Biblio-Mysteries, Lost Books and Forgotten Letters

So, I have been looking for a book for a long time - specifically, that is, the second or third in the series, after I read and enjoyed the first two.

• I knew the protagonist was a female graduate student (History or English, I think) or young-ish professor, at Harvard (definitely the northeast).
• I knew she found some letters or documents (or something like that), and those led to the other story, which was set in the past (seventeenth or eighteenth century).
• There was a guy - maybe Italian? More likely English, but maybe she met him in Italy? Also a scholar. Older? From University of Cambridge, or Oxford.
• She went to England (Cambridge or Oxford) to do further research.
• The cover of the second book (I think; it might have been the first) was sort of a pastel-y watercolor, possibly of a river near some academic looking buildings.
• The name might have something to do with a "Rossetti Key"?

Problem is, that's a lot, but also not a lot to go on.

And I looked for a long time - on and off, mostly off, in my defense - and I couldn't find it. But I think I just did!

By Googling "harvard oxford key sequel mystery historian" I found a link to the New York Public Library's page of "Biblio-Mysteries, Lost Books and Forgotten Letters."

First of all, that is an AWESOME page name, and is going to be the new title of this post (rather than the "success at long last???" that I put already). I love all of those things! Nerdy historians who need some escape-time & are turned on by archives, rejoice...  I kind of want to take some time and peruse the list - but, for now, will settle for "storing" the list (access to it, anyways) here.

Secondly, just skimming down the list, I see that the second entry is for The Devlin Diary.

1. Light colors, and there is a picture of a KEY on the cover!
2. Author is a woman, Christi Phillips - women frequently write books with female leads (and men rarely do), so that's a good sign!
3. The annotation says it's about a "new female fellow at Cambridge college [not sure if that means at U of C, or if it's a fake name for Harvard, although I'm thinking both will figure]" who finds a seventeenth century diary and there is "murder, mystery and intrigue in both the present and the past" - all stuff I thought.
4. Annotation also notes (heh) that it's the sequel to...The Rossetti Letter! Four points for the win!

I need to check if this is the series I am thinking of, but it must be. Then I will check to see if there have been any new developments.

Embarrassingly for me, though, the author's name is suddenly seeming very familiar...like, I think I may have even typed it in as a tag on this blog. Which means that either I could have in theory looked up the damn thing on the blog (which was the whole point of starting it, so I would be able to keep track of my for-fun reading) OR that I have documented this very same quest on the blog (which means just in the couple of years), which is even worse...

I am scared to post this and then check the "Card Catalogue" for Ms. Phillips, but it must be done.

In any case, good to have tracked down the series, and maybe there will be some awesome new books on this NYPL list.

PS - have been in LOVE with the NYPL website recently. They have an amazing wealthy of information (graphics-heavy, in a good way - their digital gallery is insane), well beyond their catalogue. You can really use the site for research, not just as a tool for research, if that makes sense. That is to say, you can learn stuff (and see tons of contemporary documents and art, which is what makes my heart flutter) from the site, not just use it to identify & locate other resources you then need to access. And it looks gorgeous too.

Seriously puts the Boston Public Library's site to shame. Which is a shame. I don't like to concede that NYC can be better than Boston, but they are whipping us, in this case. Just the homepages alone are barely comparable (and we lose the comparison).

PPS - YEP. Totally already had the author and books in here. In June of 2010 I made a specific point of mentioning, and tagging, her in a post I also tagged "books I want to read" so that I would be able to track her down in the future. In my (admittedly weak) defense, the list of "books I want to read" does keep getting longer, so it's not like I ever actually searched that (or remembered it was a tag).