“But if you hadn’t broken things off, we might not have found our way to this perfect moment,” Val said, his eyes smiling down at her.
She thought about his words for the barest second.
Maybe he was right. One different step along the way and they could have missed out on all this. She’d never been one to believe in the vagaries of fate, but she did believe in love.
“It is a perfect moment, isn’t it?” she asked, kissing him softly.
And if they were lucky, there would be a million other perfect moments left to come.
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Acknowledgments
Bringing a book from inception to publication is never easy, but this one, written and revised during a global pandemic, has been especially difficult. Thanks, as always, to my agent, Holly Root, who makes badassery look easy, and the whole Root Literary team. Thanks to my amazing editors at Forever, Amy Pierpont and Sam Brody, who somehow managed, amidst the aforementioned pandemic, to help me transform Caro and Val’s story from its very messy first iteration into final, splendid form. Thanks for contending with my pandemic brain, y’all! Thanks also to the production team at Forever, including my copyeditor Kristin Nappier and production editor Luria Rittenberg—you guys are saints. And a huge huzzah for the entire Forever Marketing & Publicity Team, especially director Jodi Rosoff and assistant director Estelle Hallick—y’all are a delight and I’m so thankful for your hard work!
And, of course, thanks to my wonderful readers. Every review that called A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem “fun” gave me life while I was working on this book! I hope you enjoy this adventure with Caro and Val.
Any mistakes are, of course, my own.
The inimitable Miss Flora Deaver may just have met her match in the brash, arrogant—and infuriatingly irresistible—Duke of Langham.
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Available Fall 2022
Reading Group Guide for
A Letter from the Author
Dear Reader,
Have you ever encountered a piece of media—a movie, book, or photograph—that made you feel truly seen and understood for the first time? Maybe it spoke to some inner part of you that you’d always thought would be ridiculed if you told it to the world. Or maybe it helped you understand something about yourself that had always puzzled you.
This is what happened to me when I first listened to the podcast My Favorite Murder. When hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark told how they’d launch into a disturbing tale of a serial killer’s exploits at a party, only to watch their fellow partygoers slowly back away, I shouted with laughter but also shook my head ruefully because been there, done that. And like Karen and Georgia, my interest in true crime has not been about glorifying the monsters who commit murder, but about trying to understand what happened, why, and how to make sure it never happens to me!
When it came time to plan my next historical romance series—because in addition to the complicated mystery, I need my books to have a happy ever after—I wanted to find some way to pay homage to Karen and Georgia and their empathetic podcast. So, A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem, Victorian England’s version of a true-crime podcast, was born. The first book introduced readers to the unconventional Miss Caro Hardcastle; her rock star of a cat, Ludwig; and the man she can’t stop bickering with, Lord Valentine Thorn.
Caro and Val’s book, An Heiress’s Guide to Deception and Desire, takes the reader into the world of the Victorian theatre. I was a drama minor in college, and one of the highlights of my studies was a trip to London where I saw countless West End productions. I’ve always loved glimpses into that world in other historical romances, and while I’ve included visits to the theatre in other books of mine, this is my first where the characters go behind the stage and into the world of the players and their production.
As my author tagline suggests, the inspirations for all my books are the witty banter of Jane Austen and the intricately crafted whodunnits of Agatha Christie. I had so much fun writing An Heiress’s Guide to Deception and Desire. I sincerely hope you have just as much fun reading it!
Ever yours,
Manda
Discussion Questions
Birth order for the aristocracy of nineteenth-century England meant more than the elder being bossy or the baby being spoiled. In Val’s case, as the younger son he was able to behave as he pleased until his brother died without having produced an heir. Val inherits both his brother’s courtesy title of Viscount Wrackham and his position as next in line to the Thornfield dukedom. One difficulty Val experiences is his father’s expectations for him to marry and produce an heir as soon as possible. What other kind of difficulties might a surprise title cause for younger sons who never expected to shoulder that kind of responsibility?
The nineteenth century saw lavish estates like those of Val’s father, the Duke of Thornfield, lose income as tenant farmers left the country in droves to take jobs in factories like those of Caro’s father in the city. This created an opportunity for families such as Caro’s to arrange marriages for their daughters with the sort of titled men who might have previously looked down their noses at Caro’s lack of pedigree. For what reasons might Lady Hardcastle wish for Caro to marry into an aristocratic family when her daughter is assured to be wealthy no matter whom she weds?
With the rise of the middle class, Victorian London society saw a much stricter enforcement of rules of conduct for young ladies—much more so than the previous generation, the Regency. Why might the newly elevated matrons of the middle class feel the need to be more exacting with regard to policing their daughters’ behavior? How might the return of Caro’s parents from abroad have influenced her desire to marry and set up a household of her own? Why might it have been frowned upon for her to do this on her own as Effie did?
Victorian publishing did a booming business in both conduct manuals and books like Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. Considering the boom in middle-class households, why might this have been the case? Why would Caro’s decision to write cookbooks have been considered vulgar by some in the middle and upper classes?
The theatre of this era was known for its audiences to be raucous, and it was more of an opportunity for the occupants of the private boxes to see and be seen. How is this different from the way our own theatre audiences behave?
Actresses and opera singers were commonly considered by the middle and upper classes to be of loose morals during this time, yet the greenrooms of West End theatres were teeming with men seeking to turn these performers into mistresses. What role might misogyny have played in this dynamic? How might Caro and Kate’s welcoming of Effie into their literary salon have been considered a rejection of this attitude?
Because of the social rules of this era, men were allowed to conduct lives outside the home that were wholly hidden from their wives, mothers, and daughters. Nowhere was this more evident than in the gentlemen’s club, where ladies were not only forbidden from becoming members but also from entering at all. How might literary salons like the one started by Caro and Kate have offered a similar safe haven for women of this time?