Crystal Gardens

Its place in Ladies of Lantern Street

Crystal Gardens is book 1 in the Ladies of Lantern Street series. It is followed by The Mystery Woman. See the full Ladies of Lantern Street reading order.

The Ladies of Lantern Street run a discreet Victorian employment agency that places women -- psychic companions, mediums, ladies' companions -- with clients who need rather more than a chaperone, a premise that gives Quick's heroines a plausible reason to be moving through dangerous households and stranger mysteries than a respectable Victorian woman would otherwise encounter. Each of the three novels follows a different agency placement gone dangerous: a case that starts as a discreet job and turns into…