#NEW #RELEASE IN #PAPERBACK with a #GIVEAWAY! "A Curious Beginning, (A Veronica Speedwell #1) by Deanna Raybourn!

NEW! RE-RELEASED IN PAPERBACK "TODAY", JULY 12th, 2016!

A Curious Beginning, (A Veronica Speedwell #1) by Deanna Raybourn!

I LOVED this book, and this review is from the original release back on September 2nd, 2015, last year from the Hardcover! (Re-reading it now makes me want to change my original review a little bit! Figures! I'm not going to, I'll keep it the same because it is 'this' review that is 'everywhere'! That ALWAYS seems to happen when you do get to read the SAME BOOK a 2nd time! You want to add things to your review! Better I don't so I don't spoil anything this way, too! LOL!
I am ALSO anxious and EXCITED that Book 2 is coming out on January 10th, 2017, A Perilous Undertaking, (A Veronica Speedwell #2) by Deanna Raybourn! Yes!!! I will list it at the bottom with a direct link to Amazon where you can pre-order it! I highly recommended it!
HUGE secret!!! I DID get the ebook from NetGalley to review it!!! YES!!! However, this FIRST BOOK IS SO GORGEOUS!!! I want the PRINT VERSION OF ALL OF THESE BOOKS! I will buy it and ADD it to my collection!

ONE GIVEAWAY FOR THIS BOOK - fill out the QUICK form below!
A Curious Beginning (A Veronica Speedwell #1) by Deanna Raybourn! 
"1" paperback new release!
United States ONLY (due to shipping) and the book will come directly from the publisher!
Dates of Giveaway: NOW to July 18th at midnight! 
The #WINNER will be posted HERE at this blog and on my Facebook page the next day, Tuesday, July 19th!

Praise for A CURIOUS BEGINNING

“Deanna Raybourn…brings energetic storytelling and a strong sense of history to
A CURIOUS BEGINNING.”
—South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“Fans will be delighted with Raybourn’s return to this era, while page-flipping newcomers will find them full of witty riposte and elegant descriptives…. Both will be crying for more, and Raybourn delivers.”
—Florida Times-Union

“Raybourn introduces her latest feisty heroine, deftly twining together suspense, romance, and cracking good dialogue….As Veronica and Stoker careen through dastardly plot twists, they match wits, bantering with skill worthy of Tracey and Hepburn. A thrilling—and hilarious—beginning to a promising new series.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Creating strong character pairings, placing the action in unexpectedly unusual but actual historical settings, and folding it all into a clever mystery are hallmarks of this author’s magical, signature style.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

A CURIOUS BEGINNING will leave you, as it left me, whimpering for more.”
—Alan Bradley, New York Times bestselling author of the Flavia de Luce series

“The intrepid Veronica’s witty narration and the sexual tension she shares with the equally eccentric and articulate Stoker deliver a fun read with promises of more to come.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Deanna Raybourn writes with wisdom, sass and a rich texture that is a joy to read.  I love this book!  A CURIOUS BEGINNING brings us the powerful Veronica Speedwell who triumphs over diversity and danger with wit, charm and uncanny determination.  This is a real find for mystery lovers!”
—Robyn Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Virgin River series

“A CURIOUS BEGINNING is a fantastic read, both wickedly clever and devilishly amusing. Like a grown-up Flavia de Luce, Victorian explorer and naturalist Veronica Speedwell is a joy—slaying rapscallions, scoundrels and dullards alike with her bon mots—or sharpened hatpin. She’s an unflappable, unrepentant, and thoroughly delightful butterfly of a new heroine—and I'm already impatiently drumming my fingers awaiting the next book.”
— Susan Elia MacNeal, author of the New York Times bestselling Maggie Hope series

“I've been a big fan of Deanna’s for some time and this book was a treat to read. How could I resist a royal scandal, an Irish plot, and a really sexy hero who has a tendency to work with no shirt on? Deanna is one of the few writers who can make history feel immediate and exciting without losing a feel for the period.”

—Rhys Bowen, New York Times bestselling author of Her Royal Spyness series and winner of the Agatha Award for Queen of Hearts

Description:

In her thrilling new series, the New York Times bestselling author of the Lady Julia Grey mysteries, returns once more to Victorian England…and introduces intrepid adventuress Veronica Speedwell.

London, 1887. As the city prepares to celebrate Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee, Veronica Speedwell is marking a milestone of her own. After burying her spinster aunt, the orphaned Veronica is free to resume her world travels in pursuit of scientific inquiry—and the occasional romantic dalliance. As familiar with hunting butterflies as she is fending off admirers, Veronica wields her butterfly net and a sharpened hatpin with equal aplomb, and with her last connection to England now gone, she intends to embark upon the journey of a lifetime.

But fate has other plans, as Veronica discovers when she thwarts her own abduction with the help of an enigmatic German baron with ties to her mysterious past. Promising to reveal in time what he knows of the plot against her, the baron offers her temporary sanctuary in the care of his friend Stoker—a reclusive natural historian as intriguing as he is bad-tempered. But before the baron can deliver on his tantalizing vow to reveal the secrets he has concealed for decades, he is found murdered. Suddenly Veronica and Stoker are forced to go on the run from an elusive assailant, wary partners in search of the villainous truth.

MY TAKE:

5 STARS!

I loved this book, and it's going to be a fun series of three books to read! I will tell you why! You'll notice this takes place in London in 1887. Veronica is a lepidopterist (I never knew they even existed!) which happens to be someone who studies butterflies. Hmmm! Veronica is also quite the outspoken, opinionated, a headstrong woman (whom you'll never hear a woman speak like she does back then), literally shocking people at times, and I loved it! Also, she’s not specifically against marriage, just in the past, instead, she has taken on her own lover, or lovers (five to be exact) of her own accord instead of marriage so far. I love it, a woman who definitely knows what she wants! This book is definitely NOT your average Victorian mystery, nor would I want it to be after reading this now! I just LOVED the sexual tension between Veronica and Stoker (I’ll tell you about him in a moment!). This book went completely against what you would ‘think’ a Victorian mystery would/should be like! Just how I LOVE it!

There are actually two mysteries that take place in this book. One is why is someone after her, as she does get abducted in her aunt’s home after returning from that aunt’s funeral. The other mystery ends up being why did someone murder the German man, the man who put Stoker by Veronica's side to help keep her safe, although, she did not need him or any man to keep her safe as far as that went! She has a special hat pin for that, although he was quite handsome! The German was going to give her more information about her parents and her abduction, too, but not now. There is some heat between Veronica and Stoker, and I wanted to see more of that, but at times, instead the author would take us off in a different direction when all you wanted was her and Stoker to continue on! These two even ended up joining in on a traveling caravan, but this is when you were hoping to see these two make more heat together while investigating the crimes, but we were taken away from that direction. This is my only complaint about the book. Every now and then the author would take us off into another direction rather than the direction I believe the reader wanted to go! Maybe she thinks we need to cool down or doesn’t want ‘that’ in her books? I don’t know? LOL! Rather, off to the next deviation! Veronica and Stoker do find the answers to what they were looking for, but it really turned out to be anti-climatic. Strange, or possibly with the rest of the story coming in two more books we’ll learn why there was not much to the answers? We’ll see!

This will stick with me as well. The last line in this book says, ‘As the excellent Arcadia Brown, Lady Detective, so often proclaimed, “EXCELSIOR!”

I absolutely LOVE the cover of this book, don't you? It's beautiful! Well, I have found a new author of whom I am in love with her writing! I want to go now and read ALL of her books! She has quite the series about a 'Lady Julia Grey'! I don’t want to wait to read them, either, although there are a LOT of volumes to that series! Wow! You'll have to check those out, too! I want to thank Penguin/Berkley/NAL for the wonderful opportunity they gave me to read and review this wonderful book in exchange for a review of my own opinion. Thank you!
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Here are the links below for BOTH books! Book 1 can be bought RIGHT NOW!!!
Book 2 can be Pre-Ordered! It is due out on January 10th, 2017! 

ebook: $11.99
print:   $ 8.82


ebook: $12.99
print:   $21.52