Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord
by Celeste Connally
This novel has all that most readers expect from a Regency: carriages, horses, a ball scene, sparks and snarks between the heroine and her love interest. There are few clues in the opening chapter to this novel’s Regency-Gothic plot, but get past that and it’s a socially relevant, intriguing tale of women successfully challenging of one of England’s longstanding, deeply inhumane ways of exercising patriarchal power and greed.
Several feisty female secondary characters band together with Our Heroine to rescue their downtrodden compatriots from controlling spouses and fathers, at similar risk to their own limited freedoms. It’s inspiring and refreshing, part of the new wave of Regencies that tackle wider societal problems rather than strictly a het romance.
Those flaws in this opening: dialogue and inner monologues are slightly over-flowery (as is common with neo-Regency novels), setting is generically ‘carriages and balls’ rather than definably Regency-era, and far too many paragraphs are lost interspersing Our Heroine changing her clothes with clumsily introducing (through inane dialogue with her faithful ladies’ maid) characters we’ll meet later. There’s no way to guess from this opening that you’re entering a tale of human frailty, madhouses, and morals that would not be out of place in a Bronte novel.
Available for pre-order to Nov 14, 2023
#Netgalley #Regency #Women
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