hanover-square-affair"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p23QXm-PU","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3218"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3219,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions\/3219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}