The Lady Traveler’s Guide to Scoundrels and Other Gentlemen
The Lady Travelers Guide to Scoundrels and Other Gentlemen by Victoria Alexander is $1.99! This is the first book in the Lady Travelers Society series and it has, you guessed it, lady travelers. Readers say the plot takes a while to pick up, but others say this historical romance is both sweet and funny.
Embark on the breathtaking romantic adventures of The Lady Travelers Society in the brand-new series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Victoria Alexander
Really, it’s too much to expect any normal man to behave like a staid accountant in order to inherit the fortune he deserves to support the lifestyle of an earl. So when Derek Saunders’s favorite elderly aunt and her ill-conceived—and possibly fraudulent—Lady Travelers Society loses one of their members, what’s a man to do but step up to the challenge? Now he’s escorting the world’s most maddening woman to the world’s most romantic city to find her missing relative.
While India Prendergast only suspects his organization defrauds gullible travelers, she’s certain a man with as scandalous a reputation as Derek Saunders cannot be trusted any farther than the distance around his very broad shoulders. As she struggles not to be distracted by his wicked smile and the allure of Paris, instead of finding a lost lady traveler, India just may lose her head, her luggage and her heart.
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The Duke Who Loves Me by Jane Ashford is $1.99! This is book one in The Duke’s Estates historical romance series. Catherine read this one and gave it a D+, so maybe peruse the review first.
The Duke of Tereford is accustomed to getting his own way, but she’s going to teach him a thing or two about love…
James Cantrell, the new Duke of Tereford, has inherited a dukedom in disarray and is overwhelmed by his unaccustomed responsibilities. Then he gets an idea. Cecelia Vainsmede served as liaison between James and her father, and she knows a great deal about business matters, his own in particular. She’s also quite pretty. Ever the pragmatist, he suggests a marriage of convenience.
Cecelia has always been good at working with James, but she doesn’t understand how he can be so obtuse. He clearly doesn’t realize that he’s the duke she’s always wished for, or that his offer is an insult. But when a German prince arrives in London and immediately sets out to woo Cecelia, James will have to come to terms with what he really feels for her. Is running away worth the cost of losing her, or will the duke dare to win her once and for all?
Bestselling author Jane Ashford takes you to a dazzling Regency England you won’t want to leave!
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Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters is $1.99! This is book one in the Amelia Peabody historical mystery series. I’ve seen this recommended in the comments a few times, especially for people who like historical mysteries or Phryne Fisher.
Set in 1884, this is the first installment in what has become a beloved bestselling series. At thirty-two, strong-willed Amelia Peabody, a self-proclaimed spinster, decides to use her ample inheritance to indulge her passion, Egyptology. On her way to Egypt, Amelia encounters a young woman named Evelyn Barton-Forbes. The two become fast friends and travel on together, encountering mysteries, missing mummies, and Radcliffe Emerson, a dashing and opinionated archaeologist who doesn’t need a woman’s help — or so he thinks.
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I’ll Be the One by Lyla Lee is $1.99! This is a contemporary YA novel with romantic elements. The heroine is part of a K-Pop idol competition and knows she doesn’t fit the image of a typical K-Pop star. She also starts crushing on one of her fellow competitors. I do believe talk about weight and appearances plays a big role in this one, if that’s particularly triggering to any of you.
Skye Shin has heard it all. Fat girls shouldn’t dance. Wear bright colors. Shouldn’t call attention to themselves. But Skye dreams of joining the glittering world of K-Pop, and to do that, she’s about to break all the rules that society, the media, and even her own mother, have set for girls like her.
She’ll challenge thousands of other performers in an internationally televised competition looking for the next K-pop star, and she’ll do it better than anyone else.
When Skye nails her audition, she’s immediately swept into a whirlwind of countless practices, shocking performances, and the drama that comes with reality TV. What she doesn’t count on are the highly fat-phobic beauty standards of the Korean pop entertainment industry, her sudden media fame and scrutiny, or the sparks that soon fly with her fellow competitor, Henry Cho.But Skye has her sights on becoming the world’s first plus-sized K-pop star, and that means winning the competition—without losing herself.
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Ooh, yay, now I have Amelia Book One for my digital library. 🙂
If you haven’t read ‘Crocodile on the Sandbank’, just do it. It’s laugh out loud funny. The series eventually bogs down, but this one is well worth the time.
The Amelia Peabody series on audio narrated by Barbara Rosenblat is outstanding.
For World Book Day, Amazon is offering ten free Kindle books. You can see them here ~
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Joining the chorus of Peabody fans.
I found my first copy of Crocodile on the Sandbank in a used bookstore. Crouching down to see it, it read the first pages while still squatting. Mistake: I hit “What is it like?” and I laughed so hard I fell over backwards.
I will always be grateful to the friend who introduced me to Amelia Peabody, and the library that had the books when I couldn’t buy them. Crocodile on the Sandbank is a comfort read for me.
Another Peabody fan. Although I agree with @Molly that it loses some of its spark, it’s still a wonderful series.
As Peters fans already know, the the author’s real name was Barbara Mertz, and she was an Egyptologist by training, so the history/setting are as authentic as they can be in mystery fiction. In addition to the Peters pseudonym, she also wrote gothic-y books (Ammie Come Home) as Barbara Michaels. I was lucky enough to meet her at a signing a few years before her death.
I read I’ll Be the One a year or so ago and enjoyed it. (I don’t usually read YA but was curious about the K-Pop setting since discovering BTS during the pandemic!) The main character, Skye, is a bi teen and first generation Korean American. There is definitely a theme of wrestling with body shaming/ body positivity but I felt like it was mostly handled well (some shaming came from a parent, so that could be a trigger for some?). Skye has confidence in her talent as both a dancer and singer and resists pressure to change just to meet superficial, unrealistic standards. She develops allies among her peers in the competition (including Henry) and I liked how supportive they were.
I’m another fan of the Amelia Peabody series. However, on rereads I personally skip the books where their son Ramses is ages 5 to 16. Then it picks up again
I think if weight is triggering, I’ll be the One is great – it deals with issues in a straightforward and affirming way. Much better for my mental health than reading contemporaries where food/weight is ignored, which leaves me wondering why these thin characters navigate modern food culture so well when I do not.
Elizabeth Peters wrote a lot of great funny romantic novels, not just the Amelia Peabody series. Her Vicky Bliss and Jacqueline Kirby series are hilarious and just so very good. Die for Love with Jacqueline Kirby is a great sendup of the HR industry. Brilliant Jacqueline Kirby decides to become a HR novelist (how hard can it be? lol) and the plot is genius. The standalones are wonderful too – Summer of the Dragon is a big favorite of mine.
And THEN, she also wrote romantic suspense as Barbara Michaels and those books are a gold mine too! It distresses me that Elizabeth Peters is only known today for Amelia Peabody when I don’t even count that series as her best work.
Anyways, I’m a big fan – can you tell?
@Sunny and the sequel to Die For Love, Naked Once More. I wrote her once to say I was hoping for more Jacqueline Kirby books.
I had to sleep with the light on the first time I read the Barbara Michaels title Ammie, Come Home (which in hindsight has some problematic comments about sexual assault).
I grew up on Barbara Michaels and The Walker in Shadows scared the bejeezus out of me when I was 12. I keep telling myself to finally pick up the Amelia Peabody series and I even own a few of them. Too many books, too little time.
Another Barbara Mertz/Michaels/Elisabeth Peters Fan here. I also loved Crocodile and many of the books in that extensive series. But Crocodile has a special place in my heart. Amelia is a great narrator because she often doesn’t understand and therefore dismisses other characters’ reactions to her, but the reader knows exactly why someone’s jaw has dropped or their eyes are popping out of their heads. But the Vicki Bliss series (much shorter and more manageable) has my favorite reformed rake arc. John Smythe really is a weasel — frankly cowardly and prone to climbing out of hotel room windows and sticking Vicki with the bill when he needs to evade the police. Fortunately he’s only marginally reformed after being victimized by true love. He’s also very funny as the villain in the early E Peter’s Camelot Caper. One of my favorite conversations in the first Vicki Bliss mystery (John doesn’t appear until the second one) involves two men arguing over who is going to marry Vicki. She announces that she wouldn’t dream of interfering and goes back to eating because she is hungry. I also really like the scene in Night Train to Memphis in which Vicki breaks into a villain’s lair to rescue John. She finds him badly beaten and tied to a chair. He looks at her and says, “You again,” “without any obvious enthusiasm.” This is all from memory so no doubt I have details wrong here and there.
She wrote over many many decades and the publishing decade does make itself felt. But I still can reread most of her backlist under any name with joy and usually some really hard laughing.
@Laura George – I need to reread the Vicki Bliss series; it’s been a long time. I remember in one of the books John sends her a gift and she’s all “I bet he stole this.” But he included the receipt to prove he bought it. 🙂
@Laura George: John Smythe is probably my favorite romance hero. I’m on vacation next week, maybe it’s time to re-read the Vicki Bliss books.
@MaryK: I remember that! Including the receipt is one of the most romantic of all possible gestures. @Sandra: This is making me want to reread the John Smythe books too. I love that his last name really is Smythe although Vicki does get to sneer at him something like “Smith? Are you sure it’s not Jones or Brown?”
I also love that John Smythe is an homage to Dorothy Dunnett’s Francis Crawford of Lymond, cornflower blue eyes and all. (And Jacqueline Kirby cites the Lymond Chronicles as one of the few great historical sagas in Naked Once More.)
I LOVE the first books in the Amelia Peabody series, they are wonderful. I think my favorite of the Jaqueline Kirby novels is The Murders of Richard III. I have many thoughts about Richard, and how he was set up by the Tudors, feel I was about 16 when I read it, back in 1976 and it helped me find one of my passions which is English History.
The fact that the VB series was important to her is clear in the kind of odd Laughter of Dead Kings (2008) when the previous VB novel, Night Train to Memphis, was published in 1994. I know she published another Amelia Peabody novel after this and then Joan Hess finished the final Peabody novel after Barbara M passed away. But Laughter of Dead kings is so much about wrapping up her career. John Smythe goes back to one of her earliest novels, The Camelot Caper (1969) and turns out to be a descent of Amelia Peabody. Some of Amelia & fam’s old haunts are visited. Barbara M herself makes an appearance as a character, a novelist, who has stolen old family papers from John’s family mansion. There’s reference to a series of novels based on the adventures of Amelia Peabody (Emerson). It’s not her most exciting novel, maybe, but Schmidt finally gets to have his heroic duel, Vicki gets a marriage proposal (she’ll think about it), timelines are gleefully scrambled. She still seems to be having a great deal of fun.
After more than forty years and more than sixty novels (along with the books on Egyptology), she earned herself a great deal of fun.