Fortune's Slave

Countess Ashby De La Zouche #4

by Fidelis Morgan

Fourth in Fidelis Morgan's hugely entertaining series featuring the irrepressible Countess Ashby de la Zouche and her stupendously bosomed former maid, Alpiew Unlikely as it may seem, the Countess finds herself with cash to spare. Unlikelier still, she decides to do the sensible thing and invest it, caught up in London society's new craze for stocks and shares. Overnight, fortunes are being made, wealth amassed from nothing in a frenzy of speculation. And with these new-found riches anything can be commodities, monkeys...even people. But as the Countess and Alpiew learn to their cost, investments can go down as well as up -- helped along by a little embezzlement from those bastions of respectability, bankers and brokers. Soon banking leads to begging, burglary, and strange bedfellows -- including an aspiring novelist with a grievance and a hirsute dwarf of astounding agility.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Actor, writer, director and historian, Fidelis Morgan is the author of a series of mystery novels featuring the Countess Ashby dela Zouche and a cast of outrageous characters. The books have been described as ‘A 17th century Armistead Maupin’, ‘Flashman for Girls’ ‘A bawdy PG Wodehouse’ and ‘Cagney and Lacey in Corsets.’
She has published many influential non-fiction works, mainly about the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Her latest suspense novel, The Murder Quadrille, is a modern day mystery. It is available as an eBook

Reviews

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Countess and Alpiew find themselves caught up in another mystery, through no fault of their own. Their house gets robbed multiple times, bodies appear and disappear - even a monkey finds its way into the house. Despite the complexity of the mystery, it’s all a lot of fun. This series has so much going for it (including a variety of lost words from the restoration era), and it’s sad to see that this is the last in the series. This one was slower to get off the ground than the previous three, but worth the effort.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delight of a tongue-in-cheek historical mystery, perfect summer reading for a lazy afternoon. Morgan is brilliant when it comes to double entendres and the odd drop-in remark from another era - deliberate anachronisms that will make you smile. This series is a pleasure.

[Delphine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uncannily funny. Good historical novel with a lot of humour. A must-read.

[Amy Teal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love all the books in this series