I was reminded of Sherlock, the T.V. show, in the characterization of Ada Lovelace. It was a very enjoyable read, Ada and Mary play off each other and complement each other rather well. I look forward to the next book!

Great first book in a new mystery series! I love the premise of Ada Byron, daughter of the famous poet and Mary Godwin, the future Mary Shelley, being partners in a 19th century Detective agency! In a time where women had very few opportunities, the author has these clever girls involves in a terrific adventure, using their wits and brains to help them along. Looking forward to the next in the series.

The book is based on real people, but is fiction. It had a great deal of history and a good mystery. It was based on a mystery from the first mystery novel.

The book was about two girls named Ada Byron and Mary Godwin. They both became best friends, and then started a detective agency. I liked this book because it was a detective book. Thank you. Sonya (age 8).

Jordan Stratford has taken a neat idea--young Mary Shelley and young Ada Lovelace team up to solve mysteries--and crafted an adventure story that's so much fun, it threatens to burst out of the book jacket and shoot off the pages like a cannon ball.

The year is 1826. 14-year-old Mary Godwin, the sensitive and curious daughter of feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and free thinker William Godwin, is beginning her tutelage alongside the brilliant but temperamental and eccentric 11-year-old Lady Ada Byron, daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron. Their tutor is the young, handsome Peebs, who is clearly hiding something about his past. When the girls get restless, stifled by the limited avenues available to the women of the time, they decide to put their minds to work by forming a detective agency, enlisting the aid of an enigmatic boy, Charles. They're soon contacted by their first client, a young woman looking to clear the name of her maid, who has confessed to a crime she didn't commit, and Mary and Ada are plunged head first into a fast-paced, thrilling mystery.

Stratford gleefully plays with the cliches and tropes of Victorian thrillers and adventures, while confronting the sexism of the time and giving today's girls (and boys) a pair of inspirational role models. Stratford's not above tweaking history for the sake of a good story while also providing notes on what really happened at the time, and stew of historical and literary allusions will hopefully turn children on to the poetry of Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, the novels of Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, and Wilkie Collins, mathematics, computer programming, engineering, and history.

This is the first Wollstonecraft Detective Agency book, with a second on the way. Let's hope there are many more to come.