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A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting
Cover of A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting
A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting
A Novel
“Bridgerton fans will swoon over this entertaining romp through Britain’s Regency-era high society.”
People
"A Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting is a sharp, modern, and absolutely delicious take on the marriage plot. Sophie Irwin's debut is one of the most fun, romantic books I've read in a long time. I cannot wait to see what she does next."

—Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Malibu Rising
A whip-smart debut that follows the adventures of an entirely unconventional heroine who throws herself into the London Season to find a wealthy husband.  But the last thing she expects is to find love…
Kitty Talbot needs a fortune. Or rather, she needs a husband who has a fortune. Left with her father’s massive debts, she has only twelve weeks to save her family from ruin.
 
 Kitty has never been one to back down from a challenge, so she leaves home and heads toward the most dangerous battleground in all of England: the London season. 
  
Kitty may be neither accomplished nor especially genteel—but she is utterly single-minded; imbued with cunning and ingenuity, she knows that risk is just part of the game. 
 
The only thing she doesn’t anticipate is Lord Radcliffe. The worldly Radcliffe sees Kitty for the mercenary fortune-hunter that she really is and is determined to scotch her plans at all costs, until their parrying takes a completely different turn….
This is a frothy pleasure, full of brilliant repartee and enticing wit—one that readers will find an irresistible delight.
“Bridgerton fans will swoon over this entertaining romp through Britain’s Regency-era high society.”
People
"A Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting is a sharp, modern, and absolutely delicious take on the marriage plot. Sophie Irwin's debut is one of the most fun, romantic books I've read in a long time. I cannot wait to see what she does next."

—Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Malibu Rising
A whip-smart debut that follows the adventures of an entirely unconventional heroine who throws herself into the London Season to find a wealthy husband.  But the last thing she expects is to find love…
Kitty Talbot needs a fortune. Or rather, she needs a husband who has a fortune. Left with her father’s massive debts, she has only twelve weeks to save her family from ruin.
 
 Kitty has never been one to back down from a challenge, so she leaves home and heads toward the most dangerous battleground in all of England: the London season. 
  
Kitty may be neither accomplished nor especially genteel—but she is utterly single-minded; imbued with cunning and ingenuity, she knows that risk is just part of the game. 
 
The only thing she doesn’t anticipate is Lord Radcliffe. The worldly Radcliffe sees Kitty for the mercenary fortune-hunter that she really is and is determined to scotch her plans at all costs, until their parrying takes a completely different turn….
This is a frothy pleasure, full of brilliant repartee and enticing wit—one that readers will find an irresistible delight.
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  • From the cover

    1

     

     

    Netley Cottage, Biddington, Dorsetshire, 1818

     

    You're not going to marry me?" Miss Talbot repeated, disbelievingly.

     

    "Afraid not," Mr. Charles Linfield replied, his expression set in a kind of bracingly apologetic grimace-the sort one might wear when confessing you could no longer attend a friend's birthday party, rather than ending a two-year engagement.

     

    Kitty stared at him, uncomprehending. Katherine Talbot-Kitty to her family and closest acquaintances-was not much used to incomprehension. In fact, she was well known among her family and Biddington at large for her quick mind and talent for practical problem-solving. Yet in this moment, Kitty felt quite at a loss. She and Charles were to be married. She had known it for years-and it was now not to be? What should one say, what should one feel, in the face of such news? Everything was changed. And yet Charles still looked the same, dressed in clothes she had seen him in a thousand times before, with that disheveled style only the wealthy could get away with: an intricately embroidered waistcoat that was badly misbuttoned, a garishly bright cravat that had been mangled rather than tied. He ought at least, Kitty thought, staring at that awful cravat with a rising sense of indignation, to have dressed for the occasion.

     

    Some of this ire must have seeped through to her expression, because all at once Charles swapped his maddening air of apologetic condescension for that of a sulky schoolboy.

     

    "Oh, you needn't look at me like that," he snapped. "It isn't as if we were ever officially promised to one another."

     

    "Officially promised to one another?" Kitty's spirit returned to her in full force, and she discovered, in fact, that she felt quite furious. The irredeemable cad. "We've been speaking of marriage for the past two years. We were only delayed this long because of my mother's death and my father's sickness! You promised me-you promised me so many things."

     

    "Just the talk of children," he protested, before adding mulishly, "and besides, it isn't as if I could call things off when your father was on death's door. Wouldn't have been at all the thing."

     

    "Oh, and I suppose now that he's dead-not a month in the ground-you could finally jilt me?" she said wrathfully. "Is that really so much more 'the thing'?"

     

    He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes flicking to the door.

     

    "Listen, there's no point us discussing it when you're like this," he affected the tone of a severely tried man holding onto his patience. "Perhaps I should go."

     

    "Go? You can't possibly drop news such as this, and not explain yourself. I saw you just last week and we were discussing marrying in May-not three months away."

     

    "Perhaps I should have just written a letter," he said to himself, still staring longingly at the door. "Mary said this was the best way to do it, but I think a letter would have been simpler. I can't think properly with you shrieking at me."

     

    Kitty cast aside her many irritations and, with the instincts of a true hunter, fixed only on the salient information.

     

    "Mary?" she said sharply. "Mary Spencer? What, exactly, does Miss Spencer have to do with this? I had not realized she had returned to Biddington."

     

    "Ah, yes, yes, well, she is, that is," Mr. Linfield stammered, beads of sweat appearing on his brow. "My mother invited her to stay with us, for a time. It being so good for my sisters to make other female...

About the Author-
  • Sophie Irwin grew up in Dorset, England; after university, she moved to London to work in publishing. A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting is her debut novel.
     
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    May 23, 2022
    In Irwin’s sparkling debut, set in Regency-era England, a young woman’s plans to marry into wealth get derailed when the brother of her would-be beau catches on to her scheme. After Kitty Talbot’s fiancé calls off their engagement, she needs to find a new way to pay off the debts she and her four sisters inherited after the deaths of their parents. With dwindling funds, Kitty and her sister Cecily travel from Dorsetshire to London to stay with their aunt Dorothy, a widowed former actor. There, Kitty sets her sights on the moneyed Archibald de Lacy, but his brother Lord Radcliffe soon arrives in town and, recognizing Kitty’s motives, tries to prevent an engagement between her and Archie. Radcliffe is taken by surprise when Kitty promises to stop pursuing Archie if Radcliffe introduces her to high society so that she might meet a new suitor. He agrees, but quickly realizes that there’s more to Kitty than he first assumed, and the attraction between them deepens. Irwin’s zippy narrative is enhanced by the wry banter between Kitty and Radcliffe (“ ‘Perhaps I ought to compile a suitable list,’ said thoughtfully, ‘of gentlemen rich enough to satisfy you and yet so lacking in moral character that I feel no guilt about unleashing you upon them’ ”). Jane Austen fans will be charmed.

  • AudioFile Magazine A delightful narration by Eleanor Tomlinson captures the romance and the spunky heroine in this well-written peek into Regency morality and hypocrisy. Kitty and her four younger sisters are threatened with losing their home because of debts incurred by their irresponsible father. Kitty and sister Cecily head to London for the season so Kitty can snag a man with a fortune to save her family from ruin. Tomlinson enhances the sense of urgency in Kitty's quest. She invests suitors with quirky personalities and provides excellent portraits of the many fusty members of the ton, including Lord Radcliffe, who is determined to prevent his younger brother from proposing to Kitty. Tomlinson performs this funny, slowly unfolding (if predictable) romance with a light touch. Entertaining listening. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
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A Novel
Sophie Irwin
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