Sparkling Regency Romance from a Captivating New VoiceLady Miranda Hawthorne acts every inch the lady, but inside she longs to be bold and carefree. Entering her fourth Season and approaching spinsterhood in the eyes of society, she pours her innermost feelings out not in a diary but in letters to her brother’s old school friend, a duke–with no intention of ever sending these private thoughts to … private thoughts to a man she’s heard stories about but never met. Meanwhile, she also finds herself intrigued by Marlow, her brother’s new valet, and although she may wish to break free of the strictures that bind her, falling in love with a servant is more of a rebellion than she planned.
When Marlow accidentally discovers and mails one of the letters to her unwitting confidant, Miranda is beyond mortified. And even more shocked when the duke returns her note with one of his own that initiates a courtship-by-mail. Insecurity about her lack of suitors shifts into confusion at her growing feelings for two men–one she’s never met but whose words deeply resonate with her heart, and one she has come to depend on but whose behavior is more and more suspicious. When it becomes apparent state secrets are at risk and Marlow is right in the thick of the conflict, one thing is certain: Miranda’s heart is far from all that’s at risk for the Hawthornes and those they love.
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I love all of Kristi Ann Hunter’s novels, but highly recommend you start at the beginning with this one, so you can enjoy seeing the characters over and over.
Oh, how I love this book! I have read it and listened to the Audible version many times, it just keeps getting better. I absolutely love how Miranda meets ” Marlow.” The attraction between them is delightful.
Miranda’s Lady lessons are so numerous, and delivered so matter of factly by her mother. (I loved the voice the narrator used for the mother!)
I loved the mystery, the dangerous situations were very exciting. There are plenty of fun, laugh out loud moments too. I recommend this book to all! It makes a great gift too.
Praise from the Clean Romance Team:
“If you love historical fiction, with generous dashes of romance, intrigue, danger, and humor mixed together in one delightful story you have to pick up a copy of A Noble Masquerade you won’t regret the time spent reading!”
“A delightful read with witty characters, intrigue and a lovely, sweet romance.”
Oh my goodness, this book is so much fun! It isn’t your typical Regency romance. Full of interesting characters, this book is laced with humor, danger, plenty of action, and borderline slapstick situations. It was almost impossible for me to put down. I loved getting to know the Hawthorne siblings better after meeting them in A Lady of Esteem.
This was my first time reading a book my Kristi Ann Hunter, and it certainly won’t be my last! I loved this regency romance with a touch of adventure, a swoon worthy hero, a relatable heroine, and deep spiritual messages at the heart of the story. I truly related to Miranda and her struggle with singleness, and I loved seeing her story progress and she also learned to trust God with her future. I loved the twists and turns of the plot, and the touch of adventure and intrigue that allowed for our regency hero to protect and even rescue our heroine! However, do not be fooled because Lady Miranda is the first rescuer in this book, and helps our hero spy get out of a bind—literally! Combine the relatable characters and captivating plot with Kristi Ann Hunter’s famous humor, and it is the perfect recipe for a wonderful read that you simply cannot put down!
One must read it for oneslf!
I am a bit jealous of anyone reading this delightfully written book for the first time. Definitely marking it in my favorites column! So many great scenes and bits of dialogue. Oh my! I would say more, but I don’t want to ruin this wonderful story for the next lucky reader. Now onward to book two!
I hadn’t read a book by Kristi Ann Hunter before. I really enjoyed this one. And I’ll be reading more of her books. I’m excited to have found out that this book is the start of a series. So there are more books in this world.
I loved Miranda in this book! I loved the way she latched on to the idea of the Duke of Marshington. And how she wrote to him throughout the years. To the point that she had a whole trunk of letters to him. I like the thought of all of us having someone like this to write to. Someone we can be anonymous with. Or we can tell things that we can’t tell anyone else, the highs and lows. And Miranda is the kind of woman who is not a shrinking pansy. She knows what she wants and she is willing to go after it.
Marlow is Miranda’s brother Griffith’s new valet. Or that’s what he appears to be. He’s really the Duke of Marshington trying to find a spy. And he finds Miranda’s letters to him as he searches things in the home. This part was so funny! Especially when he starts to reply to her current letters.
The plot of this one has romance, and danger. I loved that both of these things were included in this one. The plot kept me interested until the very end. I need to go start reading the rest of this series!
Lady Miranda Hawthorne has never appreciated the “lady lessons” her mother has forced upon her since childhood. She copes with these frustrations by journaling in the guise of letters written to her elder brother’s school chum, a man whose antics, as told by her brother, make her think he’d be of a similar mind to her. She never mails the letters, keeping them locked up in a trunk. But when her brother’s new valet accidentally mails one and Miranda receives a reply from the Duke of Marshington, it sets off an unlikely, if tenuous, friendship. There’s just one problem–no one has seen the duke in 9 years…but on the other hand, maybe he’s actually right there at Hawthorne House.
So for the first half of this book, things were good. Maybe not 5-star good, but still good. Though Ryland (the duke) is a little manipulative, it really did start out innocent, and I think his motivations were sincere, if a bit flawed. But then around the halfway point, things went downhill for me. Miranda goes a bit batty, scenes are really confusing and plodding, and the whole angle of the duke as a spy is sort of shoved in the background, while also sort of being a big part of what’s happening.
Miranda, who is described in the synopsis as acting “every inch the lady” is never really shown to be acting like a lady. She’s always bucking against that role, barely able to keep her mother from chastising her, or doing whatever she wants when her mother isn’t there. But in the second half of the book, she throws all pretenses of being a lady out the window, threatening or attacking men in anger, sneaking out of the house to visit an unmarried man, and a host of bad decisions that only seem to be okay because they’re helping her to go against her mother’s lessons. I didn’t have an issue with her internal struggle with the slot she’s being forced into, but it did get a little ridiculous in that second half.
There is a purportedly tense game of whist played at one point that was just a long, confusing, pointless scene for me, because apparently a lot of unspoken communication hinges on the way the game is played, and…well, how many of us modern people know anything about the game of whist? Then Miranda’s family rehashes the game on the ride home and boy is Miranda’s brother shocked…but I have no idea why, nor what the implications are. Less time should have been spent on that and other less plot-driving endeavors, and more time on showing us both of the MCs’ anxieties about their places in life. Because they each had realizations near the end about how their life is better than they think it is or something, but both of these anxieties were not particularly founded in the earlier parts of the book.
The romance was clearly the driving force of the plot, which is certainly allowed in a romance story, but I prefer those where the rest of the plot, even without the culmination of the romance, stands on its own as a good story. This isn’t one of those. In fact, in the end, I’m not even completely certain if the suggested head “bad guy” was actually a bad guy, because that whole storyline was left behind in the build up to the climax, which, no, wasn’t even from the main plot.
This is the 2nd Regency romance I’ve read in less than a month where the male MC is a duke who is also a spy for England. I really liked the angle of the letters that Miranda had never meant to send being the catalyst to a relationship. Again, I liked the first half or so, though the more I think about it, the more I wish Ryland had been more sensitive to Miranda’s trust issues instead of using them against her. But back to the letters, I did love the culmination of that plot thread in the epilogue, though I won’t explain more due to spoilers. I just wish the rest of the book had held up to the good parts. It’s definitely not high on my list of favorite Regency romances, and I likely won’t read it again. I did like the novella that comes before the series, and the male MC in the next book intrigued me in this one, so I plan to go on to book #2 and see how that one goes.
I first listened to the audiobook version of this story and loved it so much I found myself making excuses to simply sit and listen, I needed to know how everything would turn out. I ended up purchasing a paperback knowing this needs to be a permanent part of my book collection.
Miranda was such a fun and fabulous character. I loved her individuality and how she still managed to be herself even with all her “lady lessons”. The twists with her love story are part of what makes this book so fun. While I guessed some of the twists early on, overall, it was so engaging I didn’t mind guessing what would happen to an extent. I don’t want to say more at the risk of spoilers, but definitely a swoon worthy romance that was fun and kept me smiling. I loved the letters, I loved the humor, and I enjoyed the uplifting messages.
The mystery was also a really engaging part of the plot. Spies and secrets, romance and the pressures of the British Aristocracy, what’s not to love?
Definitely a reread and a book I highly recommend!
A light-hearted, entertaining romance. I enjoyed reading this book & look forward to completing the series.
It took me a bit to get into this book, but once I got in, I could not stop listening! I decided that part of my hesitation getting into it was the narrator; she sounded angry all the time! I felt like she got better as the book went along and the book is just so good!
Miranda is really a fantastic protagonist. I loved her from the beginning. I always love a female protagonist that doesn’t fit the “mold,” that tries to break free from some of society’s restrictions and lives true to herself. It’s really my favorite! I liked that Miranda was clumsy and wreckless sometimes and got flabbergasted. I thought she was so awesome!
Marlowe/Ryland (he’s definitely more Ryland to me; I just can’t call him Marlowe) is also pretty darn great. Him leaving Miranda out of things was just plain dumb on his end, but he came around. I liked his servants a lot and how he treated them more like equals. I also liked how things ended up with his aunt and cousin (who are truly horrendous people). He’s a pretty swoon-worthy male lead.
Griffith is a good older brother, as brothers go. I liked how much he stuck up for Miranda. Georgina is very stuck up and annoying. I wished Mother (I honestly don’t know her name) has paid more attention to helping Miranda be herself and still also learn to behave rather than trying to squash everything of her personality out of her. She’s kind enough, and I imagine she’s what mothers of the day would have been like.
AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Read by Ann Marie Gideon: as I said, at the beginning of the book she sounded perpetually angry. Her words were always clipped and had a bite to them. But I really felt like that got better as the book progressed.
This book had me so captivated, I never wanted it to end! It took me twice as long as usual to read the first two chapters since I kept reading bits over and over again, so captivated was I with the way the descriptions and witty dialogue immediately brought the story to life. After all, what is a prim and proper gentlewoman to do when proof that she’s not prim and proper in the slightest gets mailed to a complete stranger, who just happens to be a duke – and who may or may not be just in love with her enough from the first letter to want to tease out a few more.
Brilliantly written with characters (and scenes) I instantly fell in love with, I could not more highly recommend this book.
This was a really good story! It started out slowly for me, as the author set the tone of the novel. I loved watching the interactions between Marlow and Miranda, as well as the way Miranda reacted to receiving letters from her brother’s friend, Marshington.
Once I hit the halfway mark in this book, and the family headed to London for the season, it absolutely took off for me and I could hardly set the book down! I loved the way things played out between the Duke of Marshington and Lady Miranda in London. The attraction and tension between these two was wonderful and made for a story that I did not want to end.
I love learning a bit about history in the midst of a fictional story. I liked the glimpses into high society at the time. I especially enjoyed that the main characters were more interested in being genuine than in conforming to societies rules that often buried their own selves. The story was at times funny, sweet and satisfying. I enjoyed it immensely!
I have read this book several times. I keep coming back to it. I love the Hawthrone family. Miranda is one of my favorite leading ladies.
This book had lots of twists and turns that kept me truly interested all the way through. Will read more by this author.
After reading this book, I’ve already purchased and plan to read the entire series. Clean, Christian romance with a hint of humor. I throughly enjoyed the author’s writing style.
It is a great audio book.
Delightful with romantic twists and turns!
Wonderful story!