Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 Alas, this isn't a start-anywhere-you-like series, but this is only the second book. And the series is a sizable amount of fun if you like historical mysteries, fearless and intelligent heroines who take negative-zero crap from anyone, characters who embrace sarcasm, adventure and nefarious plotting, and taciturn but brilliant heroes with simmering sexual tension. 
 The first book unravels a mystery that centers on Veronica's past and a mysterious gentleman who came to meet her after her aunt's funeral. I don't want to say much more than that, but the results of that book influence the second - hence my advice to read both. The second begins as Veronica is invited to the exclusive Curiosity Club as a guest of a member, only to be asked by a woman she's never met to prove a man sentenced to hang in one week didn't commit the murder of which he's accused. 
 The first one, in A Curious Beginning, I found compelling partly because the mystery affected Veronica's understanding of many things as I was learning about her myself, so it was both intricate and intimate, and the stakes were higher. 
 The mystery in A Perilous Undertaking, however, was not as strong, and I noticed more of the scaffolding holding up the story. There were repeated mentions of characters who couldn't possibly be the culprit, and theories that were easily dismissed without enough reason for disregarding them - which was odd for a pair of people who could argue for pages about what genus or class a particular moth belongs in. While I cared about the victim of the first mystery, the victim of the second isn't really introduced or developed, and I wasn't as invested in the mystery to be solved, or in the person who was going to hang in a week if Veronica and Stoker didn't prove he was innocent. The emotional stakes are lower in the second mystery, but the emotional stakes are higher for Veronica and Stoker themselves. 
 I read A Curious Beginning with an I-cannot-put-this-down enthusiasm and devoured it very quickly. I relished both the characters and the mystery. With A Perilous Undertaking, I was reading more for the unique world that I wanted to visit, and for the characters themselves. Smart individuals trying to make their way in a world that they don't quite fit into, while at the same time satisfying their intellectual curiosity and refusing to apologize for who they are - hello, there, my catnip. There are also many small historical details that inform the plot, and the second book in particular explores intricacies and tiny elements of Victorian mourning culture in a way I found engrossing. 
 I kept returning to A Perilous Undertaking after any reading interruptions (SO bothersome) because I wanted to read more of Veronica and Stoker annoying each other, figuring out how to get into places they shouldn't be able to enter, and arguing about everything, but not necessarily because of the mystery plot. In this book, the circumstances that bring them a mystery to solve aren't as compelling as the forces keeping them in proximity. I was more than happy to keep reading to see what Veronica and Stoker did and said than I was interested in finding out who did what to whom and why. (If there are side stories where they travel together, or future books where they journey out of England and go exploring the world while bickering with each other, I'm entirely ready for those stories right now immediately right away please.) The Veronica Speedwell series is excellent and intelligent fun, and while the second isn't quite as satisfying as the first, I heartily recommend them both. 
 - SB Sarah