Charleston Post and Courier (SC) - Sunday August 1, 2010
"Who killed Dr. Harvey Burdell? Was it the mistress? The oppressed hired hand? A dastardly business rival?
The conclusion to this murder-mystery might surprise (and frustrate) you. Ellen Horan comes out of the gate with an incredible story of lust, lies and land schemes. And to add to the salaciousness, the characters are based on actual people. Horan dug up a doozy of a story in newspaper articles from the 1850s. Her research led her to weave together a fantastic plot, set against a backdrop of dirty politics surrounding slavery and the Boss Tweed ring. ...Horan's efforts pay off in a spectacular debut novel."

Washington Post – Saturday May 22, 2010
"The story is a blend of historical evidence and fictional imagining, an engrossing read that gains much from the author's historical acuity while making no compromises on narrative pace.
Horan writes eloquently of the rapidly expanding city, contrasting the bustle of the downtown streets and the mansion-building frenzy on Fifth Avenue with the orchards and kitchen gardens of Greenwich Village, where woods tangled with brambles still separated the dwellings from the river. Here, as warehouses and factories crept ever closer, Native Americans endeavored to live as they had always lived, and fugitive slaves evaded capture.
Emma is vividly drawn, a woman determined to protect herself and her two daughters from destitution and only too aware of the limited powers she possesses. No idealized heroine, she is clear-eyed, pragmatic to her fingertips, her predicament that of so many respectable 19th-century women, entirely dependent for their survival upon effecting an advantageous marriage. The extent of her predicament raises the central question of the novel: How far might she be prepared to go to keep herself and her children from being cast out on the street?
Although Emma arouses our sympathy, Henry Clinton, her lawyer, is the true center of the novel. …It's not easy to breathe life into real-life characters, especially when quoting their words extensively from reported sources, but Cunningham and Clinton live on the page as freshly as if they had stepped, new-minted, from Horan's vivid imagination."
-- By Clare Clark

Bookpage - April 1, 2010
"...this thrilling book becomes not only a murder mystery, but a Wharton-esque examination of the mores and customs of antebellum New York society. ...Horan wraps up her story with an ending that one doesn’t see coming, but is perfectly, tragically right. Rich with historical detail, 31 Bond Street is one of the best debut novels in a long while."

Booklist starred review – March 1, 2010
Scandal, social climbing, and corruption in Manhattan during the 1850s come alive in Horan’s historical mystery. Emma Cunningham, a widow with two teenage daughters, becomes financially and emotionally involved with Harvey Burdell, a wealthy dentist and land speculator. Without witnesses, he is murdered brutally in their Bond Street townhouse, and Cunningham is accused of the crime. An ambitious lawyer, Henry Clinton, risks his reputation and livelihood to defend her and solve the crime. Meanwhile, Horan describes living conditions in mid-nineteenth-century Manhattan: government corruption is rampant, Tammany Hall is coming to power, the Fugitive Slave Acts threaten to undo the work of the Underground Railroad, and poverty and wealth run equally rampant. Horan’s characters, like Edith Wharton’s, are motivated by social class and survival in a world ruled by wealth and national uncertainty. This unique look at history and the private lives of those affected by it makes for captivating reading.
-- Heather Paulson

Publishers Weekly – February 1, 2010
"A real-life New York City murder case provides the basis for Horan's impressive fiction debut… Horan alternates deftly between the present and flashbacks to Cunningham's past, capturing both the complex inner lives of her characters and the feel of the times."