This is a Charles & Melanie Fraser prequel, with both author and characters renamed, one presumes for marketing reasons. It's an okay historical mystery, but Malcolm and Suzanne are so repressed that their emotional arc is completely uninteresting -- and it suffers the same issue as Beneath a Silent Moon, which is that the secrets of [b:Daughter of the Game|8063128|5 Star Publications Presents Daughter of the Game|Kai|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5145Bq%2B4hVL._SL75_.jpg|12748482] are so explosive prequels seem besides the point. Also, I am a bit tired of how every single book involves some secret about Charles' family. I was actually much more invested in Dorothee Talleyrand-Perigord's relationship with her uncle, and Talleyrand's politicking, than I was in the main plotline.There's some interesting stuff about limitations on women's lives and ways women evaded them and both triumphed in and were punished for this evasion -- lots of women having love affairs, wielding indirect political power, having illegitimate children who were hidden. Much more complicated than the usual romance novel view of the 19th century. I ended up wishing Grant had jettisoned the Fraser/Rannoch scaffolding and done a straight-up historical about the behind-the-scenes politicking at the Congress of Vienna, which clearly fascinated her.