Book Review 2025 #2 - Tasha Alexander's The Sisterhood
The Sisterhood by Tasha Alexander
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: September 23rd, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy
Victoria Goldsborough is shimmering like pearls in her white satin for her engagement ball but soon her skin will be cold like marble. Her murder is garnering more press than her wedding to the Marquess of Harrington ever would have. Of course Lady Emily's mother blames Emily for the young girl's death. Because obviously if Emily had been present so would Colin and no one in their right mind would dare commit murder in the presence of Colin Hargreaves. Though offering to help solve the case just further enrages Lady Bromley who storms off in high dudgeon. Emily being Emily she's going to investigate anyway. Mainly because she can not sit idol when there's a murderer on the loose. Plus she knew Victoria growing up. Sadly Emily was too old to be a friend and too young to be a mentor. Still, it makes this case personal. Which means Colin is off to speak to the king while Emily is writing to Victoria's younger sister Portia to get the lay of the land. Portia arrives in full widows weeds, which seems a tad theatrical, but then again, one of four girls without dowries raised by their grandmother making the match of the season only to be cut down in her prime is worthy of some theatrics. Though perhaps she doth protest too much? Emily can not rule her out for sororicide, but at least the suspect spills the tea. Victoria making the match she did has to have upset someone, perhaps even created an enemy with murder in their heart. Could that murderer be Cressida Wright? Who, according to Portia, wanted Victoria's fiancé Peregrine for herself. But murder might be too much of an effort for Cressida. Though Cressida is only one possible culprit. Peregine's friend Lionel Morgan has taken several loans from his friend and was with him moments before Victoria's demise. Frances Price was Victoria's dearest friend and while being properly prudish her family residing on Radical Row are anything but. Then there's Victoria's maid Ida who had recently committed suicide due to an unwanted pregnancy, how does that tie in? And one must never overlook the fiancé. There's only one thing that Emily and Colin are certain of, they are being deliberately manipulated. All the suspects' stories have been expurgated. They are purposefully hiding things. And if that wasn't enough, Sebastian Capet, the notorious jewel thief, happened to be purloining a tiara upstairs the night of the murder at Harrington House. But it's Emily's mother who might have broken the case wide open. It's those nasty suffragettes! An underground movement threatening decent society, a cohort of young ladies calling themselves Boudica's Sisters are trying to destroy the social structure. And Victoria was recently approached about becoming a member. But Boudica's Sisters seem to stand for everything Victoria was against. Except for the fact that she had a watercolor of Boudica in her bedroom. Could Emily's mother actually be on to something? One shudders at the thought.
At her release event for The Sisterhood at The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, Arizona, Tasha said that her first editor told her after she finished writing her second Lady Emily book, A Poison Season, "You have to keep these books in England. You can go into the country. Preferably London, fine a country house once in awhile. But that's what you have to do. And then you can own Victorian London." But Tasha didn't want to own Victorian or, as it stands now, Edwardian London. She wanted to take Emily out of the world in which she was raised and open her eyes. I have to say that I heartily agree with this. Every time that Tasha announces a new book I can't wait to find out which far-flung destination Emily will be going to. The year previously when she was promoting Death by Misadventure she mentioned that she and her husband Andrew were off to India to research the next Lady Emily book. Sadly I learned during that talk that the India book, Murder on the Scared River, was the next but one and Emily was returning to London. Now I will follow Emily anywhere, but I am with Tasha and not her first editor, those far-flung places call to my heart. But then Tasha came in and did her magic and, well, this book wasn't just perfection, it was perfection for our times. Because this book deals with women and women's rights. The Sisterhood shows how women can build each other up and tear each other down. How we have always been treated as second class citizens and, because of this, infighting is self-defeating yet expected and accepted. There are men lined up waiting to tell us how we're not good enough and yet we fight each other. We have common goals and we should band together and yet, put two women in a room and they'll either be expected to fight or fail the Bechdel Test. This book is set in Edwardian England and yet these are the same problems, safety, healthcare, rights, voting, power, that still exist today. What's more, with the section set during the rule of Boudica in Britannia you see that the problems of being a woman are endemic. We could be kick ass warlords and yet people will question that. Here's an idea, how about we question the right of white men to rule? How about we question all their decisions that are in our "best interests" that they made without consulting us? I mean, this book brings out a rage in me, because, when will it end? But that rage, that indignation, and then the reveal of the murderer's motives, all of that hit home so hard that I think I need to go rewatch all of Britannia to recover, because I love me some Roman miniseries. And then I'll reread this book, because, damn, it got me.
If I'm honest the only reason Dept. Q came to my notice is because while promoting it Matthew Goode was talking about why he isn't in the final Downton Abbey movie, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. To save you the bother, it wasn't a big enough role and he likes jobs that challenge him, in other words how Mary married two men played by actors completely uninterested in the legacy of Downton is beyond me. But that meant I was mildly interested to see him in this role that would lure him away from a five minute Ascot cameo. And once I learned it was a Scottish police drama, with quite a few of my favorite Scots, I wanted to see if it was better than the recent effort to reboot Rebus. I can definitively say that it is better than Rebus, but there's an equally forgettable quality to the show. Could it be that Goode's character, Carl Morck, is so abrasive and angry that it's hard to watch him? Yes. But thankfully the other characters soften his edges just enough that by the end of the first season he's bearable. Could it be that Matthew Goode needs to eat a few good hearty meals because he's so skinny he looked like a famine victim? Yes. It was very disconcerting. Could it be that I didn't give a shit about the missing woman whose cold case they are investigating because she was unsympathetic and was played by an actress I didn't care for? Oh, most definitely. I only wanted the case to be solved so that Akram Salim, who chose the case because he believed it could be solved, would get vindication. In fact it's Akram Salim and the other Department Q subordinate, Rose Dickson, that carry the show. One with their quiet intelligence, the other with their quirky hair. Seriously, you can go down some serious rabbit holes on the internet about Rose's hair if you so have the mind. But as much as I love these characters, they are also problematic, and not just the fact that Rose's hair never moves, seriously, go down a rabbit hole, I dare you, it's that Akram Salim, with his outsider status, not actually being a police officer but having been one in Syria before he left for the safety and education of his daughters, is the one used to work outside the system. This means using extrajudicial force. AKA he beats the shit out of people. And while it's used as a way for Carl to underestimate Akram and almost as a cathartic comedic action to relieve the tension of the constantly propulsive plot I have issues with it. They are using a Middle Eastern character to be the enforcer, and this just smacks of racial profiling. Yes he's calm and collected and a family man, but by forcing him to be the muscle they are diminishing him. Seeing as this show is getting a second season I can only hope they will address this. Because Akram and the rest of the supporting cast are what makes this show work. In fact, do we really even need Matthew Goode? Because the book The Keeper of Lost Causes was first adapted as a film for Denmark and starred Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Carl. And if you've seen Britannia, you know that Nikolaj can out act Matthew Goode any day. Damn, what I wouldn't give to just combine that film series and this television series into the ultimate Department Q series!
