A Shadowed Fate: Claire Claremont Continues To Investigate Byron Mysteries in a Sequel

When I found publicist Mary Glenn McComb's e-mail offering an ARC of A Shadowed Fate by Marty Ambrose, I had already obtained it through the free inter-library loan network.  I responded that I intended to review A Shadowed Fate in April, and that I didn't need a copy. I wasn't going to miss this book.   You see, it's the sequel to Claire's Last Secret, a mystery mainly from the perspective of Claire Claremont. For an explanation of who Claire Claremont was, read my review of Claire's Last Secret here.  That should give you the background you need to read my review of  A Shadowed Fate below.  It's appearing a little bit before April.

                           

Just as in Claire's Last Secret, the crime that opens the narrative is investigated by the police, not Claire.  A valuable sketch was stolen from her.  Claire had hoped to sell it to cover her own living expenses and those of her niece and grand-niece who are living with her.  The sketch was drawn by the 18th century Italian artist Giuseppe Cades who was highly regarded during the period in which this novel takes place. Detective Baldini is in charge of the theft case, but there are also astonishing developments in the murder case from Claire's Last Secret.

 Claire is mainly preoccupied with finding out what really happened to her daughter,  Allegra, whose father was the poet Lord Byron.   She travels to the convent where history records Allegra as having died when she was a child.  Sinister events occur en route.

Yet I considered a Byron memoir that deals with the period when Byron sent Allegra to the convent as the true heart of the narrative.  We don't know if Byron wrote such a memoir.  If he did, it didn't survive.  According to A Shadowed Fate,  Byron had given his friend, Edward Trelawny this memoir and Trelawny had copied it.   Trelawny is a significant character in this novel.  In A Shadowed Fate, he gave the copy of Byron's memoir to Claire, and she read it during the course of the narrative.  This is a Byron I had never previously encountered.  He isn't at all like Byron as he is commonly portrayed.  It raises the possibility that the motives for some of Byron's actions may have been misunderstood.   The memoir also reveals dangerous secrets that I found very intriguing.

Although the case of the stolen sketch is solved, Claire continues to have no clarity about the fate of Allegra.  Presumably, we will learn more in Marty Ambrose's  third novel of Claire Claremont's journey of discoveries.  I will definitely want to read it.