In 1880 London, a trailblazing female economist determined to open Britain's first all-women's bank must choose between loyalty to her powerful mentor — or joining forces with an undercover detective to investigate a crime that threatens to destroy thousands of lives.
London, 1880. Reina Martin has a dream: to help other women get ahead by starting Britain's first all-women's bank. But “The Establishment” will fight every challenge to the status quo.
On top of that, Reina's home life is a bit… problematic. Since traditional servants are in short supply nowadays, she's hired a household staff of paroled prisoners who are all desperate for a second chance.
To her outrage, the new butler, John Pembroke, is secretly working as an undercover detective. Reina's business partner—the powerful William Farlow—is suspected of committing bank fraud on such a massive scale, it could destabilize the entire British economy.
If Reina helps John with the investigation, she'll betray the trust of her beloved friend and mentor William. But if she does nothing…she'll be turning her back on thousands of innocent people who stand to lose everything they own.
As Reina and John face one crisis after another, their relationship develops into something profound and passionate. Together, they'll risk everything to uncover the truth and protect their newfound family.
Epic yet deeply personal, Queen of Lombard Street is a story of love, sacrifice, moral courage, and the power of community to change lives for the better. But it also focuses on the price women pay for ambition, and the cost of escaping the narrow roles we're expected to inhabit.
About the Author
About the Author
About the Author
Lisa Kleypas
Lisa Kleypas graduated from Wellesley College with a political science degree. Her novels are published in forty different languages and are bestsellers all over the world. She lives in California with her husband, Gregory.
New York Times Bestselling Author·In Continuous Print for Over Three Decades·Published in 40 Languages
From Lisa's Desk
research, curiosities and details that made it into the book
Claw glove
This photo has been passed around with the claim that these gloves were worn by Victorian-era women for self-defense, which is a little misleading. They were never really a thing. But there was a public panic in the mid 1850s, fueled by fear over street attacks in which thieves would approach from behind and choke you with a cord around your neck while robbing you. So all kinds of anti-garotting devices were invented, including spiked shirt collars, weighted walking canes, etc. And in 1856, a couple of guys applied for a patent for claw-tipped gloves sort of like these. They were briefly manufactured by Dr. F.J.W. Packman, who went out of business a year later.
As soon as I saw this picture, I imagined a fifteen year old girl in an 1800s street gang, making these for herself to look scary, and naming herself Belinda Claw. She's one of the paroled prisoners who now works for Reina Martin.
The Royal Exchange Interior Courtyard, 1880
When my editor asked for any ideas I might have for the book cover, one of the pictures I sent was this 1880 photograph. It was taken inside the Royal Exchange building, which was a center of worldwide trade. The London Stock Exchange was located nearby at Capel Court, Bartholomew Lane, but international banking and trade deals were still conducted in the Royal Exchange. I imagined Reina Martin walking beneath those stone archways—and looking up at that symbolic glass ceiling.
El Jaleo — John Singer Sargent, 1882
John Singer Sargent has always been my favorite painter. His style is a unique mixture of classic academy training and impressionistic energy. Stand up close to one of his portraits, and you notice spontaneous dabs and slashes of brushwork. But as you back away, all of it resolves into a breathtakingly real image of light, shadow, and psychology.
As a young woman, I saw this painting, El Jaleo, at the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston, and I've always been obsessed by it. It's huge, the dancer nearly life-size. Stare at it long enough, and you're pulled into the room with her, where you're showered by guitar notes while the floor vibrates beneath dozens of stamping feet. This is how I imagined Reina's mother Manuela Martín.
28 South Street, Mayfair
Westbrook House, the fictional home of Reina Martin, was inspired by this real-life one. The Mayfair mansion, 28 South Street, was the house where British Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home was born in 1903. Later it was the residence of famed romance novelist Barbara Cartland (whose daughter Raine was Princess Diana's stepmother).
Propelling Pencil
Reina Martin's signature piece of jewelry is a gold mechanical pencil (or "propelling pencil" as it was called back then) worn on a long chain around her neck. Back when I started writing books, in the days before the iphone, I wore something like this (not real gold, of course) all the time for writing down ideas when they occurred to me. Some days I sat at my typewriter surrounded by notes written on grocery receipts, tiny napkins, or the backs of envelopes.
Tap to expand
This is a portion of Bacon's New Map of London 1876, my go-to Victorian era map.
mystery symbol
Here we see the limits of my artistic skills. I drew this symbol for a scene in QoLS, thinking someone could improve it later in the publishing process. To my delight, Avon Books included it "as is." My first public work of art haha. I wish I could tell you what it means, but I don't want to spoil it.
To discover the meaning of the mystery symbol, or other Victorian curiosities, reserve your copy of Queen of Lombard Street.
Inspiration
The Real People Behind the Story
"The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts…"
— George Eliot, Middlemarch
When I began researching the history of women and finance, I expected to find some interesting facts tucked within dusty footnotes. Instead, I discovered a world of vibrant, ambitious women who changed history—in hundreds of professions, in thousands of ways. The Victorian era was a time full of extraordinary women.
I was astonished to realize how much we have in common with them. It was joyful, enraging, and exciting to learn about what they went through, and the overwhelming opposition they faced.
Why are their names unfamiliar to most of us?
According to historian Bettany Hughes, women have always been about fifty percent of the population, but we've only been mentioned in 0.5 percent of all recorded human history. Not because we weren't doing anything, but because no one thought it was worth writing down.
Learning about our history is the only way we can fully know ourselves. We have our own heroes to look up to—real, inspiring women who had to find unconventional paths to success.
They deserve to be remembered. And we deserve to be introduced to them.
Here are just a few.
Portrait Gallery
Coming Soon
The Vault
antique postcard from 1905click to enlarge
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“Write the book of your heart” is a phrase I’ve heard ever since I first started writing. For a long time I took it to mean “write books you love.” I inhabited my writing career the way you live in a house, redecorating and remodeling, bringing in new things, tossing out what didn’t work anymore.
Then came the spring of 2020, an especially wet and muddy season in Washington State. My husband and I were still reeling from the death of two close friends. Our daughter had come home after her college had switched to online-only classes. The three of us were watching a comedy on some streaming channel, and every time I laughed, I started coughing. Which had been happening a lot lately. I put a hand up to my throat, and felt a lump. It didn’t seem real. My daughter and I spent the rest of the night Googling medical information, seizing on every possible not-cancer explanation we could find.
But no amount of inspired magical thinking could make it not cancer. This was right when Covid was shifting into high gear and hospitals were overrun, so…yeah. My timing sucked. I ended up having a thyroidectomy and thymectomy. Thankfully the cancer hadn’t spread anywhere, and a skilled surgeon removed all of it, and I came home with a take-these-forever prescription for thyroid medication.
In the months of recovery and isolation that followed, I was forced to slow down and reflect. After you face the possibility that your time has run out, you’re never quite the same. Every now and then, the awareness of mortality is like a ghostly but friendly pat on your shoulder. It makes you appreciate things. It also makes you regret the risks you should have taken.
The great thing about genre writing is that it forces you to be inventive within constraints. Now, however, I couldn’t help pushing past that disciplined structure. I felt driven to write a novel in which romantic love was a powerful part of the journey—but not the entire journey. My characters would fall in love, but they would also have other dreams and ambitions, and other reasons to yearn and fear. There would be pain, loss, hope, and redemption. I would explore—as fully as I could—what it was like to be a young woman in the Victorian era, who doesn’t want the path the world has laid out for her.
It took me some time to become acquainted with Reina Martin, an illegitimate young woman, raised in isolation, who (in her mother’s words) becomes “queen of her own castle.” But not by marrying a prince. Reina has had to build her own castle, brick by brick. And she wants to help other women get ahead, even though society is determined to keep them all dependent.
Writing the book of my heart turned out to be exhilarating, and scary, and difficult. Most often it was humbling. Researching the women of the Victorian era, becoming familiar with their struggles and triumphs, was like having a conversation across time. I learned so much from them. They fought impossible battles so we wouldn’t have to. And yet here we are, looking at ground we’ve lost and wondering if we’ll ever recover it.
But I know they would understand. We’ve seen it before, they would say to us. We lived through it. This isn’t failure … it’s just the work we all have to do. They can’t define you when they don’t even know who you are. Don’t let anyone make your life small—inhabit every corner of it.
