Can Nancy trust a man after being betrayed in the past?

Synopsis

Bath, 1852.

As a girl, Nancy Bloom would go to Bath’s Theatre Royal, sit on the hard wooden benches and stare in awe at the actresses playing men as much as the women dressed in finery. She longed to be a part of it all and when a man promised her parents he could find a role for Nancy in the theatre, they believed him.

His lie and betrayal led to her ruin.

Francis Carlyle is a theatre manager, an ambitious man always looking for the next big thing to take the country by storm. A self-made man, Francis has finally shed the skin of his painful past and is now rich, successful and in need of a new female star. Never in a million years did he think he’d find her standing on a table in one of Bath’s bawdiest pubs.

Nancy vowed never to trust a man again. Francis will do anything to make her his star. As they engage in a battle of wits and wills, can either survive with their hearts intact?

The second in Rachel Brimble’s thrilling new Victorian saga series, Trouble for the Leading Lady will whisk you away to the riotous, thriving underbelly of Victorian Bath.

My review

Nancy Bloom is a strong woman, working with her friends Louisa and Octavia in a successful brother in Carson Street.
Her past has marked her, making sure that she will never give up her independence or trust a man ever again. But when she meets Francis Carlyle, her whole world is turned upside down.
As he is a theatre manager, he sees in Nancy the perfect woman to play the lead in a play he is writing.
But can he convince Nancy to trust him and being the star, as once was her biggest wish? Yet both have their own secrets that could change how people see them…

First of all, I enjoyed being back on Carson Street. Nancy, Louisa and Octavia are running successfully their brothel and most important, they being close friends.
We already got a glimpse of Nancy in a previous book, but I was very happy to see that she now has a book of her own!

It’s obvious that Nancy has had a hard past, having her trust in a man been broken in a terrible way. And she is still carrying that burden around. Rather quickly it’s clear that she has hardened over the years, but that deep down she is also a scared woman afraid of trusting the male population again. Yet her passion for the stage is something that made me smile. Even if her life took a different route, she dreams of being on a stage, so she enjoys to perform for an audience.

When Francis appears on the scene, I understood Nancy and her reluctance in just believing his words. Yet Francis is determined to prove his good intentions and is ready to make Nancy his star in a play he wants to see no matter what on the stage.

The thing is, this story does not just tell us about Nancy and Francis, but also about how hard and difficult life would be in the Victorian Time. Not only for adults, who could somehow change their fate, but the victims are truly the children. They have no opportunity to escape to a better place and just have to endure.
And the author manages perfectly to put focus on that pain, but without making it a sad story.
Both Nancy and Francis somehow managed to escape their past, and while together, they understand that they are the lucky ones…

Yet it’s also a story about facing your demons, daring to put faith in people again, yet not forgetting who stood by your side all the time. I loved how Nancy changed from this strong yet unavailable woman started to change into still a strong woman, but a woman with her heart at the right place, and no longer afraid to show it.

I found this a story with sad moments, yes, but also with so many beautiful moments. It shows the hardships of life but it also shows that it is possible to change your course and that fear is only holding you back. And that with the right people by your side, it is possible to reach that happiness that seemed so impossible to achieve in the past.