Allison Montclair: A Rogue’s Company
This has very quickly become one of my favorite and most anticipated series. Set in London just post war, the main characters are Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge, two opposites who work like clockwork together. Iris is single and Gwen is a widowed mother living with her in-laws, and the two run a marriage bureau called the “Right Sort”. Each book opens with the approach of a client, and that sets off whatever delightful chain of events Montclair has in store for her reader.
Iris and Gwen have expanded their business a bit, and now boast a two-room office suite as well as a secretary. The approach of their first African customer throws them off a tiny bit, but the ladies rally and agree to help find proper, polite Mr. Daile a match. The book opens with a scene in Africa. It’s brief though memorable, as a boat sinks and many are lost. Certainly, you will be thinking to yourself, Mr. Daile is connected to this tragedy. The cagey Montclair reveals no secrets before her time, though. Three books in, I was more than content to leave it in her capable hands and feel certain the link would be made clear. (Reader, it was).