For fans of: Deanna Raybourn, Anna Lee Huber
Rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌕
Genre: Historical Mystery
Violence: 🪓
Spice: 🔥

Premise: Book 8 in Below Stairs series. Kat faces 2 quandaries. Has her beau’s unscrupulous Met boss endangered Daniel by placing him undercover in a Mayfair home? And who is blackmailing upper-class woman across London?

Thoughts: Writing an amateur detective story challenges the writer to generate feasible scenarios for why & how their sleuth investigates a crime. Ashley compounds things with her protagonist, Kat, a cook in 1880s London, to whom many doors are closed & whose time is accountable to her mistress. The author surmounts these obstacles by providing Kat a found family of aristocrats, servants, even denizens of the underworld. This cast adds color to every story while helping crack the mystery. Add Kat’s talent for organization, attention to detail, & prodigious memory, & she’s well-suited to solve the twisty puzzle presented in A Silence in Belgrave Square. I 💖 how the novel marries danger from Irish sympathizers, threats to free-thinking women, & the importance of family, making it both plot-driven & strong on character development. As always, Ashley transports me to Victorian London & leaves me salivating for Kat’s cooking.

Thank you to Berkley & NetGalley for this gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this next book in the series. I find the characters interesting and I like the setting. I also like the fact that things progress in the character's lives.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was entranced by book 7 in this series, Speculations in Sin, and am now a hard core fan. If you are a fan of the late, great Victoria Thompson, this might also be the series for you. Set in Victorian London, the main character, Kat Holloway, is a cook for a wealthy family. While I have read many Victorian mysteries, this is the rare series that focuses on the servants rather than the aristocrats upstairs. They are the minor characters, the downstairs characters – cooks, maids, delivery men, urchin boys – are the main feature.

Kat is the single mother of a daughter, Grace, who lives with a good friend of hers while she works. She’s only able to see Grace once a week on her day out. As a reader, you feel the hard pull every time she leaves her daughter to go back to work. The rest of her heart is occupied by one Daniel McAdam, an undercover policeman who is paying off a dangerous debt. As the book opens, Daniel tells her he’ll be on an assignment for an unspecified period, and they can have absolutely no contact while it’s going on.

Kat is not putting up with this situation, however, and leverages her network of street urchins, Daniel’s son, and other friends to keep a light watch on the house in Belgrave Square where he’s to be working. The wheels are frequently greased by the pastries she prepares and shares out judiciously. She also recruits an old friend, Hannah, to get a job in the household as a maid and keep an eye on things. The two women are able to meet up fairly often, so Kat is able to get a proof of life report, at least.

The case Daniel is working on seems to be following up on the activities of the Fenians, who were using a dynamite bombing campaign to try and secure Home Rule for Ireland. The house where Daniel is working is apparently a nexus of the organization.

To me the strength of this book was the renewed friendship between Hannah and Kat – Hannah is a con artist, basically, but she’s worked as a maid in fancy houses. When she and Kat meet, she’s in deep disguise, sometimes so deep Kat doesn’t recognize her at first. The way the two women illustrate the way society operated in 1880s London from the point of view of the “regular” person is very well done.

There’s also a subplot involving some poison pen letters, giving Kat a legitimate excuse to snoop around, especially as the letters seem to have originated in the very block where Daniel is undercover. To me, the mystery part of the story, which was fine, was the least of it. What is so great about these books are the characters, all of them fully and memorably delineated, the time period, and the snappy pace Ashley keeps up throughout the book. These are brisk, fun, satisfying reads.

"A Silence in Belgrave Square" is a mystery set in 1884 in London, England. This is the 8th book in the series. You don't need to read the previous novels to understand this one, and this book didn't spoil the mysteries of the previous books.

Kat started off investigating a series of blackmail letters based off of dated information while Daniel went undercover to investigate a suspected bombing plot. Kat couldn't stand the danger Daniel was in and so did things that drew attention to herself (along with the danger). In the end, she basically dropped her investigation in favor of solving the bombing plot and the murder of several people in the household that Daniel was intended to investigate. The mystery was clue-based. Kat asked questions and followed up on leads. She again charged off to confront a murderer (this time to save someone and assuming help was on the way), creating a suspenseful ending.

The main characters were interesting and likable. Historical details were woven into the story. There was no sex. There was occasional use of of bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this suspenseful mystery.

In this eighth Below Stairs mystery, Cook Kat Holloway investigates the suspicious circumstances of the death of an elderly viscount Her beau Daniel has been sent into the viscount's home as a personal secretary at the orders of his boss who wants Daniel in dangerous situations and wants him dead. Monaghan has promised that this will be Daniel's last mission for him if he successfully resolves it.

The viscount is suspected of being part of the Irish war for self-rule. The Fenians don't mind some terrorism in the form of bombs in various places if it will help their cause. Managhan wants Daniel to find some proof of the viscount's involvement.

Meanwhile, Lady Cynthia brings Kat's attention to some blackmail letters that have been sent to various ladies with prominent husbands including Lady Cynthia's deceased sister and some of Lady Cynthia's friends. At first, the letters don't seem to have a connection with Daniel's investigation, but ties are found, and the danger ramps up. The second letters demand a payment of the woman using her influence to convince her influential husband or relative to the writer's viewpoint.

Kat isn't going to let Daniel investigate alone despite his orders for her to keep out of it. In fact, none of Daniel's friends are going to let him investigate on his own. Among other things, Kat inserts a friend of hers as a maid in the house and Daniel's foster brother inserts a groom into service for a neighboring household.

This story was an exciting entry into the series. I especially liked that Kat finally comes to realize what she really feels for Daniel. I also like the setting, and the pride Kat takes in her work as a cook.

As a disclaimer, I DNFed this book so my review is based off of what I did read. I was honestly just not hooked by what I did read and really wasn't encouraged to continue.

This series featuring cook Kat Holloway is a favorite. It's 19th century London, and Kat's gentleman friend Daniel is on a dangerous assignment which stems from Scotland Yard. We find out later this is the beginning of the Special Branch, originally created to deal with Irish terrorists.

Kat hasn't had the easiest life and she is independent and strong-willed. Her daughter is lodged with a friend's family and Kat guards her time with her carefully. When Daniel tells her he will be out of touch for a while, Kat figures out where he will be and finds ways to keep an eye on him.

We see their relationship strengthen in this outing, and Daniel, while often exasperated by her sometimes reckless behavior, accepts her for who she is. Meanwhile the plot unrolls, featuring Fenians, bombings, and murder.

Kat is brave and occasionally foolhardy but she has an eye for solving crimes. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I've enjoyed this series very much and was glad to read the latest installment. I particularly enjoy the details of life as a cook for an upper class house in England. I'm glad to see that the main romantic story line is starting to move forward. I love slow burn romance but this was starting to stagnate. However, I didn't like the fact that the author seemed to try to pull back the forward progress on it a bit at the end. I guess some progress is better than none at this point.

A Silence in Belgrade Square was by far the best book in Jennifer Ashley's Below Stairs Mystery Series. When Daniel has to go undercover to stop a treasonous plot, Kat and her group of friends try to help in any way they can. Kat and Daniel's relationship also solidifies into something more permanent. While this book put an end to Daniel's service to Monaghan, the ending left the door open for more books in the future.

"A Silence in Belgrave Square" is going to be one of those Kat Holloway books that I return to. It really shows how far Kat and Co. have come since the beginning. I love seeing Kat's network of spies and allies throughout London who are willing to help her gather information and watch her back. This is also one of those books that moves the overall plot forward in a way that makes me excited to see what happens next.