Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord

2023 • 247 pages

Ratings3

Average rating3.7

Bridgerton meets Agatha Christie in Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord, a dazzling first entry in a captivating new Regency-era mystery series with a feminist spin from Celeste Connally. London, 1815. Lady Petra Forsyth, daughter of the Earl of Holbrook, has made a shocking proclamation. After losing her beloved fiancé in an accident three years earlier, she announces in front of London’s loosest lips that she will never marry. A woman of independent means—and rather independent ways—Petra sees no reason to cede her wealth and freedom to any man now that the love of her life is gone. Instead, she plans to continue enjoying the best of society without any expectations. But when ballroom gossip suggests that a longtime friend has died of a fit due to her “melancholia” while in the care of a questionable physician, Petra vows to use her status to dig deeper. Just as Petra has reason to believe her friend is alive, a shocking murder proves more danger is afoot than she thought. And the more determined Lady Petra becomes in uncovering the truth, the more her own headstrong actions and desire for independence are used against her, putting her own freedom—and possibly her life—in jeopardy.

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Genre

Fiction

Series

Featured Series

2 primary books

Lady Petra Inquires

Lady Petra Inquires is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 2023 with contributions by Celeste Connally.

Popular Reviews

Reviews with the most likes.

Lauren

2.5 and rounding up.
This was a slow start for me, but once we got got a few chapters in I was invested to keep going. The premise was a very compelling idea, but overall I felt disappointed with our heroine. It felt like she was suppose to be this empowered and enlightened feminist, but that kept falling short for me with the wild assumptions she kept making about Duncan. Her absolute refusal to confront that situation head on or have a simple conversation to clear things up was absolutely infuriating and the antithesis of what someone trying to solve a mystery would do. It was hard for me to take her seriously as an MC because it felt like that was a purposeful obstacle to serve the book rather than something the character would do.

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I've always been interested learning more about how women have been declared hysterical and institutionalized as a way of controlling them and with the recent #FreeBritney movement this topic feels very relevant to explore in fiction. I wish there was even more involved with exploring this, and the ending felt very tidy which is not surprising for the genre but a bit meh for me as a reader. The final line really made me roll my eyes. Because now we are going to have a whole second book doing main grievance I voiced in this review. The lack of communication and honesty with Duncan. Hard pass for me.