The Body at the Tower

Title:  The Body at the Tower (The Agency, # 2)

Author: Y.S. Lee

Publisher:  Candlewick

Release Date:  August 10, 2010

Received From:  Publisher via Traveling 2 Teens

This is another colourful, action-packed Victorian detective novel about the exploits of agent Mary Quinn. At a young age, Mary Quinn is rescued from ...more This is another colourful, action-packed Victorian detective novel about the exploits of agent Mary Quinn. At a young age, Mary Quinn is rescued from the gallows and taken to Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls. The school turns out to be a front for a private detective agency. At age 17, Mary takes on her first case (A Spy in the House). In this, the second book of the series, Mary Quinn sets out to uncover the truth behind a suspicious death at St. Stephen's Tower, better known as the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament. The accident occurred after hours in a highly public part of town and despite the presence of night watchmen. Mary, disguised as Mark Quinn, becomes a builder's assistant to find out the truth about the body at the tower.

Warning slight spoilers for the first book. And possibly some fangirling.

I love historical fiction. I like to go back in time and see an event or place through different eyes. Mary Quinn is a fabulous heroine, she is spunky, fun, strong-willed, and doesn't let anything get in her way. It was cool to see another side of Mary, and to delve deeper into her past. 


I liked the variety of characters in this second installment. I felt that there were more different types of characters that really added to the storyline. Also.... James is back! Yay, I was so excited James was one of my favorite characters from the first book and I enjoyed seeing their relationship grow throughout this novel. 


The plot of this novel was good, it was fact paced and left me guessing. Lee also does a great job of building tension and setting. I found myself completely immersed in the book and completely captivated by the storyline. I really enjoyed how different this book was from the first one, Lee was in no way lazy in creating a new story. 


I don't want to give anything away so I will stop now, but the minute I finished this book I ran to my computer to double check that there was a third book! So I totally recommend that you pick up this novel when it comes out tomorrow, especially if you like mystery and historical fiction!


Make sure to check out the rest of the tour as well as my guest post with Y.S. Lee!

Mon. 8/2 - Kristi (The Story Siren)
Tues. 8/3 - Kristen (Bookworming in the 21st Century)
Wed. 8/4 - Sarah GreenBeanTeenQueen
Thurs. 8/5 - Lizzy (Cornucopia of Reviews)
Fri. 8/6 - Ari (Reading in Color)
Mon. 8/9 - Mariah  (A Reader's Adventure)
Tues. 8/10 - Steph Su (Steph Su Reads)
Wed. 8/11 - Cecilia (The Epic Rat)
Thurs. 8/12 - Laura (Laura’s Review Bookshelf)
Fri. 8/13 - The Book Smugglers

Y.S. Lee Guest Post

Hey guys! Today I have a guest post by the awesome Y.S. Lee, author of the Agency trilogy.

Welcome! This is the fifth essay about Notorious Victorians I wrote to celebrate the publication of my second novel, The Body at the Tower. Today and tomorrow, I’ll be looking at different aspects of Victorian celebrity – the way it develops and explodes.

Oscar Wilde’s public persona – languid, extravagant, quippy – often overshadows his body of work. He was a poet, essayist, playwright and novelist, but sometimes it seems that he’s best remembered for having been gay. This, of course, is far from the full picture.

Wilde adored being the centre of attention from a very young age – from his childhood, as a clever student of French and German, to his brilliant undergraduate career at Oxford. At university, he cultivated his persona – the peacock costumes, the drawled witticisms – and proclaimed himself an aesthete, someone highly sensitive to beauty. After graduation, he went on a lecture tour of North America, where enthusiastic cheers and loud sneers followed him across the continent. Perhaps the kind of attention didn’t matter: he was achieving celebrity. (Sound familiar, readers of 2010?)

Wilde returned to London, began writing journalism, married, and had two children. He later turned to fiction, writing short stories, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and satirical plays. At this period, he also began having sex with men – an illegal act in Victorian England. It was a dangerous double life, pitting Wilde the intellectual dandy against Wilde the sexual outlaw. Even so, what tipped him from thrilling spectacle into disgraceful scandal was Wilde’s own inability to understand how perilous this balance was. Wilde was, in many ways, the author of his own downfall.

When accused of being a sodomite (a Victorian term that comes from the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah), Wilde sued his accuser for criminal libel. It’s extraordinary to think that he expected to win. Wilde’s sexual activities were dug up and exposed to pubic scrutiny. The disgrace destroyed his career, his marriage (his family changed their surname and moved to the Continent), and his reputation. After serving his prison sentence, Wilde retreated to France, where he died in relative poverty.

Wilde’s journey from celebrity to exile was fuelled by his lifelong passion for attention, his insistence on flirting with notoriety. It’s a case of pushing a little too far, a little too long, and being surprised to find, instead of an adoring audience, a judging, unsympathetic public. Join me tomorrow when I look at a another Victorian celebrity who created his own public spectacle for entirely different reasons.

Thanks!

I found this guest post awesome for a few reasons, primarily because the day I received this post I had just started reading The Picture of Dorian Gray and was wondering about the author. So imagine my surprise when I got home and saw this in my inbox! Thanks Y.S. Lee!


Find Y.S. Lee

website: http://www.yslee.com

twitter: http://www.twitter.com/yinglee

And be sure to check out the rest of the tour

Mon. 8/2 - Kristi (The Story Siren)
Tues. 8/3 - Kristen (Bookworming in the 21st Century)
Wed. 8/4 - Sarah GreenBeanTeenQueen
Thurs. 8/5 - Lizzy (Cornucopia of Reviews)
Fri. 8/6 - Ari (Reading in Color)
Mon. 8/9 - Mariah  (A Reader's Adventure)
Tues. 8/10 - Steph Su (Steph Su Reads)
Wed. 8/11 - Cecilia (The Epic Rat)
Thurs. 8/12 - Laura (Laura’s Review Bookshelf)
Fri. 8/13 - The Book Smugglers

*All Pictures are from the author's website