He was, not to put too fine a point on it, a right prick most of the time. Bored by others’ attempts at cleverness. Irritated beyond measure by almost every person he met. Hell, everyone knew he didn’t like people. But he wanted Julia Addison –which was not at all, in his mind, the same sort of thing.

Especially not when longing was more than half motivated by her refusal to admit, even to herself, that she wanted him too.

Graham McKay leads a double life as the reclusive Earl of Dunstane and the satirist playwright Ransom Blackadder. Blackadder’s harshest critic is the anonymous Miss on Scene, a columnist for the scandalous Mrs. Goode’s Magazine for Misses. Graham’s plan to expose the reviewer’s identity is disrupted when he meets a modest ladies' companion, Julia Addison, clergyman’s daughter and fellow theater buff. Graham quickly discovers that Julia is a force of nature with the power to unearth his secrets and uproot his notions of success.

This was my first Susana Craig read and it did not disappoint! I enjoyed this battle of razor-sharp wit between the grumpy Darcy-esque introvert, Graham, and the fiery, fearless Julia. I love that the imperturbable Graham is full-on gobsmacked by Julia immediately and didn’t know what to do with his feelings. It was fun to watch him flail a bit as he tried to calculate his best way forward in their acquaintance. I love that Graham and Julia are the ideal intellectual foils to one another. I think that Graham was better developed as a character than Julia, and that he was the lifeblood of the novel.

I liked the underlying premise of the series being an underground, anonymous periodical designed to inform and provide practical advice to high society young women about topics they would not normally be exposed to. In fact, I wish there had been more time devoted to the inner workings of the paper and the writers.

I also loved the character of the older Mrs. Hayes, Julia’s aunt by marriage and her employer. She is so shrewd, and I enjoyed watching her pull strings with perfect subtlety. I’m glad that Julia has her in her corner.

I do think the novel is a bit too long as it starts to lose momentum at about 50% and doesn’t really pick up again until about 75%. I think it suffers from the fact that all of the story lives on the surface of the narrative. An interconnected or adjacent subplot with other characters would have worked well and given the novel some much needed depth in order to more fully explore its main themes, including the purpose of ambition, the price of success, and the inherent vulnerability of allowing oneself to be known.

Tropes: grumpy x sunshine, hidden identity, bluestocking x rake, age gap (19, 29)

Thank you Netgalley and Kensington Books for the opportunity to read and review this novel. All opinions are my own.