The premise of this book held a lot of promise, but the most interesting part was the author's notes on the historical reference at the end. I stuck with it but honestly, nothing changed as far as our knowledge of the mysteriously killed girl and why she turned to a life of prostitution. The reason provided was no reason at all. I wanted to find out about Lillie, but never did. Beret was annoying and stupid. Just plain dumb. Why the hell did she keep talking to Teddy? Why couldn't she see, as I did when they were first introduced, that her loved ones knew more than they were telling? I knew who was behind the murder after the first few chapters and then the reveal was anticlimatic at best. Some characters were absolutely pointless but i guess they were thrown in to confuse us as to the real culprit of the crime. The book was eloquently written - Dallas definately has a gift but the story itself was dissappointing. This book should have been about Lillie. It wasn't. Nobody cares about her fuddy duddy holier than thou sister. WACK. This is a period book but the language and storyline seemed a little forced to me. The mystery was like a murder mystery dinner you would attend at a friend's house where everyone could be the killer and everyone seems to have motive and foreshadowing. It wasn't apparent until the very end that two women were fallen, maybe I should have clued into the title as foreshadowing, but really, when there are several prostitutes (though not leading characters) it's hard to know what the author was really thinking with that. Anyway, I didn't like the ending, either. I mean it reads like a real life story/epilogue. Did the author just get tired of writing the novel and want a nice clean ending? Tidy up all the loose ends in the last two pages? Because that's what happened.
What do You think about Fallen Women (2013)?
A good historical fiction mystery novel. It was easy to figure out the ending though.
—Jackie
Engaging story, even if I had it figured out halfway through.
—egalwire
I like all of Sandra Dallas' books and I loved this one.
—Iya
