A Purely Private Matter

by Darcie Wilde

Overview

The Rosalind Thorne Mysteries—inspired by the novels of Jane Austen—continue as the audacious Rosalind strives to aid those in need while navigating the halls of high society…

Rosalind Thorne has slowly but assuredly gained a reputation as “a useful woman”—by helping respectable women out of some less-than-respectable predicaments. 

Her latest endeavor is a tragedy waiting to happen. Desperate Margaretta Seymore is with child—and her husband is receiving poisoned pen letters that imply that her condition is the result of an affair with the notorious actor Fletcher Cavendish. Margaretta asks Rosalind to find out who is behind the scurrilous letters. But before she can make any progress, Cavendish is found dead, stabbed through the heart. 

Suddenly, Rosalind is plunged into the middle of one of the most sensational murder trials London has ever seen, and her client’s husband is the prime suspect. With the help of the charming Bow Street runner Adam Harkness, she must drop the curtain on this fatal drama before any more lives are ruined.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425282380
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/02/2017
Series:	A Rosalind Thorne Mystery , #2
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	645,916
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.93(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Darcie Wilde is the author of the Regency Makeover Trilogy of eNovellas as well as A Useful Woman, the first novel in a Regency-set historical mystery series inspired by the novels of Jane Austen. Her book Lord of the Rakes was a 2014 Romantic Times nominee for Best First Historical Romance.

Visit her online at darciewilderomance.com.

Editorial Reviews

07/31/2017
In Wilde’s entertaining sequel to 2016’s A Useful Woman, her Regency-era characters—particularly the well born—are extremely good at keeping up appearances, but behind closed doors, their lives are just as scandalous, confusing, and chaotic as those in our own era. Rosalind Thorne was born into the aristocracy, but she’s free to navigate the seedier side of life for ladies in need of her discreet investigative services, since her father squandered the family fortune and abandoned her and her mother. Rosalind sympathizes with Margaretta Seymore, a prospective client, since she, too, faces public disgrace. Margaretta’s husband is threatening to file suit for “criminal conversation” against a prominent stage actor, with whom she’s rumored to have had an affair. What first appears to be a simple matter of marital impropriety soon turns into a case of murder that sends shock waves through London. Rosalind’s investigation highlights the difficulties created by Regency-era social mores and how women in particular were hobbled by these conventions. Some light romantic diversion reveals aspects of Rosalind’s personal history that help round out her character. Agent: Shawna McCarthy, McCarthy Literary. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for A Useful Woman

“Clever and witty. Wilde artfully portrays Regency London, from its ballrooms to Bow Street, in all its glory and hypocrisy, and provides readers with a heroine worthy of our attention. With its colorful cast and scandalous intrigue, A Useful Woman would surely have set the famed patronesses of Almack’s atwitter.”—Anna Lee Huber, national bestselling author of the Lady Darby Mysteries

“Well-drawn characters and a perfect plot make this historical mystery a winner.”—Nancy Haddock, national bestselling author of Paint the Town Dead

“[A] wonderfully entertaining Regency mystery romance, and I really enjoyed it. With a cleverly cunning plot and characters that are engaging and witty, I was easily enfolded in the dangers and subterfuge of the ton. Rosalind is a strong, determined character who knows what it is like to carry the world on her shoulders—very intelligent and savvy…With plenty of twists and turns, and romance thrown in to boot, A Useful Woman by Darcie Wilde is a delight to read, and I look forward to the next in the series.”—Fresh Fiction

“Wilde brings the haut monde of early nineteenth-century London to vivid life, and the characters she peoples it with are complex individuals whose basic decency, or lack of it, is carefully hidden behind a facade of manners and propriety.”—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher