Will I love The Siren of Sussex?

This is an enjoyable romp, focusing on one group of horse-riding-in-the-park women friends in Victorian London.

Our heroine, Evelyn, decides she will make an impression on Society through the way she is dressed, and seeks out a master tailor who can design the clothing ensembles which will make her unforgettable.

Matthews mixes up the traditional romance narratives by making her designer discovery a transplant to London from the Indian Subcontinent —Ahmad Malik. So, not only do you have the rules of Society, the drive for money, and the obstacles for making one’s way as a woman in such a world,… show more.

I read a lot of Regency, but Matthews made it fresh and new, taking me to a place I knew little about, the world of 19th-century fashion.

In Ahmad Malik she gave us a hero who was not another member of the ubiquitous aristocracy, but a working man and a tailoring savant. The writing of this book can only be described as lush. It painted a rich, vivid world that made me long for a handmade outfit perfectly tailored to me, and the romantic tension between Malik and Evelyn was literally breathtaking.

The whole series also feels like a love… show more.