Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord: A Mystery

Written by Celeste Connally

Narrated by Eilidh Beaton

"Beaton casts a spell on listeners as she disappears into the aristocratic and working-class characters. Shifting tempo, she captures the fear of the women as they become helpless pawns manipulated by the evil doctor."—AudioFile

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—uncovering a private asylum where men pay to have their wives and daughters locked away, or worse. 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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: Nov 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781250291639

Celeste Connally

CELESTE CONNALLY is an Agatha Award nominee, and a former freelance writer and editor. A lifelong devotee of historical novels and adaptations fueled by her passion for history—plus weekly doses of PBS Masterpiece—Celeste loves reading and writing about women from the past who didn’t always do as they were told.

Reviews for Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord

[Lisa Ryan-Herndon · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fantastic first in a series; terrific narrative performance & fun!

[Emily Lassiter Branch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm a sucker for a Regency romance. I'm a sucker for a mystery. So a Regency-era romantic mystery should be right up my alley. And mostly, this one was. The one thing that gave me pause when reading the description, and with current historical romances in general, is when 21st century sensibilities crop up in a 19th century setting. It's a fine line for me - I don't need a documentary, but I also don't want to feel like characters have time-traveled from 2023 to 1815. Lady Petra came dangerously close to becoming that type character for me here, but didn't quite cross the line.
I often say that the first book in a series is rarely the best of the series - a lot of time is spent setting up the characters, the background, basically the world-building for the series is happening in that first book. And again, there was a lot of time spent on that in the early chapters of this book. Perhaps too many characters were mentioned early on, at times when they were mentioned again later I had trouble remembering why they'd been mentioned previously. But at some point the world-building faded to the background and the mystery and romance moved to the forefront and the book became much more engaging. The mystery, which is very much rooted in some horrific practices from the 18th and 19th century (and frankly, also the 20th) - wasn't too much of a surprise to me as a reader, but still it was compelling. The romance takes a while to heat up, but it does show up near the end (though the attraction is there all along). And then we have quite the cliffhanger at the end. I'll definitely give book two a go - hoping that things will get going more quickly now that the world-building aspect has been established. I'll add that I listened to the audiobook version, and the narration by Eilidh Beaton was delightful. She was a new-to-me narrator, but I'd absolutely listen to more books with her narration.
Thanks to Netgalley, St. Martin's Press, and Macmillan Audio for providing copies for an unbiased review.