I was immediately pulled into Daisy Goodwin’s new novel, The Fortune Hunter, simply by the fact that the young protagonist, Charlotte Baird, is a photographer and photocollagist. But of course its merits extend far beyond this. Set in Victorian England, The Fortune Hunter employs a number of historical figures from the era such as the Queen herself, Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sisi) who was also the Queen of Hungary and Captain Bay Middleton, among many others. Goodwin’s historical research for this work is impressive and her storytelling quite captivating. I essentially didn’t want it to end. And if you’ve not read her other novel, The American Heiress (St. Martin’s Press, 2012), you really should.