The Beholders | 
pick#ARC #NetGalley 🌟🌟🌟
June 1878, an infant is fished out of the Thames whom MP Ralph Gethin identifies as his five months old son, who had been kidnapped by his own mother a few days prior. Clara Gethin now stands trial for the murder of her son. The story then goes back several months to when Harriet moves into the Gethin's Hertfordshire estate to become a housemaid. She writes down her experiences in the strange new household in her diary.⬇️
Where the second half of the story partly reads like a detective story set in Victorian times, the first half is slow and often includes information that seems irrelevant to the character/world building; furthermore, some plot lines seem tacked on to give the book a more diverse background (bisexual? footman, black footman). ⬇️ 3mo