Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own.
Lady Georgiana Cleeve was disowned by her father when she announced that she was the author of several popular novels, and has lived alone with her mother ever since, cut off from all contact with her brothers, convinced that the scandal she brought on herself and her family would irrevocably tarnish the reputations of anyone connected to her. She is selling well and her books are popular, but for the last few years, she has noticed a number of worrying similarities between her own books and those of another lady novelist, who also writes Gothic romances. Could the preposterously named Lady Darling be plagiarising Georgina? And if so, how is she getting her information?
Georgina becomes obsessed with unmasking this mysterious rival, and eventually resorts to hiding in the bushes outside Belvoir Library, which distributes for both of them. She is shocked to discover that not only is Lady Darling someone she recognises, but someone she shares a past with. Catriona Rose Lacey is the daughter of a butler who worked for Georgina’s family, but was suddenly fired and banished from the estate by Georgina’s imperious father. She hasn’t seen Catriona for over a decade, but seeing her again reawakens feelings that Georgina had almost forgotten existed.
When confronted by the furious Georgina, Catriona fervently denies all her claims of plagiarism. While she read some of Georgina’s early novels, she’s been so busy writing and building her own career for the past few years that she’s not had time to read anything at all. Cat writes to support herself, her cousin and her teenage brother, who now has a position as a clerk. For many years, after her father died, it was only the money Cat could bring in, from her writing and working in a pie shop, that kept the family from starving. Unlike what Georgina fears, Cat doesn’t really hold a grudge against Georgina’s father for firing her father and sending them packing, but that obviously takes some time to be revealed.
Since this is a romance, obviously, the two women can’t stop thinking of each other, even when they are annoyed and consider the other a rival. Despite their attempts to avoid each other, they keep being thrown together, and once they end up literally trapped together in a crumbling Gothic mansion, which may or may not be actually haunted, their forced proximity leads to them eventually going from mutual pining to actually snogging (and eventually more).
Full review here.