Margins
Queen of Lombard Street book cover
Queen of Lombard Street
2026
First Published
384
Number of Pages

From New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas—a sweeping, richly layered Victorian novel about a trailblazing female economist who’s determined to build Britain’s first women’s bank, but she must fight both financial corruption and a system intent on destroying the newly found family she’s created. 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?

Author

Lisa Kleypas
Lisa Kleypas
Author · 66 books
LISA KLEYPAS is the RITA award-winning author of 21 novels. Her books are published in fourteen languages and are bestsellers all over the world. She lives in Washington State with her husband and two children.
548 Market St PMB 65688, San Francisco California 94104-5401 USA
© 2026 Paratext Inc. All rights reserved