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Queen of Lombard Street
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In Victorian England, no woman—not even a brilliant economist like Reina Martin—is allowed to open her own bank account. Men will take care of everything, women are told. But Reina knows better. As the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish immigrant mother, she’s haunted by the memory of living with unpaid grocer’s bills and no coal for the hearth. So together with her mentor, the powerful banker William Farlow, Reina will build the first all-women’s bank, where women can manage their own financial security. At home, Reina’s domestic staff of recently paroled prisoners are building new lives and becoming a found family. But soon Reina is shocked to discover that her enigmatic butler, John Pembroke, is an undercover police detective. He’s been assigned to investigate Farlow, who’s suspected of financial crime on a scale so massive, it could destabilize the British economy. Pembroke needs Reina’s expertise for a high-stakes nighttime heist to obtain incriminating evidence. Now Reina faces the agonizing choice of betraying her mentor or turning her back on thousands of working-class families who stand to lose everything. Either way, her dream of the women’s bank may be over. But courage and sacrifice aren’t limited to the battlefield—they also occur at the kitchen table, where women who believe in compassion and community are working to remake the future. And when the stakes are highest, Reina knows to trust her heart as well as her intellect. Based on real-life trailblazers such as Mary Paley Marshall, Britain’s first female economist, and financial titan Hetty Green, Queen of Lombard Street brings to light the hidden history of extraordinary women whose achievements should be celebrated. How can we know who we are, if we don’t know who we were?
PublisherAvon
ISBN9780063247642
Published2026
PublisherAvon
ISBN9780063247642
Published2026
Queen of Lombard Street
Create a free account to read
Sign up free and get 2 books every month. No card needed.
In Victorian England, no woman—not even a brilliant economist like Reina Martin—is allowed to open her own bank account. Men will take care of everything, women are told. But Reina knows better. As the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish immigrant mother, she’s haunted by the memory of living with unpaid grocer’s bills and no coal for the hearth. So together with her mentor, the powerful banker William Farlow, Reina will build the first all-women’s bank, where women can manage their own financial security. At home, Reina’s domestic staff of recently paroled prisoners are building new lives and becoming a found family. But soon Reina is shocked to discover that her enigmatic butler, John Pembroke, is an undercover police detective. He’s been assigned to investigate Farlow, who’s suspected of financial crime on a scale so massive, it could destabilize the British economy. Pembroke needs Reina’s expertise for a high-stakes nighttime heist to obtain incriminating evidence. Now Reina faces the agonizing choice of betraying her mentor or turning her back on thousands of working-class families who stand to lose everything. Either way, her dream of the women’s bank may be over. But courage and sacrifice aren’t limited to the battlefield—they also occur at the kitchen table, where women who believe in compassion and community are working to remake the future. And when the stakes are highest, Reina knows to trust her heart as well as her intellect. Based on real-life trailblazers such as Mary Paley Marshall, Britain’s first female economist, and financial titan Hetty Green, Queen of Lombard Street brings to light the hidden history of extraordinary women whose achievements should be celebrated. How can we know who we are, if we don’t know who we were?
Lisa Kleypas
1 book in our catalog
Lisa Kleypas was born in 1964 in Texas, USA, but when she was only a year old her family moved to Massachusetts, where she grew up with her brother Ki. At 12, Lisa read her first romance novel "The Flame and the Flower" by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. And during the summer she was 16, she wrote her first manuscript and her parents sent her to a romance writers' conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where she decided be a romance writer. She studied a political science degree at the Wellesley College, where she met Hillary (Rodham) Clinton. Lisa, who for years wore glasses and dental braces, so she considered herself an ugly duckling, was encouraged by her mother and named Miss Massachusetts in the Miss America competition in 1985. Lisa always loved read romance novels, and during her summer breaks she started to write. Before her graduation, her father said she, that she need obtained a bona fide job, she couldn't spend the rest of her life writing in her parents' basement. Her parents agreed to support her for a few months so that she could finish a manuscript. She ended her novel two months after her gradutation, and she sent the manuscript to an agent, and he called within a day or two, and shortly thereafter it was sold to NAL, when she was only 21. A full-time romance writer since the publishing of her first book. Her books are published in more than fourteen languages and have appeared on bestseller lists such as the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and WaldenBooks. Well-know by her historical romances, many of her novels are setting in the 19th century, in the USA or in the Victorian England, but since 2007, she publishes also contemporany romances. Married since 1986 with Gregory Ellis, Lisa has two children: a son, Griffin and a daughter, Lindsay. The family lives in Washington. She enjoys playing the guitar, reading and cooking (especially elaborate desserts).