I'm happy to be taking part in this blog tour to celebrate the new covers of Y.S. Lee's four books in The Agency series! Not only is this series one of my absolute favorites - Victorian London? A street smart female spy? A bit of romance? Yes, please! - the new covers are fantastic! Check out the guest post from author Y.S. Lee below, in which she share 4 sources of inspiration for the books, then enter to win a set of all four books.
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4 Sources of Inspiration for
The Agency
1. Laura Tabili’s "Women of a Very Low Type"
An article about mixed-race families in late-Victorian Liverpool. The women were typically Irish-born, the men Lascars – that is, Asian sailors.
2. The Great Stink of 1858.
When modern urban-industrial pollution met an intense heat wave. The stench of the River Thames was so intense that Benjamin Disraeli fled the House of Commons with a handkerchief clapped across his nose.3. London itself.
While living in Bloomsbury and researching my doctoral thesis at the British Library, I fell in love with the city. I just had to write something that reflected my feelings.4. An endnote in Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White...
...which claims that St. John's Wood was just the type of area in which a Victorian man would stash his mistress. It made me wonder what other kinds of women might live in St. John's Wood. Spies, obviously!
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GIVEAWAY
1 winner. US only. Ends 5/17/2016.
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About the Author
Y.S. Lee has a Ph.D. in Victorian literature and culture and says her research inspired her to write Book One of The Agency trilogy. “Women’s choices were grim in those days, even for the clever,” she says. “The Agency is a totally unrealistic, completely fictitious antidote to the fate that would otherwise swallow a girl like Mary Quinn.” Y. S. Lee lives in Ontario, Canada.
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