Trouble
A Novel
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A Regency-era romantic comedy with a deliciously feminist and queer twist, from the New York Times bestselling author of Gwen & Art Are Not in Love.
There's a new governess at Fairmont House, and she's going to be nothing but trouble.
Emily Laurence is a liar. She is not polite, she's not polished, and she has never taught a child in her life. This position was meant to be her sister's––brilliant, kind Amy, who isn't perpetually angry, dangerously reckless, and who does (inexplicably) like children.
But Amy is unwell and needs a doctor, and their father is gone and their mother is useless, so here Emily is, pretending to be something she's not.
If she can get away with her deception for long enough to earn a few month's wages and slip some expensive trinkets into her pockets along the way, perhaps they'll be all right.
That is, as long as she doesn't get involved with the Edwards family's dramas. Emily refuses to care about her charges - Grace, who talks too much and loves too hard, and Aster, who is frankly terrifying but might just be the wittiest sixteen-year-old Emily has ever met - or the servants, who insist on acting as if they're each other's family. And she certainly hasn't noticed her employer, the brooding, taciturn Captain Edwards, no matter how good he might look without a shirt on . . .
As Fairmont House draws her in, Emily's lies start to come undone. Can she fix her mistakes before it's too late?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Croucher (Infamous) brings a wonderfully modern aesthetic to the Regency setting of this energetic and lighthearted romance. Millworker Emily Laurence intends to masquerade as her much more refined and compassionate sister Amy in the role of governess to the teen daughters of widower Captain Ben Edwards just long enough to make sure Amy doesn't lose the position while recovering from an illness. She also hopes to steal a few things from the household along the way. Emily has her work cut out for her: her younger charge is a chatterbox desperate for attention, while the older sister is morose and prone to disappearing at the first provocation. Meanwhile, the rest of the small staff determinedly involves her in their socializing, the attractive Captain proves a strange mix of aloof and casually hands-on with running his household and raising his children, and a stranger in the local pub presses her for answers behind the Captain's departure from the Navy. Croucher excels in building quirky, sympathetic characters and social dynamics which, even when antagonistic, brim with warmth and a familial feel. In incorporating the queerness of several of the characters, Croucher hits the right balance between an easy and accepting attitude within the Edwards household and a recognition of more general social censure typical of the era. A similar balance concerning class issues gives the eventual romance between Emily and the Captain just the right amount of tension. Fans of come-as-you-are romance will find this a delicious, and not too guilty, pleasure.
