Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord - Celeste Connally - ★★.½

AUTHOR: Celeste Connally

NARRATOR: Eilidh Beaton

SERIES: Lady Petra Inquires, #1 

GENRE: Historical Mystery.

RATING: 2.5 stars

In a Nutshell: Would have worked much better had the ladies in the story not assumed “act like a lady” meant “gossip all day long” and “think like a lord” stood for “judge everyone else for what they look like and what they wear and what they do…” This had great potential but the characters sullied my experience.

Story Synopsis:

Suffolk, 1815. After Lady Petra’s beloved fiancé dies just a few weeks before their upcoming nuptials, she is left heartbroken. Even now, three years later, she isn’t interested in marrying anyone else. So she declares, before the elite of London, that she intends to stay unmarried because, as a woman of independent means, she has no need of a husband to support her lifestyle.

During a ball, she discovers that a close friend has passed away two weeks back under mysterious circumstances. But just some minutes later, another person tells her that the friend was spotted just a few days ago. Lady Petra realises that one advantage of being an elite spinster is that she can poke her nose into the mystery and dig out the truth. So that’s exactly what she does.

The story comes to us in Petra’s third person perspective.

Imagine you, an introvert, have entered a party where you know no one. You join the nearest group of friendly-looking ladies, hoping to join in their animated conversation. But you simply don’t get a chance to do so, because the ladies just don’t shut up. On and on and on they talk, remarking on other people’s appearances and relationships and scandals and businesses, until your head starts spinning trying to make sense of the who’s and what’s of the conversation, and wondering what the heck you are doing there.

That was my experience for most of the first half of the book, with me being in the introvert’s shoes. The initial 30-35% is nothing but an extended gossip session with tons of names being dropped and no sign of a concrete plot. The story then incorporates a bit of action, but the gossip doesn’t stop. Rather, the tittle-tattle is present all the way till the end; it only dips and rises in quantum.

Lady Petra is the expected star of the show. This means that she is the best at whatever she sets out to do, no matter how poor her decision-making and how annoying her habit of jumping to conclusions. She acts as opinionated and adamant as she wants to, but no other character can do so without being subject to whispers and rumours. The most irritating aspect of her personality, to me, was her condescending attitude towards those “inferior” to her social station. This might have been accurate to the era, but the way it was written didn’t endear Petra to me, all the more as she didn’t even realise how patronising she sounded. Her second annoying trait was her habit of judging every character by their physical appearance and anatomical attributes, or lack thereof.

Most of the other wealthy women characters have fixed roles to play – either victim or blabbermouth or privileged snoot. The poorer women are stuck as stereotypical maids and housekeepers. The book does the greatest disservice to its male characters, most of whom have only to drink and interact with Petra and talk about women “spreading their legs”. Almost every character is flat, and the ones with a little depth are mostly unlikeable. There is a ‘romance” but it is barely there, which would have made me happy in normal circumstances had the romantic interest not been sketched in such a lacklustre manner.

Gauging such a book on its historical accuracy is not fair as these kind of historical mysteries provide a partially feminist twist to reality. This, I’ll accept as a good writing choice. However, when a character is shown as conservative, the inaccuracies stand out. For instance, if a lady has discovered a dead body and is quite shocked, and her childhood friend suddenly arrives at the scene, the first thing he would do as a gentleman is to steer her away from the body and allay her fears, not stand there and discuss the various stab wounds and figure out who could be behind the attack. It is a challenge not to roll the eyes at such scenes.

What I did like about the book is the theme. Or maybe I should say ‘themes’, because it does attempt to fit in a lot - gender discrimination, women’s rights, queer rights, domestic abuse, racial discrimination, class discrimination, wealth bias,... (Debut novel, so yes, again we have the infamous ‘kitchen sink syndrome’.) Let’s just say, the intent was good.

I also liked the ‘mystery”, though its on-page execution was silly towards the end. It is impossible for me to accept that a potential villain would just stand in front of his next victim and give an extended infodump of his modus operandi and his plans. At the same time, the final resolution seems quite rushed.

Lastly, I wish the person who wrote the blurb had some self-control. Most of the plot is revealed there, including a major chunk of the mystery. What’s the point of reading a mystery novel if the reveal is in the blurb itself?

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 11 hrs 15 min, is narrated by Eilidh Beaton. If ever a narrator could save this book, it is her! I have no doubt that my review would have been even more scathing had I actually read the book instead of having heard it. Beaton imbues the characters with a voice suitable to their personalities. Her performance helped me complete the book.

The series is titled “Lady Petra Inquires”, but practically, Lady Petra gossips, judges, accuses, and still comes out on top of everything. Officially, this is supposed to be a “Bridgerton meets Agatha Christie…, a dazzling first entry in a terrific new Regency-era mystery series with a feminist spin.” Mentioning Agatha Christie here has to be a joke of the highest order. And simply having a historical setting doesn’t make a book “Bridgerton”! How is a romcom series being compared to a mystery?

This is the first of a planned series. Most of the plot threads come to a conclusion without cliffhangers. What little is left untied is too trivial to be worrisome. Of course, it goes without saying that my journey with this series ends right at the starting point. If you are a more forgiving soul or someone who enjoys salacious gossip-mongering in fiction (or reality), kindly do give this a try.

2.5 stars; the grace marks are only for the narrator.

My thanks to NetGalley, Minotaur Books for the DRC, and Macmillan Audio for the ALC of “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.