Ten years after her mother Lily goes missing from Hastings Pier, twenty-eight-year-old Violet Hamilton engages a private investigator to find out what happened. More than anything else about what she has written about, that is the thing that is most unique to her time. NO LIFE FOR A LADY is a funny, entertaining book that will actually have you laughing out loud at times. Those looking for a light-hearted, cosy historical mystery will find they’ve come to the right place with No Life for a Lady. Book isn’t for everyone, but for someone like me who embraces the magic of the SW part of our country, you might like it.

Pointless facts were repeated to a distracting degree, a good edit and removal of unnecessary filler would have improved the book greatly. As always when I read books set in this time period, I get frustrated with the limitations of being a woman during this time. Faith Hogan‘Eleanor Oliphant for historical fiction fans, with a dash of detective work and mystery thrown in. Because Violet is a woman who knows her own mind – and her mind is on her mother, who went missing 10 years earlier, vanishing from Hastings Pier without a trace. She respectfully gives homage to her fellow westerners -- be they cattlemen, farmers, natives, outlaws, government people or tourists.Those looking for a light-hearted, cosy historical mystery will find they’ve come to the right place with No Life for a Lady. It didn't work quite as well for me but I've got a stinkinng cold which probably impeded my sense of humour. Now at twenty-eight and still living in her family home in St Leonards, Violet’s father is beginning to worry that she’ll never settle down and find a husband. It is 1886, 18-year-old Violet Hamilton says goodbye to her mother as she head off a party on Hastings Pier to never been seen again.

I enjoy the stories she tells and the lack of an idyllic tone which some historical stories about the Old West have. Violet is an independent and ambitious 28-year-old in the 1890s, constantly having to say she is ‘not inclined to marry’. There's no sex, no violence, just interesting, and often amazing, living with neighbors, community, and tourists. Sophie Irwin ‘Charming, exhilarating, fabulously funny and so full of heart – Violet is the heroine I’ve been waiting for. Loved hearing about a woman riding horseback all over the New Mexico territory—8 years old and riding 20 miles alone to get the mail and bear hunting on horseback as an adult.My understanding of westward expansion was far different when I was in fourth grade and playing Oregon Trail than it is now, and my feelings about being a person of European descent living on stolen land are, frankly, a tangled mess. Her father, convinced that her mother has left them, pretends like she never existed, but Violet cannot. As she tries to decide if her mother’s horrific story is accurate, Violet has many amusing adventures. There is also a serious side to Violet’s growing disenchantment with people she has trusted, as there is with her increased self-confidence and ability to make tough decisions.

Violet's mother disappeared when she was younger, but had informed her of what duties a wife would have to perform, and she wanted no parts of it. I enjoyed reading about how she outsmarted the creepy suitors her father found and her hilarious verbal exchanges with Benjamin Blackthorn and Maria Monk and four stars from me. That certainly seems to be a possible theory and the one Mr Hamilton propounds to Violet, all the better for her to put her mother behind her and move on with her life. What people wore, what was popular at the time, how the streets and towns used to look like, what were people’s main professions, and most importantly, what were the women’s roles in society at this point in time. It’s the kind of book that you read too fast and race to the end, only to then wish you’d slowed down and savoured the pages more.I was toldViolet was strong and bullish but I was shown a doormat of a woman who became discombobulated at the slightest pressure.