Thanks for giving me the chance to read this. I love the spunk of the main character, Zoe and the attitude that he parents take with her in recognizing her talents and her needs as an independent woman. I look forward to another. I’m assuming it will be a series. It’s well written with interesting supporting characters.

A Regency-era mystery with Zoe Demas, a member of the upper class, investigating the murder of her maid Lucy. She hires private investigator Quinton Huxley to solve Lucy's murder. Quinton and Zoe make a good team, investigating their suspects among the upperclass and in some of the poorest parts of the city, and the dialogue between them is well-written. The authors dropped some very large clues to help the reader figure out the murderer. Zoe has an extraordinary amount of freedom to go about on her own which seems out of character with the time period. A promsing debut. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you so much to Book Whisperer for offering this ARC of The Ties That Divide!

As a whole, I think this book deserves a flat 3 in terms of enjoyment. The Ties That Divide was captivating in terms of the plot, but it feels extremely unedited. I don't have much to say about it that is bad, but in terms of quality there were many grammatical mistakes (name misspellings, uncapitalized letters, and a few chapters where the letter formatting impedes reading quality by dipping into the words beneath it (specifically all chapters that begin with Q)). A pet peeve I had was the mentioning that Zoe is french and she calls her mother the french way, but it is spelled in the American style. Mamman and Mama are wo different things no matter how you suggest that the intonation is different! The plot did draw me in, but the start of the book in the first 150 pages or so were extremely slow and didn't quite hook me in. I didn't see a few of the plot twists but as soon as the murderer character was mentioned I immediately guessed who it was, though the foreshadowing was, if not just spelling it out for the reader, few and far between. There were too many characters introduced to the main storyline that were irrelevant to the point where I began to have trouble remembering who was who, and the hinting at the end for a sequel book was not interesting to me simply because I couldn't remember what character the magistrate was at all. In the end, this book had a lot of potential but I couldn't get over the extreme lack of editing. For a first draft this is very good, but as a final draft it could use a lot of work and I would recommend checking over it a bit more before publishing.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Books Whisperer for providing me with the e-arc of this book. This did not affect my review in any way.

Rating: 4/5

Background: Zoe and her mother fled from France to become refugees in England. Zoe lost her father while fleeing France and is not close with her mother but grew a close relationship with her stepfather (Hugh) and his sister (Theo). Zoe had sent her maid (Lucy) to deliver a message to her aunt (Theo) but her maid never returned, and was found dead. The story of her death does not add up; even though Zoe was not close with Lucy she felt that she should get justice for Lucy and decided to solve the mystery by herself. She hired a guy to help her with the work, but he does not abide by the laws he does it his own way. The man she hired was Quinton. This book is written in third person and has two POVs Zoe and Quinton.

Overall:
I admit I was in a reading slump while reading this book, so the beginning was a little slow for me. Once I got further into the book I started to connect with the characters and I was intrigued to keep on reading. This book had me guessing until the end and I did not guess who the murderer was. I love the relationships between each character. There were some plot twists that I loved and whenever I felt like the story skewed off course it was for a good reason. This is one of the only books that I enjoyed when the authors included some seemingly random ideas into the plot! I felt like it added to the story's depth.

Positive:
I loved Theo as a person she is the cool rich aunt that everyone loves. She treats Zoe so well even though they are not blood-related.
The relationship between Mary Fletcher and Zoe is so cute and I love how Zoe doesn't treat her as a maid but as I friend. It seems like Zoe grew as a person after Lucy died. Zoe and Mary are like missing puzzle pieces to each other, they make each other whole.
I liked that this was not a story that the main character thought she could solve on her own, that is just unrealistic.I liked that Zoe brought in help from Quinton but was still involved in solving the mystery.
The characters act like real people, not a "Mary-Sue" which helped me connect with the characters better.
A great ending and is making me want to jump into the next book but I can't ):

Neutral:
I read this in a slump and the beginning was quite slow, so it took a while for me to actually enjoy reading the book. But it got there and I couldn't put the book down once I got to the end.
There were several repeated phrases that I feel could have had more variety.
There was a bit of a modern twist that I could not see characters doing in this time, but I feel like it made it easier to read. (This is my first historical fiction book)

This was a great book for a debut novel especially for having multiple authors! I can not wait to read the rest of the series. I would recommend this book to a friend.

I hope they keep the cover, very eye catching. Good coming of age/mystery with a little romance for good measure. Regency readers will eat this one up. Nice start of a series.

This book combines several topics that I particularly enjoy: parent child relationships that are strained and loving, mystery, social justice, a young woman finding her way after trauma, The mother/daughter authors did an excellent job with the growth of the mother/daughter and step father relationships. The budding love story is charming without taking away from solving the mystery. Many historical and mystery readers will enjoy this one and want to read the next.

Lucy Demas and her mother escaped from France during the French Revolution. Several years later Lucy's mother marries a leading London barrister. While growing up Lucy spends a lot of time observing and effectively studying with him. Early on her maid is murdered and Lucy uses her legal knowledge and related contacts to assemble helpers and solve the murder. Along the way Lucy learns to understand herself.

This book was a nice easy read. We follow Zoe and Quinton (the investigator she hired to help her solve the murder of her maid) in this book solving the mystery as it goes. Zoe has some growth in this book as she is very much upper class mentality towards Lucy, her growth comes in how she treats the people around her and her going out of her way to help people her growth also has to do with how she sees her family. I thought the mystery was interesting, not necessarily a shocker as to who the criminal was. I also liked that this was dual POV, that was an interesting take in a cozy-ish mystery. I liked Quinton's friend Rory quite a bit as well. I do think some of the events would not have happened in proper society or just been allowed with a baron's step daughter, some of the dialog/inner thoughts felt very modern and not of the time but this stuff does not bother me. I rate this 3.5 and I am interested in seeing how book two continues the story (how does a baron's step-daughter continue to investigate crimes???). Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

An interesting story about Zoe and Lucy, her maid, who is murdered. At this point Zoe hires an investigator, Quinton to find out what happened to Lucy. The tale is compelling, because Zoe finds that she did not know her maid at all. The character of Zoe changes as the story moves along. Recommended as a good read.

Enjoyable. Loved the setting. It kept me reading in one go from start to finish. I cared about some characters. It's also well-paced. Would recommend to historical fiction fans.

Characters : 4⭐
Writing : 3⭐
Plot : 3⭐
Pacing : 5🌟
Unputdownability : 4⭐
Enjoyment : 3.5⭐

Overall : 3.75🌟