The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin
By Alison Goodman
Adult Fiction
This story picks up right where Alison Goodman’s fantastic 2023 novel The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies left off. So, it’s best if you’ve read that one first. Twin sisters Gus and Julia Colebrook are still busy trying to better the lives of women and children living on the outskirts of English Regency society.
The Colebrooks are women of means. Although their more conventional younger brother would love to rein them in, they have achieved spinsterhood and a degree of independence, which they use to get into all kinds of good trouble. Don’t let the flowery pastel book cover fool you – this is no Jane Austen-inspired cozy mystery. These ladies have been known to steal underage girls away from brothels and to break into insane asylums to rescue mistreated inmates.
The sisters have several allies in their adventures, including their butler, Weatherly; an upright lawman named Mr. Kent; and Lord Evan, an old acquaintance who was wrongly accused of murder and transported to Australia twenty years ago.
Evan was once a spoilt young man, but his years living as a convict matured him. Due to a family crisis, he illegally returned to England and must stay one step ahead of a sadistic thief taker working for someone who wants him out of the way. Despite the danger, Evan always shows up to help Gus in her latest escapade, and she is determined to clear his name so they might someday have a future together.
This series has a lot going on: adventure, misogyny, shadowy conspiracies of the darkest sort, and middle-aged romance in an era when unmarried women over the age of 30 were all but invisible. I am now impatiently awaiting Book #3!
Reviewed by Lynn Heitkamp
Zauel Library
