Title: The Emperor's Conspiracy Author: Michelle Diener
Published: November 27, 2012
Genre(s): Historical Fiction
Page Count: 336
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Chance led to Charlotte Raven’s transformation from chimney sweep to wealthy, educated noblewoman, but she still walks a delicate tightrope between two worlds, unable to turn her back on the ruthless crime lord who was once her childhood protector.
When Lord Edward Durnham is tapped to solve the mystery of England’s rapidly disappearing gold, his search leads him to the stews of London, and Charlotte becomes his intriguing guide to the city’s dark, forbidding underworld. But as her involvement brings Charlotte to the attention of men who have no qualms about who they hurt, and as Edward forges a grudging alliance with the dangerous ghosts of Charlotte’s former life, she faces a choice: to continue living in limbo, or to close the door on the past and risk her heart and her happiness on an unpredictable future.
While I’m not opposed to fiction that runs toward the melodramatic, I do prefer that a book be well-written and consistent regardless, which, unfortunately, are not traits I can ascribe to The Emperor’s Conspiracy. Though I’d previously enjoyed Michelle Diener’s fiction, this book was far too silly and nonsensical, being neither a romance or a mystery, but rather being a fluffy, telenovela-esque combination of both.
The protagonist, Charlotte Raven, is something of a Mary Sue. A former street urchin who happened to have been adopted by a widowed society woman, she is universally admired by the British aristocracy. Her love interest, Lord Durnham, is a bland, nondescript fellow who serves as a knight in shining armor, but doesn’t make much of an impression on the reader.
Any and all plot in The Emperor’s Conspiracy is confused and haphazard, and this book seems to be severely unorganized at best. Charlotte’s involvement in the unveiling of a smuggling ring seems highly coincidental, and she really doesn’t seem to do much to help solve the mystery. Actually, nobody really solves this mystery, since it’s so easily and neatly laid out for the leading couple. By merit alone, this is not at all a worthwhile mystery novel. It isn’t suspenseful or well-crafted in this slightest.
Though this is set in Regency England, the reader might be hard-pressed to know that, since Diener doesn’t capitalize on her historical context as much as she might. I got the vague sense that this was happening in the Regency era, but there was no definite grounding at any point in The Emperor’s Conspiracy.
Basically, this book is just a soap opera with petticoats, and not a good one, either. There was no substance to this book at all, and I felt very much that I was biting on air as I read this, rather than something filling. The Emperor’s Conspiracy tries, but does not succeed, to be memorable and worth my time.
