In 1864 Bristol, England, Miss Helen “Nelly” Brooks, first female reporter at the Courier, yearns to dig into meaty investigations but is limited to writing domestic pieces for the women’s page. So when she gets a note from a woman claiming knowledge of a “dreadful murder,” Nelly feels she’s struck gold. Seamstress Eliza Morgan, huddled in a green shawl in the saloon bar where they meet, tells a fantastic story that feels like a scam: a prominent man’s wife and newborn have been killed, but she won’t reveal their identity to Nelly, or the woman’s secret diary, without being paid. Eliza also has a healthy appetite for gin and claims to have seen the murdered woman’s ghost. The next day, Eliza’s body is found floating in the harbour: had she fallen in drunk, or was she offed by the man she claims was following her? Now there are three people for whom Nelly feels pressed to seek justice.

Douglas draws on Nellie Bly’s real-life story—Nelly’s American counterpart from a generation later—while creating a kaleidoscopic tour through Victorian fiction tropes. We have séances, body snatching, mistreatment of women by powerful men, Upstairs/Downstairs relationships, and a manor house full of secrets. Many character names (Mr. Snitch, Mrs. Augur) feel rather Dickensian. Unlike Miss Bly, who went undercover in an asylum, our Nelly has survived one, having been incarcerated for a decade by her parents after bearing her lover’s illegitimate daughter. The novel is highly derivative of many sources, but when it homes in on the central mystery, the plot grabs hold, continuing through its surprising resolution. While reckless at times (accompanying your main suspect into his carriage isn’t super smart), Nelly’s determination to regain her child is laudable, and the setting—Bristol rather than the typical London—adds originality.

From the Historical Novels Review, August 2025.

The Emerald Shawl by Louise Douglas is a sad, haunting and tense story.
The premise of the story is that a female reporter trying to make her mark as the first, is chasing a scandalous rumour that a very important gentleman has murdered his wife. A seamstress, who becomes close friends to wife number two, is beside herself with rage and grief about her friend’s death. This woman meets Nelly, tells her all she knows, and promises to meet up the following morning with evidence to prove what she’s saying is true, leaving behind her emerald shawl gifted to her by her late friend. . Nelly will pay her some money so she can catch the train out that morning. She’s scared for her life . The following morning she’s pulled out of the water, drowned. She’d said too much.
I found the plot, characters and ending really gripping. The atmosphere built up as more bad things happened.
Maybe there could be more stories featuring Nelly? Although she’s in a male dominated world, she’s not treated too unfairly until something goes wrong……. Nelly is a very complex character, and we find out a lot there. All in all, this story is really good!
Many thanks to Boldwood Books for the opportunity to read this arc copy via Netgalley. My opinion is my own.
#Netgalley, #TheBoldBookClub, #LouiseDouglas3.

Set in Victorian Bristol, The Emerald Shawl is a superb novel full of mystery, suspense and investigative charm.

The author has so accurately depicted the world in which women lived in this era. Women didn’t have choices; their paths were directed by men (their fathers and husbands) and by societal expectations.
I was rooting for Nelly throughout the entire book. She is such an endearing character, who has suffered injustices of her own, yet she has a determined spirit, a strong sense of independence and a desire to help others.

The author’s writing is so atmospheric. I was able to feel a vivid sense of time and place in the darkness of Bristol’s docks, the eerie silence of Arnos Vale cemetery, and the old corridors of Mordaunt Hall.

The plot is so cleverly crafted and I was as keen as Nelly to uncover the truth.
The Emerald Shawl is a real page-turner and I loved it!

This is set in Bristol in 1864, around the time the Clifton Suspension
Bridge was opened. Nelly Brooks is a female reporter for a newspaper but is confined to articles connected to women’s interests. She longs to be able to report on more serious stories. However, this is a time when men hold the sway in most things and the female mind is not thought capable of handling certain topics. Nelly is nothing if not determined and when she knows she has a story in the making, nothing will stop her. She does have help from a fellow journalist, Will. Will is such a lovely character and would like to become more to Nelly. Nelly gets herself into a number of dangerous situations and there are some evil people involved. Some people who have power and influence. Nelly also has her own troubled background but I was pleased to see things resolved for Nelly and a future to look forward to. This was an engrossing read, I didn’t want to put this book down. I received a copy from have voluntarily reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was a gem of a book, based at a time where woman had very little power, we meet Nelly a female reporter in a male dominated environment where she is expected to to only report happy and light pieces.
Nelly has a tough background but her determination is brilliant, such a great character.
I’m hoping we will see Nelly again it would make a great series, I loved being transported back in time the writing made the surroundings and conditions come alive.
Full of mystery a great read

Thank you for having me on the tour

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This is a great Victorian era historical mystery. I was riveted from the beginning. A young female reporter wants to deal with content more serious than women’s interest articles. And she gets her opportunity. There are many twists and turns to this suspenseful story as Nelly Brooks investigates several suspected deaths by foul play. She even goes undercover. All is not as it seems. The puzzle pieces slowly fit together and all is revealed. The 1860s city life and the characters are well portrayed by the author. It’s an interesting and intriguing tale.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4 out of 5 stars)

The Emerald Shawl is a rich, atmospheric historical mystery with a strong, determined heroine you can’t help but root for. Set in 1864 Bristol, this book follows Nelly Brooks, a young reporter stuck writing a women’s column- until a mysterious woman in a green shawl brings her a story too big to ignore: a supposed childbirth death that may actually be murder. When that same woman is found dead the next day, Nelly refuses to let it go, even if it means putting her own life, and her hopes of reuniting with her estranged daughter, at risk.

What makes this story shine isn’t just the twisty murder plot (though that kept me turning the pages), but Nelly herself. She’s a mix of grit, vulnerability, and relentless drive. Her past, being institutionalized as a teen for getting pregnant, losing her daughter, and being constantly dismissed in a man’s world, adds real emotional weight to the story. Her journey to find the truth and reclaim her own life is as compelling as the mystery she’s trying to solve.

I also loved the setting, Victorian Bristol is beautifully drawn, and it’s refreshing to get a break from the usual London backdrop. There’s a great balance of social commentary, suspense, and character-driven storytelling. While the pacing lagged just slightly in the middle and I wouldn’t have minded a touch more gothic atmosphere, it was still a satisfying, immersive read.

Highly recommend this one if you like historical fiction with smart, resilient female leads, a bit of danger, and a mystery that unfolds at just the right pace. I’d definitely read more Nelly Brooks if this turns into a series, she’s a character with more stories to tell.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

An absolutely terrific read - exactly what I would expect from this author.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Nelly is breaking stereotypes by getting a job at the local paper. Although she is kept firmly in her place writing for the women's pages, she is contacted by a young woman with a story for her. When the same person turns up floating in the docks the next day, Nelly finds that she can't let it go - not even when she knows it's not the kind of story the paper will let her write . . .

I'm a firm fan of all of this author's novels. At the start of each one, I know I'm in for a treat and this one did not disappoint. I read on long after I should have been in the land of nod and couldn't wait to continue the next day. A beautiful read, well written with a great cast of characters and a firm storyline. Highly recommended and most definitely meriting all five glowing stars.

My thanks to the publisher for my arc via NetGalley.

This is not a cozy mystery, what it is, is atmospheric, mysterious, and a determined women who had a rough start in life and then proceeds to solve a mystery. It's was a great read. It was hard to get started but once you do it's hard to put down.

This is my third book by this author and she has certainly grown on me. The two I have previously read were very atmospheric and this one was no different. I found myself walking down 19th century Bristol with Nelly, our main character, and loved the descriptions of places like the Christmas Steps, enough to make me want to visit the city. Nelly’s life was full of struggles, which started at a young age, and I couldn’t help championing her. Her move into journalism in what, at the time, was a man’s world was commendable and it showed how just how much women had to fight for equality during that time. If you enjoy an historical novel with atmosphere, murder and secrets then you will like this book. Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for letting me read and review this book.

1864 in Bristol, England

Nelly was a reporter, but she was given the column to write about women, not exciting stories of everyday life.

When she received news of the murder, she knew it was the story of a lifetime. A story that could change everything in her life. She might even get her daughter, Harriet, back.

Nelly met with Eliza, who told her that the wife and baby of a prominent man had been murdered. When Eliza's body was found in the river the next day, Nelly knew she had to investigate both cases.

Little did she know, however, that she would put herself in danger and even lose her daughter before she could get her back.

Nelly was persistent, ambitious, and dreamed of reclaiming her daughter, who had been taken from her shortly after birth. She was only fifteen when her family took Harriet away and sent Nellie to a mental institution.

This was the story of a woman who fought for her daughter, for her dreams, for justice, and for the truth.

It was an interesting and quick read. This book captivated me enough that I couldn't put it down. I was expecting a more gothic atmosphere and some kind of suspenseful twist that would have added a bit more depth to the story.
Would I recommend this book to others? Yes. If you like mysteries, you'll definitely enjoy it.

I’d forgotten how much I love reading Louise Douglas! I’ve read four of her books and particularly enjoyed the du Maurier-inspired The Secrets Between Us, but then I seemed to lose track and missed all of her more recent ones. The Emerald Shawl turned out to be the perfect choice for my return to her work.

The novel opens in Bristol in 1864, with journalist Nelly Brooks meeting a woman in a green shawl by the docks. Nelly’s ‘journalism’ amounts to writing a women’s column for the Courier, giving advice on cooking, cleaning and decorating, which is all her editor will allow her to do. She hasn’t given up on her dream of becoming a serious news reporter like her male colleagues, however, and when Eliza Morgan, the woman in the shawl, tells her of the murder of the wife and newborn child of an important man, Nelly is sure she’s found the story she’s been hoping for. When Eliza herself is found floating lifeless in the river the next day, Nelly doesn’t believe the verdict that it was an accidental drowning. She’s convinced that Eliza was murdered and that she is the only person who may be able to find out who killed her.

The mystery is the main focus of the book, but Nelly’s personal life is also interesting. Having become pregnant at the age of fifteen, she spent several years in an asylum, sent there by her parents who found it preferable to admitting that she’d had an illegitimate child. Nelly has had no contact with her daughter – or her parents – since the baby was removed from her after the birth, but she has now discovered that twelve-year-old Hannah is attending a school near Nelly’s place of work. As well as investigating Eliza’s death, Nelly also sets out to find a way to bring Hannah back into her life.

The characters in the book range from the very wealthy, such as the politician Sir Edward Fairfield and his wife, for whom Eliza Morgan worked as a seamstress, to the working class Skinners, who are drawn into the mystery when their daughter’s body is stolen from the morgue. Although both families live in Bristol, they may as well be in different worlds and Nelly has to navigate between the two.

I found it interesting to learn after finishing the book that Douglas based Nelly’s character on the American journalist Nellie Bly, who went undercover to report on conditions inside a mental institution. The fictional Nelly’s own experience of mental institutions allows Douglas to explore issues around mental health and how ‘insanity’ could be used as a convenient way of dealing with people seen as problematic. I also loved the Victorian Bristol setting, which made a nice change from the usual Victorian London settings! The building of the Clifton Suspension Bridge is completed during the course of the novel, an important event in Bristol’s history which helps set the story in a wider historical context.

I hope Louise Douglas will return to Nelly Brooks in a future book as I think there’s a lot of scope to do more with the character. If not, I still have plenty of her earlier novels to enjoy!

It took me a while to get into this one but it was worth persevering. It is interesting to read about women’s struggles for equality and acceptance in the framework of a novel rather than as a factual text. Nelly is the first woman journalist and must carve a path for herself in a men only world. She follows and uncovers a murder that only she believes in, her informant being a poor seamstress who was also murdered. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

After a hard start following giving birth at just 15 and then being locked up by her parents, saved by her aunt. Nelly still longs for her daughter, but is determined to make her own way. She has managed to get a job working with a newspaper in Bristol. However, this is Victorian England so she is only able to write on women’s stories, not the news she wishes to cover.
One day she meets a woman with a story to tell, she is carrying a beautiful emerald shawl she was given by a young woman. This woman and her child have been killed. Nelly senses a story, even more so when the young woman is fishes out of the harbour, dead.
I enjoyed reading this book and following Nelly as she follows the story. My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the arc.

I struggled with this book. While it was very well written with interesting characters I didn’t enjoy it . Just not a genre I enjoy …a bit too dark

Many thanks to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for an advance copy of this novel.

The emerald shawl of the title is the principal key to the mystery that young reporter Nelly Brooks, hired by the Bristol Courier to report on domestic issues, sets out to solve. It was gifted to seamstress Eliza Morgan, who sewed for the beautiful young wife of a nasty member of the House of Lords. Pregnant with the child that the much older Earl desperately wanted—in hopes that the baby would be his sole male heir after the death of his first wife—she died suddenly in childbirth. The baby boy was stillborn. This was in no way unusual in Victorian Britain, especially in filthy industrial towns like Bristol. Nelly agreed to meet Eliza at a dockside tavern, where, while drinking heavily, she related her suspicions that both wives and the baby were murdered.

Abject poverty had made Eliza shrewd and quick to demand a fair price. Known to have a drinking problem, she had several gins on Nelly’s bill during their meeting, but revealed only a few select details. The bait was a promise to turn over the deceased woman’s diary for a price far higher than Nelly could afford. But a story like this one, if the promised evidence was in hand, could elevate Nelly’s career. She could finally put aside the stultifying writing of trite household advice to entice middle-class women to read their husbands’ newspaper.

They agreed to meet again when Nelly had found a way to meet the price. Eliza departed for another appointment, forgetting the shawl. Nelly took it home, thinking to return it quickly. The next morning, Elizabeth was identified as the drowned, probably drunk, woman who had fallen into the dirty waters of the dock only steps from the tavern. This story also made perfect sense. But not for Nelly. Did someone go after Eliza to shut her up about the earl’s dead wife and child? Perhaps about both dead wives? What role did the earl’s adult stepdaughter, inherited from his first marriage, have in all this? Was Nelly now also in danger?

By making her one of Britain’s first female journalists, the author is modelling her Nelly Brooks on the famous historical character Nellie Bly. Bly was an intrepid reporter, women’s rights supporter, and champion of better treatment of the poor, especially mothers and children. Like Nelly Brooks, she was also ruthless in her pursuit and exposure of the truth.

It is this dogged determination that propels Nelly. She had suffered her own loss of a child, born to her at the age of 15, to be raised by her well-off parents as their own. When she told her parents of her plan to support herself and take back her baby, they spirited the child to a hidden location and cut off all contact with her. Finding her daughter, almost ten by the time Nelly has settled in Bristol, becomes another of the mysteries that she is driven to unravel.

And then there is the handsome young reporter who shows her great kindness in the office and would like to be her friend as well as her colleague. She likes him but, not surprisingly, doesn’t want romantic involvement. She also wonders whether his offers of help in finding out whether the suspected murders were connected and why, and whether the earl was behind one or both, are just his attempts to ‘scoop’ her story in the highly competitive press environment.

These interwoven strands make the book suspenseful and compelling but they are also somewhat confusing for a short novel. In particular, the heartbreaking story about the search for her daughter takes the reader away from the main story. But the character of Nellie Brooks, as well as the setting of the misogynistic press and the larger society, are so finely drawn that I can highly recommend this excellent historical mystery.

My rating:

Plot: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Writing: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Character development: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Recommended for readers of:

Historical Fiction
Mystery and Suspense


Review:

This book takes you back to the Edwardian England a very different time where women still had few rights. The main character Nelly Brooks is a strong woman who is determent to forge a life for herself despite the restrictions and limits set by society or her job.. As one of the few female reporters of the time with a strong sense of justice, she is determent to investigate when a source tells her about a possible murder cover up, Things turn more serious when the source is found dead the next day.

The book is well written, atmospheric and full of intrigue. The story flows well and has the right amount of mystery and suspense that makes it hard to put the book down. The characters are well developed; their personalities were explained with enough detail so that they felt realistic.

Overall:

This is an interesting story that captures you from the beginning, with realistic characters and the right amount of mystery and suspense.

Review copy provided through Netgalley at no cost to me.

Set in the 1860’s this is a very different genre for this talented author but one which magically brought to life the strength of a woman fighting for truth. Our protagonist, Nelly, an aspiring journalist is the sole woman at the paper where she has been given a job writing a dedicated column for women. She has a very troubled past which she is hiding from people and a fierce desire to tell the truth. When she meets seamstress Eliza and hears a tale of the murder of a woman and her infant child Nelly is faced with the question of how does she prove this and what has happened to poor Eliza.

Hauntingly told and the descriptions of the Bristol area at the time and of the huge cast of characters is wonderfully written. The sinister character of the watcher and the evil men who seem to hide behind their wealth are so easy to imagine. As a protagonist Nelly is a huge part of the success of the book and one which invites the reader to hope for her to succeed both personally and professionally. I hope we will see more of her story in a future book.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Dark and broody atmospheric setting in 1860's Bristol. Full of fog, rain and the dark waters of the port. A great thriller featuring the plucky Nelly. Several twists and unexpected turns to keep the reader engrossed. Another great novel by the author.

The seamstress is found in the darkened docks, floating, silenced. Those who found her are sure it must be a tragic accident, probably the result of too many drinks in a nearby public house. But journalist Nelly Brooks recognises the dead woman immediately – Nelly has her emerald shawl in her bag. Very exciting, gripping from the start, historical fiction at its best. The author never ever disappoints me, this a story of 1800s, how much support Nelly gets being a lady journalist in the world ruled by men. Definitely, recommending this beautiful book to everyone for the love of historical fiction.