This was such a cozy murder mystery. It was the perfect book to curl up with and completely lose myself in. This is the fourth book in the Ladies Most Scandalous Series and while it can be read as a standalone, I strongly recommend that you go back and read the other three as well. You meet the characters in the other books and Manda Collins has weaved an entire world out of these characters that is so worth the read. I promise you won't regret it!

This story was focused on Jane and Adrian, and I think they may be my favorite couple in the entire series so far. I was so excited to read their story. This is a second chance romance, which I have said before are my absolute favorites. Coming into the story with the two characters already having a history is always fun. But even more so when it's as dramatic and juicy as the one between Jane and Adrian. He shattered her heart a few years ago but now that Jane has found herself at the center of a murder mystery, she has to team up with Adrian in order to figure things out.

The romance and development between the two of them is nothing short of magical. But it's also so much fun. I completely lost myself in the world Manda Collins has created and was happy to do so. I laughed out loud at times and gasped at others in shock. There just aren't enough words to convey how truly entertaining this book was and I can't wait to read it again and again! I strongly recommend this author, this book, and definitely this entire series.

Hello Book friends!

Today I’m reviewing A Governess's Guide to Passion and Peril by Manda Collins, the fourth book in the Ladies Most Scandalous series. In this fourth book we follow two childhood friends, separated over time, Jane Halliwell and Lord Adrian Fielding, now adults, reunite under unexpected circumstances.

Looking for a murder mystery romance that will keep you drawn in from beginning to end? Fans of Collins books will enjoy her latest book in her Ladies Most Scandalous series, continuing to champion strong-willed women who should always be themselves even in a world designed for men.

With a splash of spice, romance readers who love friends-to-lovers and forced proximity trope and a deeper dive into murder mystery, will enjoy this next installment and hope for one more.

Happy Reading ~ Cece

WHATS TAKEN ME SO LONG TO GET INTO THIS SERIES????? im literally so obsessed and i cant wait to read back through the books ive missed!!! i am smitted with adrian and couldnt stop thinking about this book even when i eas supposed to be working. A NEW FAVE!!!!!!

A Governess’s Guide to Passion and Peril by Manda Collins was an enjoyable mystery/romance novel. Jane grew up all over the world with her father being a member of the English Foreign Office. When she was a teenager living in Rome with her parents she was smitten with the young Lord Adrien who worked below her father and would often call and dine with them. When her father mysteriously dies, Jane and her mother are left with nothing and Jane is forced to do what every penniless gentlewoman does, become a governess. Years later she is working in the home of Lord Gildford (a close friend of her father) teaching his daughter. Lord Adrien is also there because there is to be a symposium of foreign dignitaries. Lord Gilford is murdered and Adrien and Jane work together to solve the murder. Of course they fall in love along the way but I would say this book is a mystery first and the romance is secondary. It’s very low steam and there is more pining than passion. I’d have loved a little more romance and less mystery but it was a fun read and cute story nonetheless! Considering all the books in this series involve a murder or some other nefarious plot, they are surprisingly all charming, sweet and funny. Definitely recommend! Fans of Miss Scarlett and the Duke will love Manda Collins

The perfect cozy mystery rom/com combination for fans of either genre to appreciate! As a major cozy mystery fan and the enjoyer of the occasional romcom, I enjoyed A Governess's Guide to Passion and Peril and highly recommend.

This is the second book I’ve read in this series. I did like Poppy’s book more but Jane in A Governess’s Guide to Passion and Peril didn’t disappoint.

While Jane is employed as a governess she discovers her employer dead in his office. His wife and daughter go to their country home to mourn. The investigators ask Jane to fill in as lady of the house. I thought this was a little strange and the reasons given for this decision felt weak but obviously without this Jane wouldn’t be in a prime position to know pertinent information.

I enjoyed Adrian’s friends poking fun at him about Jane and making him come to terms with his feelings. My one complaint is how often he’d wish to take Jane in his arms and comfort her. It was a little repetitive.

As for the murderer- I actually knew right away who it was with their first interaction with Jane. The hints were subtle but I found them! The motive took a bit longer to piece out.

This has been a nice change of pace to what I’ve been reading lately. Even though it revolves around murder the writing is not at all dark and heavy.

This was a cute story. I thought it was entertaining. I thought the characters were a little flat and at times boring. The mystery element was a great driving plot. overall a pleasant read. Also, there is more peril than passion.

Book Review
A Governesses Guide to Passion and Peril
By Manda Collins

First off- I have been loving this whole
Ladies Most Scandalous Series from Manda. The strong, sassy, feminist female characters in these regency romance books feel like friends.

Tropes
✅miscommunication
✅Second chance romance
✅Mystery- think Bridgerton meets Agatha Christie
✅Multiple deaths
✅Secondary characters are back and just as meddlesome
✅Regency romance

Thoughts
Collins latest instalment does NOT disappoint. It’s easy to follow, the writing is fluid, it’s predictable and overall offers the reader an entertaining read with a guaranteed happy ending.

Thank you to @readforeverpub @grandcentralpub and @netgalley for my digital ARC in return for an honest review. Opinions expressed are my own.

I’ve really enjoyed the Ladies Most Scandalous series, and this book was a fun conclusion to it. The story follows Jane, who has become a governess after her father’s suicide and the family’s ruination, and Adrian, who worked with Jane’s father and whom Jane has had a crush on for years. When Jane’s employer, who also worked with Jane’s father and Adrian, is murdered, Jane and Adrian work together to investigate.

Jane had a crush on Adrian when she was younger, and she was hurt when he wasn’t there to support her and her mother after her father’s death. Unbeknownst to Jane, a concerned Adrian has been searching for her for a while since he doesn’t know what happened to her. I like that the pair work out their miscommunication early in their romance. They have a past burdened with tragedy and trauma, and the fact that they talk about what happened and how they felt so early on in their reconnection was great. They have a lot of chemistry, and they work really well together when trying to solve the murders that plague Adrian’s colleagues.

Though the love story is low stakes, the mystery surrounding the death of Jane’s father, as well as several others who work with the Foreign Office, is not. Jane, Adrian, and others embark on an intriguing and potentially deadly investigation, and the closer they get to identifying the killer, the more danger they’re in. It makes for a suspenseful read!

If you read the other books in the series, you’ll be happy to know that Caro, Poppy, and Kate have supporting roles in this book. I love that! These women are all so fantastic, and I love how strongly they support each other. If you haven’t read the other book in the series, no worries! This can easily be read as a standalone.

Special thanks to Forever Publishing for providing me with a copy of the book. All thoughts are my own.

A Governess's Guide to Passion and Peril is book 4 in the Ladies Most Scandalous series by Manda Collins.
I’ve enjoyed this great historical romance series.
This is an entertaining novel filled with intrigue, love, and amazing women.
The time period is really entertaining, and the well-crafted characters are fun, well-developed, multi-layered and of course the mystery is intriguing.
A well written book that will have you going on an adventure.

Thank You NetGalley and Forever for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

A great addition to the Murder and Mayhem series of strong, intelligent and independent women and the men who love them just as they are….”obey” removed from marriage vows.
London 1869 and Jane Halliwell’s life and lifestyle was greatly changed when her diplomat father gambled away the family fortune and committed suicide. She’s too proud to simply live as a penniless guest and, instead is governess to a young lady whose mother hates Jane and whose father was a colleague of Jane’s father in the Foreign Service and wants to help her. Lord Adrian was her father’s aide in Rome, Jane’s father’s last assignment before he died. Jane had a schoolgirl crush on the young Lord Adrian but that stopped when he left Rome without saying goodbye…immediately after her father’s death. She’s avoided Adrian for years and is less than pleased to see hm again at the house of her employer. She’s further displeased when she’s directed to attend a formal dinner at the house to make up the correct number of ladies and gentlemen at the dinner table. While she’s physically attracted to Adrian, she can’t forgive his abandonment on her and her mother when Jane’s father died and the family was made destitute. Jane’s feeling for Adrian are pushed aside when her employer is murder.ed. Together, Jane and Adrian, along with characters from the previous books in this series attempt to find the murderer before he strikes again.

I really enjoy this series and i think this was a great read.

The murder mystery was interesting and I figured it out early but still enjoyed the book. I hope there is more in the series!

I thought the last book was an improvement over the first two, but this one seems to have reverted to underwhelming chemistry and a tepid murder mystery. Motivations are thoroughly explained and internal reasoning is explicitly stated. This is a really boring way to build a romance. Thanks to the publisher for sending me an invite to read.

After enjoying previous titles in this series, I was disappointed that I never connected with this title like I had hoped to.

I didn’t feel that the characters were really knowable - they were more like cut out characters. Scenes of intimacy are told from the MC’s pov and it didn’t work. When the two got together it wasn’t a satisfying end, since I was never invested in them.



Thank you to Forever and NetGalley for the DRC

Manda Collins delivers another witty and fun Victorian-era romance/mystery with 'A Governess's Guide to Passion and Peril', the fourth of her thoroughly enjoyable Ladies Most Scandalous series.

Governess Jane Halliwell finds herself trying to solve the murder of her boss and friend of her late father. Jane was left forced to work after the suicide of her Foreign Office diplomat father revealed he was penniless. Complicating matters is the return of her father's young colleague and her former crush, Lord Adrian Fielding.

Like the previous books in the series, this was a fun romp but also skewers the patriarchal stranglehold for women, and how other women reinforce this, and how men can also not uphold it (laughed at Andrew telling Adrian to forget 'obey'). Adrian and Jane have a perfect chemistry, with Adrian fighting his feelings for Jane, and Jane letting go of her hurt at Adrian disappearing from her and her mother's life after her father died. We also have appearances from previous characters, though I would've loved more of Kate and Caro. While I spotted the culprit fairly easily, it was also still an enjoyable whodunnit.

This book is the perfect blend of historical romance, mystery and a bit of action. I'm unsure if Manda Collins plans to introduce new characters to this series, if she doesn't I really hope for a spin-off series with Kate, Caro, Poppy and Jane joining forces to solve crimes. These characters are just too fantastic together to say goodbye.

Thanks to Forever (Grand Central Publishing) and NetGalley for the ARC.

Well this was my least favorite of the series so far. I really like Manda Collins writing style but I just couldn’t get into the relationship between Jane and Adrian. It felt forced and even though they had some kind of history together, I felt it was rushed through and I didn’t buy it. That being said, it was still a fun read and I look forward to more from Manda

Thank you to Netgalley and Forever for the advanced copy of this book

"A Governess's Guide to Passion and Peril" is the final book in Manda Collins' "Ladies Most Scandalous" series. This particular book is centered around Jane, who is left floundering when her father commits suicide and she has to leave her privileged lifestyle to become a governess. But when the head of the household she's working in is unexpectedly murdered, questions arise about whether her dad really committed suicide or was murdered. Jane has to work together with her old friend Lord Adrian to determine what is going on. And when they two of them are in danger, will that cause sparks to fly and emotions to develop?

This was a fun ending to this series. I didn't think this particular relationship was as swoonworthy as some of the others, but it was still a fun, easy book to read. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

If you're not a fan of multiple POVs this book will not be for you.

The story is told from two POVS, Jane's (the FL) and her beau's Adrian. The multiple POVs didn't take away from the story for me. I didn't notice any backtracking being done whenever POVs switched within chapters. I liked how the murder mystery aspect of the story was never overshadowed by the splash of romance in this book. However, the "mystery" is easily solvable by the reader. I knew who did it about halfway through.

I did dislike the repetitiveness of being told how much of 'a grown woman' Jane was. Both the FL and ML (and I recall some other characters as well) on numerous occasions being up the fact that the FL was, indeed, a grown woman. This fact is often (and I mean OFTENED) mentioned by Adrian since the last interaction he had with Jane was when she was eighteen with a obvious crush on him. It's unnecessary to constantly bring this up. I had hardly forgotten how old Jane had become from chapter one to the end of the book. Mentioning it once is enough.

I found it funny how in Adrian's POV Jane's physical description (her "lapis blue eyes or her "lapis lazuli") were so overembellished. But yet in Jane's POV of Adrian's physical description she describes him so plainly (referring to him as handsome and that's it).

Lastly, the villain monologues. I thought it was fairly obvious why the murderer did what he did throughout the story so I found it unnecessary for his character to tell his crimes, his motives behind said crimes, during an act of committing another crime. Not everything needs to be spelled out especially during a scene that I'm supposed to find suspenseful.

I adore Manda Collins and Ladies Most Scandalous and this did not disappoint. The mystery element was excellent and the twists kept me on my toes! The romance was steamy and the pair worked really well together. There is an age difference between the two leads, but it is not expressly stated what that difference is (though I might just not be remembering). Jane has a hard past and has been dealing with the harsh way she and her mother were treated by society after her father's suicide. Adrian was her father's assistant and she had a girlhood crush on him. Their initial reunion was in another of the Ladies Most Scandalous books, though Jane refused to see him then. They are forced together in this book and it's all for the best. The only reason this gets 4 stars (I'd rather give it 4.5) is that I just didn't feel as connected to either MC as I did in the others of this series. They were both great, but I felt we didn't know them well enough. Also, there's far more mystery in this one (not compalining) and the coincidenal information they gather was bit far fetched for me.

An entertaining mystery/romance. Jane was once part of a wealthy and highly regarded family. However, after her father's death, she was shunned by many of her friends and is now working as a governess. When she finds her employer murdered in his study, Jane finds herself aiding in the investigation while reconnecting with her former crush, Lord Adrian.

I have read the third book in this series and feel this can be enjoyed as a stand-alone. The mystery was intriguing and Jane and Adrian have chemistry. While I liked Jane and Adrian together, I would have loved more insight into each of their personalities and a clearer build-up/trajectory of their feelings - it seemed rather abrupt and disjointed.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.