Review: The Lady Knows Best (Goode's Guide to Misconduct #1) by Susanna Craig

              

Print Length: 315 pages

Publisher: Zebra (April 25, 2023)

From Goodreads.com: Serving as the advice columnist, ‘Miss Busy B.’, for an often-subversive ladies’ magazine, is the perfect outlet for Daphne Burke’s outspoken nature. But when she advises a young lady of the ton, to break off her engagement to a notorious rake, the consequences take Daphne beyond the page and into her real life.

Miles, Viscount Deveraux, sometimes known as ‘that devil Deveraux’, needs a respectable bride by the end of the Season, and he’s bet a fortune that he can get one. Now, his fiancée has not only changed her mind—but done it publicly, in a letter to London’s most infamous magazine. With the stakes high and time short, it seems reasonable to him that the columnist responsible should come to his rescue and marry him instead.

Fortunately for Miles, Daphne is eager to escape the pressures of the London marriage mart. She agrees to a courtship. But at the end of two weeks, she intends to turn him down in a big, splashy, scandal that will ruin her reputation and set her free. There’s just one shocking wrinkle: Who knew being ruined by a rake could be so much fun?

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My Rating: 3 stars out of 5

On the whole, this is a cute read, although I swear to God the number of times ‘that devil Deveraux’ was said (or thought) made me want to scream. I get it; he's a rake and a scoundrel. I understood that much the first three times he was called by that moniker. I also wish we would have seen more instances of him actually being a rake, even the reason his fiancee decides to jilt him is jaded, as Daphne wasn't in possession of the fact that when his fiancee said she caught him "playing chess," it wasn't some sort of euphemism for sex. Perhaps had she known that to begin with, her advice would have been different. But then we wouldn't have had much of a story.

Elaborating on that, the concept of Daphne being Miss Busy B was a good one, but on the whole, did little for the plot other than cause Miss Grey to jilt Miles, and paint Daphne in a very unflattering light. She spends the first half of the book thinking to herself how she's going to allow Miles to "court" her all with the intention of learning all his dirty tricks and exposing him in such a way that no one in the ton will ever have anything to do with him again. A bit extreme considering she doesn't know anything about him other than gossip and the letter his former betrothed sent, which isn't clear on the fact that he wasn't cheating. 

I admit, I was also confused as to why a group of women meeting in secret to discuss the highly controversial pamphlet they are publishing under pseudonyms would leave the door to their hidden meeting room open enough that someone could not only find it but be able to eavesdrop without being seen. That seems a little counter-productive to me, and used only to explain Daphne's involvement instead of just making her a member somehow from the start. 

My opinions on the group aside, Miles was too quick to discover the truth and hold it over her head in exchange for her trying to find him another bride. I would rather see more of her writing for the column while Miles attempted to court her as an eligible bride so that once the truth came out, there would be a conflict that they had to overcome. As it stood, what conflict there should have been was easily dispensed of without any drama whatsoever. It seemed very anti-climatic, considering the drama surrounding Daphne riding off to London by herself, effectively leaving Miles at the alter.

Even with these issues, I did enjoy the authors writing style, and I would read more from this series (especially since I have not only enjoyed other stories by them, but also because I am curious to see how this series plays out.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

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                                       The Lady Knows Best is available on Amazon.com