{"id":7073,"date":"2026-06-15T06:30:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=7073"},"modified":"2026-06-15T06:30:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:30:21","slug":"anna-lee-huber-a-bitter-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/anna-lee-huber-a-bitter-cut\/","title":{"rendered":"Anna Lee Huber: A Bitter Cut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lady Darby #14<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Set in 1830s Warwickshire, this installment finds series heroine Keira, Lady Darby, settling into a new home on the grounds of her father in law\u2019s estate, while getting ready to host a long run of large house parties which will culminate in a ball.\u00a0 While she\u2019s repaired her breach with stern father-in-law, Lord Gage (much thanks to her small daughter Emma), there\u2019s new family trouble brewing in the form of her brother Trevor\u2019s planned engagement to a wealthy young woman, Matilda, who has, it turns out, extremely abrasive parents.<\/p>\n

Mr. Birnam, the father, owns large factories and would like regulations relaxed, and is apparently attending the house party chiefly to lobby Lord Gage\u2019s upper-class friends in an attempt to get factory bills passed.\u00a0 Despite his constant efforts, he\u2019s not getting anywhere, and Trevor\u2019s engagement seems to be stalling out as well.\u00a0 After an extremely uncomfortable dinner where the presence of Mr. Birnam\u2019s secretary was requested at the last minute, Kiera discovers that very secretary\u2019s body later that night, dead from an acid assault.<\/p>\n

Acid attacks were apparently common in the 1830s as the substance was readily available, and often used to disfigure, if not necessarily to kill.\u00a0 As Kiera\u2019s husband, Gage, as well as his father, are licensed agents of the crown, they begin to officially investigate.\u00a0 Kiera works with the two, along with her maid and Gage\u2019s valet, making an impressive team, which works to peels back the complex layers of tension, suspicion and ill feeling that lurk within the Birnam family.<\/p>\n

Huber\u2019s matrix is a rich one, delineating the family relationships in a way that helps the reader easily keep track of the different players. Kiera\u2019s siblings have always been a part of the books, but it\u2019s her brother Trevor\u2019s heartbreak as he pursues, perhaps in vain, his lady love, that\u2019s front and center in this one. It\u2019s obvious both Matilda and Trevor are hiding something from the others, which just complicates the investigation.<\/p>\n

As she\u2019s a painter, Kiera is excellent at observing details, and pretty fearless, though by the end of the book the pressures of managing a large house party and a ball alongside a murder investigation begin to take a toll even on her.\u00a0 She has a strong relationship with her husband, and loves being a mother, all things which are woven throughout the narrative.\u00a0 Huber\u2019s storytelling is relaxed, and once you as a reader settle into her writing style, you\u2019re transported comfortably back to the 1830s.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s an old fashioned author in the best sense, one who obviously loves writing series fiction, and makes a habit of leaving a hanging thread to follow up in the next book.\u00a0 Fourteen books in, Kiera and Gage remain a captivating couple, with plenty of fresh adventures to look forward to. The mystery in this one was pretty tricky, but Huber plays fair and lays the clues for us readers, if we are deft and clever enough to follow them!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lady Darby #14 Set in 1830s Warwickshire, this installment finds series heroine Keira, Lady Darby, settling into a new home on the grounds of her father in law\u2019s estate, while getting ready to host a long run of large house parties which will culminate in a ball.\u00a0 While she\u2019s repaired her breach with stern father-in-law, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[830,2512,2513,89,189,2514,10,88,1276],"class_list":["post-7073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1830s-england","tag-a-bitter-cut","tag-acid-attacks","tag-anna-lee-huber","tag-berkley","tag-family-trouble","tag-historical","tag-lady-darby","tag-robin-agnew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7075,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7073\/revisions\/7075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}