I’m a sucker for a good historical fiction, and I’ve never read one quite like Fallen Grace. Grace lives in Victorian-era London with her older, mentally handicapped sister Lily. Her father left before Grace was born and her mother died when she was a little girl. Since being orphaned, the two girls lived in an orphanage for many years before being transferred to a charity school where Grace was to learn to be a teacher and Lily to learn servant work.

Unfortunately, the person who ran the charity school was the most unscrupulous of men who was in the habit of raping the girls he housed. Grace and Lily left the school, and nine months later Grace gave birth to a stillborn child. The two manage to eke out an existence in London’s slums by selling watercresses, but when their residence arrangement falls through, they find themselves in dire straits.

Luckily (or maybe unluckily), Grace is able to secure employment as a mute at the Unwin Undertaking Establishment and Lily is employed as a maid in the owners’ home. A mute, in this instance, is someone who is hired by a mourner to hold vigil at a funeral or wake and look suitably mournful. They dress in black, wear an expression of grief on their faces, and never speak. That is their job.

The Unwins are pretty underhanded, so it’s no surprise that their reasons for employing Grace, who is a suitable mute, and Lily, who is a very unsuitable maid, are less than charitable. In fact, they intend to make Grace and Lily a part of a great fraud that they’ve concocted. Will Grace figure the scheme out and stop it before she and Lily come to harm? It doesn’t hurt that she has a handsome young clerk in a lawyer’s office to help her.

I was never bored with the story, even though I could see all plot twists and turns coming from a mile away. That’s the mark of a good writer who knows how to use language to her advantage.

But the plot wasn’t the most interesting thing about Fallen Grace. What really struck me were the details about the Victorian practices of funerals and mourning. Before reading the book, my knowledge of Victorian mourning rituals consisted of “They wore black a lot longer than we do now,” and that’s about it. Now, I can tell you all about it. For example, there were entire shops dedicated to selling only mourning apparel, and people believed that keeping this mourning apparel in between the deaths of loved ones was bad luck – meaning they would discard the old garments when the mourning session was complete and buy new ones for a new death.

Hooper is a pro at interweaving a story with its setting and making them work together. While so many authors get bogged down in historical description that really does nothing to further the plot, the funeral home and mourning practices drive the plot in Fallen Grace. The story Hooper tells could not have been told in any other location or time period. And far from being tedious or depressing, these historical details are fascinating.

Grace isn’t a terribly proactive heroine. We get an idea of her resourcefulness from the first few chapters, where we see her ability to support herself and her sister in pretty terrible circumstances. Beyond that, though, she’s mostly reactive – the reader sees things coming from way off, but Grace doesn’t. That’s a not good sign in a protagonist and makes her seem a little dull. What’s more, the romantic interest – the aforementioned clerk – is the one who really spurs her to action. I prefer my heroines with a bit more agency.

I also felt the clues about various plot points could have been dropped with a little more subtlety – the book’s target age group (pretty solidly teenagers, not middle graders) is certainly smart enough to pick up on things without being hit over the head with them. But the story is still enjoyable and has so many delightful moments, I can forgive this aspect.

This is a good readalike to Y. S. Lee’s The Agency series – both are books set in Victorian England with an air of mystery and adventure featuring a plucky young heroine. Lee’s writing is, I think, a bit more sophisticated than Hooper’s and the mysteries are more of a focus – meaning I didn’t see all the answers right from the beginning like I did with Fallen Grace. Mary Quinn is also a much more confident and capable heroine, though Grace has her moments. While Lee gives us a good sense of time and place, Hooper surpasses her in this regard, and it is a treat. Who knew learning about grief could be so much fun?