Ella Shane #4
A Fatal Reception is the fourth book in Kathleen Marple Kalb’s series featuring Ella Shane, an opera singer in New York City in the early 1900s, and the first with its new publisher, Level Best Books. This is an excellent series, so I was disappointed to hear that the original publisher had dropped it and very glad when it found a new home. Ella, a mezzo soprano “trouser diva” who sings male roles and is an expert swordswoman, is a wonderful protagonist. She’s an orphan, the daughter of a Jewish mother and an Irish Catholic father, who grew up in the tenements of the Lower East Side, and was rescued from a life of poverty when a famous singer discovered her voice and trained her for opera. Ella observes both her parents’ faiths, lighting candles for the Jewish Sabbath on Friday nights and going to Mass on Sundays, and she has never forgotten her origins, and helps the poor people of the tenements whenever she can.
The opening of this novel finds Ella making her debut at the Metropolitan Opera and preparing for her wedding to Gilbert Saint Aubyn, the British duke who won her heart in the previous books and is the only man she has ever loved. Her performance is a great success, but the triumph is marred when she finds the body of Chester Lorimer, one of the prominent guests at the reception, and sees Mrs. Corbyn, a society matron, standing over him with a bloody rock in her hand. Ella has reluctantly sung at Mrs. Corbyn’s musicales in the past and found her a very unpleasant person. But is she a murderer? Mrs. Corbyn does not deny that she hit Lorimer, but claims she was acting in self defense after Lorimer attempted to sexually assault her. Soon, though, she learns that Lorimer, a Civil War veteran, suffered a war wound that made him incapable of such a thing. Not only that, but Mrs. Corbyn has a motive: her daughter is married to Lorimer’s son (born before the war) and she is afraid that Lorimer plans to leave his money elsewhere.
Ella’s friend Hetty, a reporter who is tired of writing about hats and wants to write about “real” news, including crime, is beginning a relationship with lawyer Rowan Alteiss, who is defending Mrs. Corbyn in court, but even he has doubts about his client’s innocence. And then Ella learns, to her horror, that Gil has been shipwrecked on the way to New York for the wedding. As she anxiously awaits news of survivors, her friends keep trying to reassure her and tell her to hope for the best.
Of course, Gil survives the shipwreck, and, in a delightfully humorous scene, the two share passionate kisses, unaware that Gil’s mother is watching. One of the great strengths of this series is its supporting cast, including two strong older women: Gil’s mother, the Countess, who has taken charge of the wedding preparations, and Ella’s Aunt Ellen, who raised her after her parents died, and who supposedly has the second sight. Ella does not believe in the second sight, but even she admits that all of Aunt Ellen’s predictions have come true. Now she predicts that a disaster will happen shortly after the wedding.
Other characters we have come to love, besides Hetty, include Ella’s cousin Tommy, a former boxing champion who is now her manager, and who is a closeted gay man, and Cabot, the son of a wealthy family who shares Tommy’s feelings but can never express them. Father Michael is Tommy’s best friend, and Ella is delighted when Gil agrees to have him, instead of an Episcopal priest they don’t know, perform the wedding service. Cousin Andrew (who is Father Michael’s cousin, even though Ella and Tommy refer to him that way) is a police detective investigating Lorimer’s death. A cousin of Ella and Tommy, Rafe, is a handyman studying to be an accountant, and a potential love interest for Ella’s new cook. There is also the sports writer Preston Dare, who was a drummer boy at Gettysburg and knows that wounds like the one Lorimer suffered are all too common. He is recently married to Greta, Ella’s former cook. Ella’s closest friend besides Hetty is her soprano colleague Marie, who is married with children. She is the one who convinced Ella that she could have a family and a career at the same time. Another good friend is Dr. Silver, a female physician who talks to Ella about what happens between a man and a woman on their wedding night–a discussion Ella was unable to have with her mother, who died when Ella was a child.
The mystery itself is not the most important part of the plot. There is only one suspect–Mrs. Corbyn–and the question is whether she acted in self defense or not. Instead, at the heart of the novel is the domestic drama surrounding the preparations for Ella’s and Gil’s wedding. After their passionate kisses following Gil’s rescue from the shipwreck, Gil suddenly starts treating Ella as if she were made of glass, following a discussion in which she tells him of her sexual inexperience. Gil is a widower with two adult sons, and it turns out his first wife had been a widow and so was more sexually experienced than he was when they married. Gil is afraid he will hurt Ella on the wedding night. Ella’s friends try to reassure her that all will go well. The two of them truly love each other, after all.
There is also a subplot involving Ella’s new cook and her lady’s maid, who go “walking-out” with two young men who claim to be printers and regular churchgoers, even though Ella has her suspicions. After one walk, the young women have their doubts, too, because all the men seem interested in is finding out which famous people visit Ella’s house. Also, a wealthy widow is planning to get married on the same day as Ella and Gil, to a man who claims to be a Polish prince, but Ella doubts he’s a prince, or even that he’s really Polish. These two subplots provide much humor to the book, in addition to the witty dialogue between Ella and Gil. The two leading characters enjoy fencing, both verbal and actual fencing, and always fight to a draw, even though Gil admits Ella would get the better of him if she didn’t offer him a draw.
Also in the book we get to meet Gil’s younger son, James, who has been on the Grand Tour and arrives in New York just in time for the wedding. He is a very likeable young man, probably much like his father when he was younger. The older son has stayed in England and refuses to have anything to do with Ella. We are not sure if he objects for reasons of religion and class, or because he doesn’t like the idea of someone taking his mother’s place, but we are sure to find out. I suspect he will cause trouble for Ella in the future.
I am very glad that Ella’s adventures will continue. This book felt like a visit with old friends you were afraid you would never see again, after the original publisher dropped the series. I hope Ella and her friends have found a long-time home with Level Best Books. I would also like to say the cover art, which features a beautiful bouquet, is a great improvement over the cartoonish cover art of the first three books, which made them look silly, which they are not. There is much humor in these books, but they are never silly. I highly recommend the whole series. A new reader can begin with this one, but it is more rewarding to start with the first book because the characters and their relationships are what drives the series, and it is important to see how they develop. You can get an idea just from reading this book, but to get the whole picture, it’s better to start at the beginning. And I hope that, at its new home, the series will find a new audience. — Vicki Kondelik