This Victorian romance is a winner, weaving social history, intrigue, and humor with falling in love.
A double mystery involving London’s seamy underbelly turns a marriage of inconvenience into a love match in this multilayered historical romance.
In the London jungle, Penelope “Nell” Trewlove and Miles Quincey are natural adversaries until shared threats turn them into allies. A senior teacher at 23, Nell has considered the Benevolent Academy for the Betterment of Young Ladies her home and salvation since she was 4 years old. Relentless newspaper editor Miles hopes that uncovering the secrets of the isolated charity school and “home for dangerous revolutionaries” could revive his plummeting readership after his last investigative series took down a popular politician and aristocrat. When he demands that the school send a representative to London or he will come to them, the headmistress dispatches Nell to keep him outside their gates. With humor and attention to historical detail, Matthews skillfully explores every dimension of their awkward meet-cute and evolution, down to how Nell’s sartorial choices reflect the constraints and dangers of being a woman in 1864. The youthful “goddess” with the face and figure of a “sultry angel” who shows up at the London Courant shrouded in an all-black widow’s uniform with a veil and an enormous crinoline was not what Miles expected. Nell knew her costume conferred “a degree of respect not offered to unaccompanied young ladies.” She and her colleagues donned crinolines, those “controversial cage-like” undergarments, “like armor.” A woman so encased “demanded space…in every sphere through which she traveled.” And yet, in a deft bit of irony, a crinoline also precipitates Nell’s loss of power. When Miles’ cat gets entangled in the elaborate netting, Miles tries to free the mischievous animal and gets caught by one of the most judgmental clergymen in the city looming over Nell while she lay on the floor with her skirts above her knees. To save their reputations and livelihoods, Nell and Miles enter a hasty marriage arrangement that morphs into true partnership as they investigate the suspicious disappearances of her new pupil and his reporter in London’s seamier environs.
This Victorian romance is a winner, weaving social history, intrigue, and humor with falling in love.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593639313
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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