Review: A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem by Manda Collins

Synopsis
An intrepid female reporter matches wits with a serious, sexy detective in award-winning author Manda Collins’ fun and flirty historical rom-com!

England, 1865 : As one of England’s most notorious newspaper columnists, Lady Katherine Bascomb believes knowledge is power. And she’s determined to inform and educate the ladies of London on the nefarious-and deadly-criminals who are preying on the fairer sex. When her reporting leads to the arrest of a notorious killer, however, Katherine flees to a country house party to escape her newfound notoriety-only to witness a murder on her very first night. And when the lead detective accuses Katherine of inflaming-rather than informing-the public with her column, she vows to prove him wrong.

Detective Inspector Andrew Eversham’s refusal to compromise his investigations nearly cost him his own career, and he blames Katherine. To avoid bad publicity, his superiors are pressuring him to solve cases quickly rather than correctly. When he discovers she’s the key witness in a new crime, he’s determined to prevent the beautiful widow from once again wreaking havoc on his case. Yet as Katherine proves surprisingly insightful and Andrew impresses Katherine with his lethal competency, both are forced to admit the fire between them is more flirtatious than furious. But to explore the passion between them, they’ll need to catch a killer.

What I thought
This was such a wonderful Victorian based mystery rom-com. 

As you probably already know I love when we get strong, smart, no backing down female characters, especially in this time in history, and that is exactly what we get in Katherine.  So why would Eversham not love her from the start…well her column to inform women the danger that is around them almost costs him his job…so maybe he has a little right to be mad. But hey I still can’t say she was completely wrong, but maybe it could have been handled a little better.  So as a result we get a great enemies to lovers story.

I enjoyed watching the interactions between the two as they have to admit that the other knows what they are about. Then realizing how they should work together rather than fight one another no matter how frustrating it might be, was very entertaining.  I did not realize who the killer was until close to the end of the story.  The mystery was well developed and I found myself enjoying it a lot. 

This was such a fun read and exactly what I needed at the time.  I am really looking forward to more books in this series.

My Rating: /5