The Sleeping Partner heralds the return of the serene and self-reliant Miss Sarah Tolerance, Fallen Woman and Agent of Inquiry. This time, Miss Tolerance seeks, not a missing trinket or the solution to a crime, but a living person–a young gentlewoman who has vanished from her wealthy family’s home, apparently bent on scandalous elopement with a mysterious man. Her elder sister is desperate to find and forgive her–and Sarah, haunted by the similarities between this girl’s story and her own, is determined to assist–but with nothing to go on but a false name and a small sketched portrait, the case may be her most difficult yet.
I fell in love with Sarah Tolerance from the moment she picked up a sword. The Sleeping Partner hits all the sweet spots for me, mystery, manners, and mayhem with time for a cup of tea. The fact that the novel is set in an exhaustively researched alternate Regency, just makes it all the more enticing. –Mary Robinette Kowal
Sarah Tolerance moves through her alternate-Regency London with style and skill—just the way her creator writes. A new Madeleine Robins novel? Let the rejoicing—and reading—begin! —Emma Bull
In an English Regency that is not quite our own, one Fallen Woman is determined to avoid the expected fate of her kind. Rather than become a concubine or whore, Sarah Tolerance uses her skills to forge a unique employment. She becomes an Agent of Inquiry, ferreting out secrets, finding what is lost, floating between the layers of London society. Miss Tolerance is a swordswoman, an investigator, a woman of honor in a world that is determined to put her to the test.
In Point of Honour a client comes to her with a seemingly innocuous request: find an antique fan. But pursuing the fan will lead her into a maze of politics, sex, and lies in the mean streets of Regency London.
Politics, deception, danger, and a bit of romance all come together beautifully…
–Booklist
In Petty Treason, the Chevalier d’Aubigny is found murdered in his bed, and his young wife is the first suspect. Miss Tolerance, hired to clear the widow’s good name, suspects that the Chevalier was spying for the French. Or is it something even more scandalous? The fate of the nation, not to mention her own life, is in Miss Tolerance’s hands…
Sarah may be a ‘Fallen Woman,’ but she’s also clever, resourceful and highly capable with a sword. She is so well realized that we accept the conceit of a female sleuth–a liberated Elizabeth Bennett, as it were–who fences, wears men’s clothing and lives behind her aunt’s brothel. [A] most pleasing and agreeable series.
–Publishers Weekly on Petty Treason
Sarah Tolerance 