It’s lovely to be in Collins’s imagined world where characters are warm and fuzzy, society a place where good triumphs over evil and everything recounted with a light, humorous, loving touch. I wrote this about Lady’s Guide #3, A Spinster’s Guide to Danger and Dukes, and I say it again about Passion and Peril.

In Passion and Peril, we’re introduced to eponymous governess, fallen-on-hard-times Jane Halliwell and long-ago acquaintance and somewhat friend, Lord Adrian Fielding (brother to the Duke of Langham, Danger and Dukes‘s hero). When the romance opens, Jane is in her third year as governess to Margaret, Viscount and Lady’s Gilford’s daughter. Though Jane is their social equal, she is a genteel, but poor semi-servant to a man who was her father’s colleague in the Foreign Office. (Because her father committed suicide after gambling the family fortune, Jane and her mother were left homeless and seemingly friendless.)

Though friends like Poppy, now the Duke of Langham’s wife, would offer her a home, Jane wished to earn her way in the world. She lives in semi-genteel limbo without the possibility of her own home and family…except for the presence, at the Viscount’s house party of domestic and foreign diplomatic dignitaries, of Lord Adrian Fielding, a friend of long acquaintance and Jane’s teen-age crush. When Jane lost her father, fortune, and position, and her mother left for Scotland to live with a friend, she lost contact with many from her former life. In the midst of the house-party, while Jane and Adrian renew their acquaintance and give hesitant nods to a mutual attraction, Viscount Gilford is murdered in his study.With Lady Gilford mourning and soon out of town, the new Viscount, Will, grieving, Adrian and Jane must hold the household together and help Detective Inspector Eversham find the killer. They are joined by Adrian’s brother, the Duke of Langham, and his wife and Jane’s friend, Poppy. Collins brings together a likeable, witty group of characters, familiar to readers who’ve followed the series and easily endearing to those reading it for the first time in this volume. Adrian, Jane, and co. unearth the possibility the Foreign Office suffered several mysterious deaths, linked by the clue the murderer leaves behind, a Machiavelli quotation and dried rose. 

Though I guessed the murderer’s identity early in the narrative, what I read Collins’s semi-mystery, semi-romance for is appealing characters and the openness of her hero and heroine’s feelings and hots. I enjoyed that the characters’ hesitation to being together dispels early and dispels well; no faffing about for Jane and Adrian! Mild resistance and then maturity kicks in: feelings are admitted and the reader enjoys our couple together for the romance’s entire second half. I like impediments-romance and I like open, honest protagonists, Collins’s romance ethos is of the latter. Jane is open about her feelings and droll in her lust for Adrian. It’s a lovely, feminist reversal that Adrian is more circumspect in this attraction, but thoroughly frank and direct about wanting to be with Jane, marry Jane and make a life with her.

Despite the gravity of the circumstances, Collins keeps a firm narrative hand on the mystery, but delights with humour and makes a feminist point with a light touch. I thought the scene of the French diplomat’s wife sneakily pinching Langham’s butt was a hoot. As in previous Lady’s Guide romances, Collins’s feminist point winks to the reader rather than pounding things home. Adrian indulges in some growly over-protectiveness and Jane amusingly poo-poos him. The beauty of Collins’s romances? A droll, wry gentle humour and characters who work things out, a respite from angst and a turning towards joy, contentment, affection, ease, and the comforts of friendship and family.

Manda Collins’s A Governess’s Guide to Passion and Peril is published by Forever and releases today, March 26. I received an e-galley from Forever, via Netgalley. This does not impede the free expression of my opinion, written without the use/aid of AI.