{"id":5348,"date":"2023-11-07T06:23:28","date_gmt":"2023-11-07T14:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5348"},"modified":"2023-11-07T06:23:28","modified_gmt":"2023-11-07T14:23:28","slug":"celeste-connally-act-like-a-lady-think-like-a-lord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/celeste-connally-act-like-a-lady-think-like-a-lord\/","title":{"rendered":"Celeste Connally: Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lady Petra Inquires #1<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Joining the now crowded regency mystery field, Celeste Connally manages to make her entry a stand out in her series debut.\u00a0 Set in 1815, Lady Petra Forsyth has declared to all of society that she plans to remain unmarried.\u00a0 Unusually for the time, she has her own monies left to her by her mother, and she\u2019s mourning not only a dead fianc\u00e9 but the loss of her dearest childhood friend, Duncan Shawcross.\u00a0 The two were raised together and parted on a terrible note after the death of Petra\u2019s beloved, who was also Duncan\u2019s best friend.<\/p>\n

It’s now three years later and the two meet up again at a huge ball.\u00a0 They seem determined to remain prickly toward one another (or at least Petra seems determined).\u00a0 More importantly, however, Petra is fending off veiled and not so veiled insults from some of the titled men in her circle regarding her announcement of intentional spinsterhood. \u00a0She\u2019s also puzzled about the recent sudden death of a friend, whom a footman at the ball claims to have seen recently \u2013 after <\/em>her purported death date.\u00a0 This is something Petra wants to pursue.<\/p>\n

Through a series of machinations, she arranges to \u201crun into\u201d the footman on Rotten Row, the daily London perambulation for fancy horses. Petra loves to ride (and even scandalously rides astride in breeches when she\u2019s at home).\u00a0 She does \u201crun into\u201d the footman, but he\u2019s dead, and this launches an entirely new inquiry, colored now by Petra\u2019s guilt as she feels responsible for his death.<\/p>\n

Petra is a fabulous character, a descendant of Deanna Raybourn\u2019s delightful Veronica Speedwell.\u00a0 She knows what she wants and she knows how to go about getting it \u2013 mostly.\u00a0 There would be no story if there weren\u2019t some obstacles, and there are some here. For one thing, there\u2019s her judgy uncle.\u00a0 For another, she\u2019s finding a pattern of missing high born wives, those considered problematic for various reasons, including her dead, or not dead, friend.\u00a0 The more she looks into it, the more alarmed she becomes. It also becomes apparent that as free and strong minded as she might be, in 1815, men were in control of things in every possible way.<\/p>\n

The investigation draws in an assortment of interesting characters, Duncan included, but also a street urchin named Teddy, Petra\u2019s maid, Annie, her best friend, Caroline, and an interesting female herbalist and pharmacist who is drawn into their circle for various reasons which I won\u2019t give away.<\/p>\n

Connally has written a vivid and gripping story, which is one part adventure, one part romance, and one part a look at a horrible underbelly of society, a la Anne Perry.\u00a0 It was so suspenseful toward the end that I couldn\u2019t stop reading.\u00a0 It\u2019s also a lightish but still serious look at the gender-based power divisions in 1815 London.\u00a0 I once heard Laurie King say that writing about the past really means writing about the present, and there are some real echoes of the present here, especially in the societal division Connally is depicting between open minded and more conventional thinkers.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a hard to describe feel of a book that really succeeds in what it\u2019s set out to do.\u00a0 Everything hangs together.\u00a0 It draws the reader in.\u00a0 The story blooms organically, from one plot point to the next. The reader becomes invested in the character or characters, and the writing needs to have just a bit of sparkle.\u00a0 Connally has truly succeeded in delivering a \u00a0sparkling read.\u00a0 —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lady Petra Inquires #1 Joining the now crowded regency mystery field, Celeste Connally manages to make her entry a stand out in her series debut.\u00a0 Set in 1815, Lady Petra Forsyth has declared to all of society that she plans to remain unmarried.\u00a0 Unusually for the time, she has her own monies left to her … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1445,1444,1440,10,1442,100,1446,1276,1441,1443],"class_list":["post-5348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1815-london","tag-act-like-a-lord","tag-celeste-connally","tag-historical","tag-lady-petra-inquires","tag-minotaur-books","tag-missing-women","tag-robin-agnew","tag-series-debut","tag-think-like-a-lady"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5348"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5393,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348\/revisions\/5393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}