Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
My teaser this week is from Victorian Murderesses by Mary S. Hartman a book that is so much more than a simple re-hash of the true-crimes committed, this book also addresses the issues facing middle-class women in Victorian England.
Blurb
This riveting combination of true crime and social history examines a dozen cases from the 1800s involving thirteen French and English women charged with murder. Each incident was a cause célèbre, and this mixture of scandal and scholarship offers illuminating details of backgrounds, deeds, and trials.
“The real delight is that historian Mary S. Hartman does more than reconstruct twelve famous trials. She has written a piece on the social history of nineteenth-century women from an illuminating perspective: their favorite murders.” — Time Magazine
My Teasers
Madeline Smith was seventeen in 1853 when she returned home to Scotland from boarding school near London; she was nineteen when she met and established a secret liaison with a poor but ambitious twenty-six-year-old Jerseyman of French extraction named Emile L’Angelier
These letters, over sixty of which were introduced in evidence during the nine days’ trial, chronicle a relationship which captivated a Victorian public with an already keen appetite for crime and illicit sexual adventure in high places.
No prizes for guessing why I chose this particular murder to select my teasers from!
Please leave the links to your teasers in the comments box below.
How very ingenious to gather up a collection of true criminal accounts circling the Victorian era-which by the way is my favorite time period-if only you could see my gigglemug 😀 I’m reading this one for sure; squee! Thanks for sharing and have a lovely week!
The Empyrean Key | J.L. Tomlinson
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Thank you – it is a really good collection, moving through the decades and featuring a range of murders by the seemingly respectable middle-class women. Fascinating stuff! Thanks for leaving your link 🙂
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Oooh. Interesting teaser 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
Here’s mine:
Teaser Tuesday: The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus)
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Thanks for leaving your link 🙂
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Well, this sounds like a very interesting and eye-opening read!
Here’s My teaser
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It is a great read – thanks for visiting (your link doesn’t seem to be working)
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Good teaser and I love the premise of this book.
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It is a fascinating read on so many levels! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
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This sounds amazing. Great teaser. Here is my TT http://cynthiastacey.com/2014/10/14/teaser-tuesday-oct-14/
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I’m loving it – true crime softened by time! Thanks for leaving your link.
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Oh, Cleo, this sounds fabulous. What an interesting look at both history and at society. Put crime in there too and the whole thing’s irresistible. Thanks for sharing!
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I keep returning to this one which I’m reading alongside a fiction book as it is a brilliant study of those respectable middle-class women of the Victorian age. The author has paired similar causes from England and France to back up her study of areas of interest such as the surplus of women and thus the peculiar (or lack of) role in society.
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That sound very interesting, and I’ll bet there are some fascinating stories there! 🙂
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Oh plenty with all their sins on display for the public to tut over 😉
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+JMJ+
“. . . an already keen appetite for crime and illicit sexual adventure in high places”
Hmmmm! I guess Victorian England wasn’t very different from our own voyeuristic culture. 😉
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I read a Very British Murder at the beginning of this year which talks about how crime fiction grew at this time in response to the ghoulish nature of humans – crime is great entertainment as long as it’s at a distance.
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Sounds fascinating. I’m curious if a few of these cases are ones I’ve read about before:)
here is my TT – http://fuonlyknew.com/2014/10/14/teaser-tuesdays-85-the-memory-closet/
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The Murder at Road Hill House that featured in the Suspicions of Mr Whicher and the murder of Charles Bravo which I read about earlier this year in Death at the Priory but because the author links them to both similar causes in France and the social history and comes up with her own theories it’s still worth a read.
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This sounds like a great book. I love murder, whether fact or fiction.
href=”http://www.fundinmental.com/?p=12868″
rel=”nofollow”>My TT – Clay by Tony Bertauski
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Me too and these murderous women are fascinating in the way they hide behind respectability whilst not behaving very well at all!
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Very tempting…very tempting indeed…!!
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It is far more in depth than I thought it would be and it features a Jersey victim – what more could a girl ask for?
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A Jersey victim murdered by a Glaswegian, no less…! 😉
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Indeed! 🙂
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This sounds really fascinating and I’m not usually one for true crime books.
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I prefer them when they’re historical somehow it doesn’t seem to be quite so voyeuristic. The social history part that goes alongside these because as the author says in the introduction, no-one was studying these women at the time.
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Okay, now I am intrigued….the idea of a mix of true crime and social history grabbed me. Great excerpt! Thanks for sharing…and for visiting my blog.
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It is a fascinating read and although I knew about some of the British murders featured the way the author links that back to social commentary makes it so much more than just a re-hash of the cases.
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Sounds fascinating, especially since the stories are true! I’ll read this one.
My Tuesday post features WAR BRIDES.
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Not only true but often committed by seemingly upstanding women! I’m hooked in learning more about the social history as well as the cases featured.
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Ooooh, murder and feminism all rolled up in one delightful package… I love it! I’m very curious about the particular one you are highlighting in your teaser, it sounds like a romance novel gone wrong. Awesome!
Here are My Teasers.
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The one I highlighted was illustrating what happened to young women between leaving school and getting married, all too often they read romantic fiction and the author is suggesting that Madeline Smith cast herself as a romantic heroine and then changed her mind…. a romance novel gone wrong is pretty much spot on! If I were giving away prizes you would get one 🙂
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Now this sounds like a true crime book I might actually read. My teaser: A Killer Crop
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There is something less voyeuristic about reading about historical true crime isn’t there? Thanks for leaving your link.
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Very interesting! I’m always fascinated by what turns people to crime, especially that nice quiet man/lady next door.
Mine is from a young adult suspense novel:
http://pdworkman.com/excerpt-and-trailer-for-those-who-believe-teasertuesday-trw14-2/
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Thanks for leaving your link 🙂
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I would definitely find this interesting.
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It is totally enthralling so despite saying I’d read one chapter at a time I read three last night (each chapter is quite a chunk too)
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I definitely like the premise of this book! Sounds very interesting. I have always enjoyed getting into the minds of criminals (I swear I’m not one!). Great teaser!
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These women provide a fascinating study into the times as well as their crimes!
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This really sounds interesting and I love the Victorian era. I’m adding this to my TBR. Thank you for sharing this one!
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Excellent news I love it when people are interested in the books I feature on this meme 🙂
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Sounds amazing. Cleo. Great choice for a teaser!
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Thanks Nish 🙂
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A book about female poisoners somehow seems perfect for Autumn (maybe its to escape the mad Christmas rush which starts looming) Or – a chillier thought, a SOLUTION being sought , a how-to-escape from HAVING to get caught up in the mad Christmas rush – poisoning those imposing deadlines!
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I can’t believe you mentioned the C word and it’s still October however I do like your thought process! Perfect book to forget about it all and maybe to slightly envy the relative ease that these women could procure poison – I’m sure many got away with doing the dastardly deed.
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I’m so sorry for the forbidden word – my VET was trumpeting it early in August, doing a promo on CAT STOCKING FILLERS! As my vet bills soared this year (cats reaching established seniority; one cat with an ongoing chronic condition needing expensive monitoring 3-4 times a year) the little furry beasties will be lucky if they get bog-standard cat food over Christmas, never mind stockings! I must admit I frowned crossly at the August Christmas display during a heatwave.
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Oh, wow, Cleo! Victorian Murderesses sounds amazing, and that teaser… yeah, adding to my TBR.
Thanks for sharing! I hope you’ve had an excellent week.
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