by Sarah Erwin

This week we are reviewing the latest Lily Adler Mystery by Katharine Schellman, and we have an interesting interview with Katharine. Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of the book and a link to purchase the book from Amazon.

A Scandal in Mayfair (Lily Adler Mystery Book Five) by Katharine Schellman
Review by Sarah Erwin

I’ve been a fan of Katharine Schellman’s Lily Adler Mysteries since book one, A Body in the Garden, released in April 2020. Book five, the newest book in this historical mystery series, A Scandal in Mayfair is a page-turning delight. For readers who enjoy audiobooks, I can also recommend these titles in audio format.

The series is set in Regency England, and in book five, it is 1817 in London. Readers find Lily back in her home on Half Moon Street and ready to begin a new season in London. She is no longer considered a recent widow, and she also is responsible for her protégée Amelia, who is the sister of Lily’s longtime friend, Captain Jack Hartley.

Lily’s reputation as a lady of quality who can discreetly solve mysteries of the social elite is becoming more well known. This brings her into contact with a young woman desperate to find the truth about her inheritance. Unfortunately, Lily is threatened with blackmail, and then there is a murder, an attempted murder, and a missing will. Lily, never one to step away from a challenge, takes these mysteries on, and what follows is a wonderfully well-executed mystery.

I like Lily so much, as well as the diverse set of characters that help make up the story. The handsome Captain Jack Hartley is featured throughout, and the touch of romance this adds to Lily’s story is just perfect. We also see more of the wonderful Mr. Page from Bow Street and his niece, Fanny. I do hope she is featured in more stories.

While readers can read this entry as a standalone, as someone who has read all the entries, I can attest that it has been fun to watch Lily grow as a character. Readers who enjoy mysteries with strong female leads should most certainly give this series a try. It’s immersive and page-turning––all the things we want in our mysteries!

Sarah Erwin started her career as a children’s librarian, later becoming a public library director and now she’s a stay at home mom. While her career might have changed, her love of reading has been a constant since 4th grade and she reads over 200 books a year. Read along with her on her blog Sarah Can’t Stop Reading or on Instagram. Sarah lives in St. Louis, MO with her two kids, her husband and a family dog and cat.

Just a little about Katharine before we jump into the interview: Katharine Schellman is a former actor, one-time political consultant, and current writer of historical mysteries. Her novels, which reviewers have called “worthy of Rex Stout or Agatha Christie,” have been named one of Suspense Magazine’s Best Books of the Year, a Library Journal Best Crime Fiction of the Year, a Silver Falchion award nominee, and a New York Times editor’s pick. A graduate of William & Mary, Katharine lives and writes in the mountains of Virginia with her husband, children, and the many houseplants she keeps accidentally murdering.

Interview with Katharine Schellman:

KRL: How long have you been writing?

Katharine: Honestly, I’ve been writing ever since I could hold a pencil. I started writing and illustrating my own stories when I was in kindergarten, and that’s also about when I told my parents that I was going to write books when I grew up. The path to achieving that was a winding one, but I got there eventually!

KRL: When did your first novel come out, what was it called, and would you tell us a little about it?

Katharine: My first book, The Body in the Garden, came out in 2020. It’s a historical mystery set in Regency England: a bit like your favorite period drama, but if everyone was worried about getting murdered instead of getting married!

Katharine Schellman
Photo credit Leah O’Connell

It follows a young widow named Lily Adler who, after the death of her husband, is feeling incredibly lost as she tries to figure out what comes next for her. She almost literally trips over her answer when she finds the body of a dead man behind a friend’s house and gets pulled into trying to figure out what happened.

I’ve since had eight books published, with series set in both Regency England and Jazz Age New York City. My ninth, and the final one in the Jazz Age series, will come out next summer.

KRL: Have you always written mysteries/suspense and if not, what else have you written?

Katharine: So far, all my published books are historical mysteries, but the very first book I ever wrote was a fantasy novel. No one will ever read that one, though, because I finished it when I was about sixteen, and it was truly terrible.

KRL: What brought you to choose the setting and characters in your latest books/series?

Katharine: While I was waiting to find out if a publisher was going to buy the first Lily Adler mystery, my agent advised me to work on something very different. Going from upper-class characters in early 1800s London to working class, occasionally criminal characters in 1920s NYC felt like a huge change! So that’s where I ended up with the Nightingale Mysteries.

The two series have a completely different tone and style, so it’s been really fun to jump between them for the past few years.

KRL: Do you write to entertain or is there something more you want the readers to experience from your work?

Katharine: Above all, I hope readers enjoy the story. I think reading, especially reading fiction, should be a pleasure, and I hope that my books bring some of that pleasure into people’s lives. I also hope it helps them see our world, and their own place in it, with new eyes. Reading fiction requires us to open ourselves to the stories and perspectives of others in a way that few other things do.

I think that’s magical and incredibly powerful. In fact, you can see how powerful it is throughout history, including now: people ban books because reading can change how people think. Participating in that exchange of ideas is both a privilege and a responsibility.

KRL: Do you have a schedule for your writing or just work whenever you can?

Katharine: I like to try to have a schedule, but there’s a lot of working whenever I can. I have two young kids, so the four days a week when they’re both at school and daycare are my working days. However, there are always things that come up, like a kid getting sick or travel to help out a family member. I also have a day job, so the schedule is sometimes more of a goal than a reality. Everything gets done eventually, though, so it all works out.

KRL: What is your ideal time to write?

Katharine: I love settling down to write mid-morning, ideally after a slow start involving several cups of tea and some reading time to ease into the day. Days when that can happen are lovely but rare.

KRL: Do you outline? If not, do you have some other interesting way that you keep track of what’s going on, or what needs to happen in your book when you are writing it?

Katharine: I always outline—at least, now I do. When I first wrote the book that became The Body in the Garden, I just wrote without any kind of plan. I ended up with a giant mess that was over 140,000 words, whereas a mystery is usually 80,000 to 100,000 words. I basically had a book and a half. I had to figure out how to cut and tighten and streamline it to make it all actually work. So now, I generally spend a week or two outlining before I sit down to start a new draft.

KRL: Did you find it difficult to get published in the beginning?

Katharine: I think getting published is never an easy process. It takes a lot of time, and there are no guarantees that what you’re working on will end up going anywhere. Most writers write a novel or two or five before they write the book that eventually gets published. I wrote about two and a half! None of that was wasted effort, of course. It all helps you to improve your craft and work towards your goal. But each stage of the process requires a lot of self-motivation to get to the next.

KRL: Do you have a great rejection/critique or acceptance story you’d like to share?

Katharine: Everyone has rejections along the way, but sometimes they can lead to great connections. One of the editors who passed on my first book told my agent that she enjoyed the writing but was looking for something more modern. When I wrote my first Jazz Age mystery, my agent sent it to her, and she ended up buying it and a sequel. So really, you never know what rejection will turn into down the road!

KRL: Most interesting book signing story-in a bookstore or other venue?

Katharine: My local independent bookstore helped me throw a giant party for the launch of my third Jazz Age mystery, The Last Note of Warning, this summer. Usually, a third book doesn’t get much fanfare, so we wanted to do something different than a typical signing or author conversation. We ended up throwing a speakeasy party!

We had Jazz Age cocktails and mocktails available, and instead of paying for the drinks, we asked folks to “tip” the bartenders. All the tips went to support our local PFLAG chapter. We also had a bunch of local queer authors, including Rita Mae Brown, in attendance, chatting and answering questions. It was so fun; I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

KRL: How fun! What are your future writing goals?

Katharine: I’ve been working on my two historical mystery series for the past few years, so I’d love to branch out into something a little different. I’m exploring a few of those ideas and hoping an editor loves them and picks them up. In this business, just because you have had one book published doesn’t guarantee that the next one will be, or that anyone will read it when it is! So, you really have to enjoy the process. And right now, it’s a lot of fun to be working on something new.

KRL: What kind of research do you do?

Katharine: The short answer is lots! I love researching historical settings, so I always do a deep dive before embarking on a new one to get a feel for the world I’ll be creating. Then as I’m writing, I’ll constantly look up details: how much would a particular dress cost, or a meal at a restaurant? What’s the distance between two places, and how would the characters travel between them? How long would that trip take? I like to know what the details though I fudge plenty of facts, too, when it makes the story better.

KRL: What do you like to read?

Katharine: A little bit of everything. When I’m working on a draft, I can’t read mysteries, though, so I’ll pick a very different genre. Right now, I’m editing the fourth Nightingale book and reading some very dense science fiction. I like the contrast.

KRL: What are your favorite TV shows or movies?

Katharine: Anything with characters I can connect to. Characters tend to be my way into a story, whether I’m the one writing it or not. I recently finished 3 Body Problem on Netflix and really loved it. And I’m slowly watching Miss Scarlet and the Duke on PBS. Very different viewing experiences!

KRL: Have you any advice for aspiring or beginning writers?

Katharine: Writing takes a long time, but sometimes not as long as you think. It takes about 300 words to fill a typed page. If you write just 300 words a day for a year, by the end of that year, you’ll have a book. So, if you have an idea, you might as well start working on it!

KRL: What is something people would be surprised to know about you?

Katherine: Weirdly enough, the thing that most often surprises people is that I’m the youngest of three kids. I’ve been told frequently that I have “oldest child” energy, but I’m the baby in my family.

KRL: Where can our readers find you online?

Katharine: My website is katharineschellman.com, where you can sign up for my mailing list and get a free short story. I also post frequently on Instagram as @katharinewrites, and you can find me on Goodreads or BookBub for publishing updates as well!

You can click here to purchase this book from Amazon.

To enter to win a copy of A Scandal in Mayfair, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “mayfair” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen October 26, 2024. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via email please include your mailing address in case you win. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. Also listen to our new mystery podcast where mystery short stories and first chapters are read by actors! They are also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.