Ladies of Market Street by Emily Lear

Ladies of Market Street by Emily Lear is an edgy and fast paced read full of interesting and wonderful characters. Emily Lear’s exceptional storytelling in Ladies of Market Street will keep your eyes riveted to each page. Ladies of Market Street explores the unique familial type bond between a tight knit group of prostitutes and the lengths they will go to protect their “sisters”.

A Gentleman's Urban Myth Within my pages you will find a sisterhood like no other. I hide my soiled doves under the facade of a New York City real-estate agency. Day and night we exploit our access to the vacant apartments throughout the city and make Gentleman’s fantasy’s come true. But to get to my ladies, you must follow my rules. For I am their Madam and they are my family.

Veronica Baldwin grew up knowing she was different, that her family was different. She had a hard time fitting in to the “normal” world around her. When her mother becomes deathly ill she makes her a promise not to follow in her footsteps (not that she was really planning to in the first place). Her only problem is finding her place in the world until she meets a girl in Europe that changes the course of her life forever. Veronica obtains a real estate license and runs a brothel under its guise and all unbeknownst to her boss. She helps rehabilitate prostitutes who are down and out. She “cleans” them up and gives them a place to heal. She even enables them to learn real estate and introduces them to her boss. From there they have a choice to continue on in the lifestyle they are used to or to just acclimate to the “norm”. She takes car of her ladies and they take care of her. After all they are sisters and “chosen family” to one another.

When one of her sisters is stolen by the very people she saved them from Veronica embarks on an escapade to rescue her and expose the people behind the debauchery. During her rescue mission she gets caught herself and her “sister” killed in cold blood as an example to the trapped women of the sex ring. Thinking fast she manages to take down the muscles of the house and together her and the girls take out the others in charge, but not without it effecting her well being.

When Veronica wakes up she finds herself in a hospital bed and enmeshed in an FBI investigation. The FBI wants to know why she was there and if she has any information on the people who ran the sex ring. Veronica along with the FBI continues to investigate the evidence and find out who is responsible for setting for the sex ring. They need to take them down to prevent another one from being set up. It will take all of them. Can they do it? Will their sister’s murderer be brought to justice? Or will the people responsible turn out to be too powerful to take down?

Ladies of Market Street has an array of wonderful characters with distinctive personalities and backgrounds that enrich the story. Ladies of Market Street has a deep and engrossing plot that is thought provoking. It brings light to very real issues that people don’t usually think about everyday. I enjoyed Ladies of Market Street a lot. It also has a little romance weaved into the story as well. Ladies of Market Street is an edge of your seat thriller that will leave you wanting more from Emily Lear. I hope she writes more books in the future.