BOOK REVIEW: Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord by Celeste Connally

 I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

For some reason, I’ve been reading a rash of books lately centered on the trope of sane women being locked away in asylums when they become inconvenient to men.

In Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord by Celeste Connally, the heroine is Lady Petra Forsyth, daughter of the Earl of Holbrook. Petra is a determined young woman, an excellent horsewoman, independently wealthy, but who lost her fiance/lover three years earlier in a tragic accident. Although her grief has waned over time, no other man could ever win her heart. Nor does she want to be won. Why give up her independence? She announced at a society event that she is determined to remain unmarried.

This doesn’t sit well with the men of the ton who don’t believe in female autonomy. It especially bothers her uncle, her dead mother’s sister, who feels her father has been too lenient in her upbringing and is allowing her to bring shame upon herself.

Petra has no patience with the man and goes about her business in London. There, she is reunited with her childhood friend (and friend of her deceased fiancé), Duncan. They are now estranged and she isn’t sure she trusts him. She also discovers that a dear friend of hers has died. Maybe. A footman insists that he has recently seen her alive.

Petra begins investigating and grows increasingly intrigued and worried as it becomes apparent that numerous aristocratic women are being sent for treatment to a home hidden out in the country, under the care of a Mr. Drysdale. Some of them have died and others are not heard from again, while their husbands jaunt around London looking well-pleased.

Readers familiar with the trope will figure out what is going on before Petra does. And then will go along for the ride as she throws herself into her investigation. She’s brave and feisty, but shows poor judgement often enough to become annoying. (For example, although she knows women are being drugged and carted away, when she is offered wine by a particularly odious, untrustworthy man, and the wine tastes “off” and she starts feeling dizzy, she decides the thing to do is guzzle the glass.) Nevertheless, she sticks to her purpose and, fortunately, can rely on Duncan more than she thought.

This is the first novel in a new series. Although I liked the supporting cast (especially Duncan and Lady Caroline), I’m not drawn in enough by the protagonist to make it likely I’ll return for book two.