January 1, 2024
Living in reduced circumstances, Miss Jane Halliwell is governess to Viscount and Lady Guilford's 16-year-old daughter. Jane's fall from society was preceded by the death of her father and the loss of her dowry due to his gambling debts. Jane, refusing to play the poor relation, works on a novel in hopes of becoming self-sufficient. When the viscount hosts a secretive meeting with international attendees on behalf of the Foreign Office, Jane and her charge are intrigued by the arrival of handsome Lord Adrian Fielding--the same man who was working alongside Jane's father in Italy when he died and who seemed all too eager to flee to his next assignment to avoid the embarrassment of their connection. When Jane discovers the viscount dead in his study, she is asked to act as hostess while the police and Adrian investigate who could have killed him. Adrian, unaware of Jane's perception of his Italian departure, is determined to keep her safe during the summit while finding the viscount's murderer. VERDICT Recommended for fans of Evie Dunmore, Collins's fourth "Ladies Most Scandalous" book (after A Spinster's Guide to Danger and Dukes) is a fast-paced, fun romp.--Nicole J. Suarez
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January 22, 2024
A governess reunites with her former crush in Collins’s addictive fourth Ladies Most Scandalous Victorian romance (after A Spinster’s Guide to Danger and Dukes). Following her father’s untimely death, Jane Halliwell is forced to take a job as governess to the daughter of Viscount and Lady Gilford. When the viscount is murdered while hosting a symposium for diplomats at his London townhouse, Lord Adrian Fielding, an agent of the Foreign Office and a man Jane adored in her youth, works to find the killer. Sparks fly between Adrian and Jane as her puppy love turns into a much more adult attraction. Though Adrian wants to keep Jane safe from the killer, she is determined to help in the investigation—especially when they learn her father may have been murdered by the same criminal they’re chasing. Collins adeptly balances suspense and passion as she steadily amps up both. The result is a genuine page-turner. Agent: Holly Root, Root Literary.
February 15, 2024
As a governess, Jane Halliwell knows her place, and if she doesn't, her employer Lady Gilford is more than happy to point it out to her. So Jane figures Lady Gilford must be desperate when she asks Jane to fill in for a dinner guest who canceled at the last minute. Jane is in for an even bigger surprise when she discovers one of the other guests is none other than Adrian Fielding, the man who shattered her romantic hopes and dreams five years earlier. Just when dinner is about to end, however, one of the other guests, a diplomat attending a botanical symposium given by Lord Gilford, is found murdered in Lord Gilford's study. While Adrian might think that a governess involving herself in a murder investigation is madness, Jane is more than happy to prove to him that she is no mere governess. With the latest cleverly crafted addition to her Victorian-set Ladies Most Scandalous series, Collins creatively fashions another beguiling historical romance enlivened with a dash of intriguing mystery and a dollop of deliciously dry wit.
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February 15, 2024
Collins adds another heroine to her Ladies Most Scandalous Series, featuring a coterie of free-thinking Regency ladies who are dedicated criminologists. Jane Halliwell's father, a British ambassador to Rome, died by suicide, and the Foreign Office hushed it up. Mr. Halliwell, it seemed, had lost a fortune at the gaming tables. His wife and daughter, disgraced and penniless, were forced to leave Italy. Mrs. Halliwell was taken in by a Scottish cousin, who had room only for one, so Jane became a governess to the family of her father's old colleague Viscount Gilford. In the guise of a weeklong international symposium to study advances in horticulture, Gilford has invited the future ruler of Roskovia--from whom the British hope to buy a cutting-edge communications machine--to stay at his home in London and planned a formal dinner. In a satisfying literary device, a reluctant Jane is ordered to leave the schoolroom when a guest sends her regrets and Lady Gilford requires an extra woman to keep an even count at table. Also attending is "breathtakingly handsome" Lord Adrian Fielding, who was Jane's girlhood crush when he was a young diplomat in Rome. He notices she is no longer a girl, and she learns how deeply he regrets having had to leave her family at their time of need. After dinner, asked to fetch a shawl for Lady Gilford, Jane finds the viscount in his study with a knife through his chest. Scotland Yard DI Eversham (whose wife is co-author of the newspaper column "A Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem") tells Jane and Adrian that Gilford was found with a quotation from Machiavelli's The Prince in his pocket, along with a pressed rose. Jane suddenly remembers that her father was also found with Machiavelli and a pressed rose among his belongings--which means that her father did not die by suicide. The sleuths discover that another diplomat who was in Rome at the same time also died mysteriously with a similar quotation and flower. The pair's passion for uncovering the identity of the serial killer charges and embraces their deepening passion for each other. Collins' crime/romance combination continues to be a fun and successful formula.
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