An enjoyable read about a girl who takes on someone else's identity for a week. I don't think in reality it could have happened, but again this is fiction. Everything is tied up nicely at the end of the story with a HEA. A delightful story!

Mary a barmaid yearns for a better life and comes upon her chance when she finds a trunk and an invitation to a ball at Mannerly.

She leaps at her chance and assumes the identity of Agnes the trunks owner, but the lies seem to grow day by day. What starts as wanting to experience something more, ends up with some suitors, blackmail and the Agnes showing up at Mannerly.

A well written book, with a great characters.

I did not realize that this book is the first in a series, Love and Lies, though as I can find nothing about the author, I must presume it’s a debut.

The story is firmly Victorian, not just because it’s set in 1870, but through the way it’s told: an omniscient narrator opens the novel with a brief prelude, addressing the reader directly, and from there we are swept to a bustling inn somewhere in the British countryside, where we meet one Mary Potts.

A pretty and hardworking woman in her early twenties, Mary’s dream is to catch the eye of a well-to-do gentleman; surely, once such a man got to know her, he would see her potential and marry her, thus allowing her to do something more than serve tables, lit fires, and wash dishes.

She has nurtured this hope for a good dozen years, as members of the ton flock to the nearby grand estate of Mannerly with the flow of the social seasons; and year after year, she remains invisible, and trapped.

Until a fateful night, someone encourages to do more than dream.

Beware: anachronisms galore, the word gypsy is used, and there’s a vague whiff of Christian inspirational; DNF.

As events unfold, our omniscient narrator drops in and out of the story, lest we forget he’s there, assuring us that there’s a point to all that he sets before us. While the use of this narrative framing does bring to mind the writing of the time the story is set in, the writing voice in those passages is a bit jarring; too different by far from the rest of the novel.

Then again, the writing is very uneven in quality. The first chapter is fairly polished, and one can imagine that it was edited to within an inch during the querying and submission process. Afterwards…not so much.

So we go from:

“Victorian England was a land of classes and distinctions, and Mary was born on the unfortunate side of things, in both income and gender. There was no way to rise above. There would be no rescue. … She couldn’t help but feel that the man didn’t understand exactly what she was going through. After all, he was a man, and in her time, men had more opportunities for success merely because of their sex. This was exactly why she wanted a man. A lady could have many doors opened easily with a powerful male by her side.” (Chapter 1)

To:

“(Roy) looked at Mary, his face contorted into an innocent, excited smile… Briddie and Roy smiled goofily, eyes wide, nodding.” (Chapter 2)

(Please note that English is not my first language, but I read “goofily” in a novel set in Victorian England, and not only did I double take, but checked with Merriam-Webster: first recorded use of goofy? 1916–over four decades later.)

Later, a room is described thus: “There were novels, an easel, several floral sofas, and vases of fresh spring blossoms throughout.” (Chapter 4)

The characterizations and general tone of the narrative swing wildly from fairly depressing and somewhat realistic, what with Mary having an existential crisis after her older sister basically tells her she’ll be a lowly servant for the rest of her life, to something suited to a children’s comic film, with babies and toddlers crawling out of the kitchen cupboards and under the dining room tables of a busy country inn.

We are told that Mary was orphaned young, and was therefore destined for a workhouse or the streets, and only through the charity of her sister’s husband, the good-hearted Roy, was she brought to live with the family–where she has worked as everything from scullery maid to nanny to barmaid every day since.

During the very first scene, Briddie is shown to be a pragmatic, if not particularly cold, woman; she wants Mary to stop dreaming and to start coming to terms with the realities of her life, because she sees what the constant disappointment is doing to Mary, but also because there’s work to be done–constantly, what with five very young children, and almost no other help.

And then, less than a full day later, she encourages Mary to wear someone else’s clothes and pretend she’s a refined lady–never mind the little matter of diction and manners, or too-large shoes, or knowing how to dance like the ton; or the more worrisome issue of the potentially disastrous consequences *for the inn*–the family’s livelihood, mind you!–should her sister be found out impersonating quality at the neighborhood manor.

Mary herself is a mix of common sense and fancy that’s suited for someone far younger; she reminds me some of Anne Shirley on her arrival to Green Gables–at age eleven; the way she’s written, she comes across as too flighty, entirely too reckless, for the backstory given.

By the time I got to chapter 5 (somewhere around 20%), I was struggling to keep reading. There’s something a bit too twee in the writing and structure, coupled with too many anachronistic word choices, and far too contrived hand-waving at every instance where Mary, predictably, gives herself away, and it all kept pulling me out of the story.

I skimmed ahead a bit, then took a peek at the last few chapters, where the vague whiff of Christian inspirational I got from the early chapters is a bit less vague, and finally gave up.

Mind you, I had already started twitching when, upon opening the trunk mentioned in the blurb and finding the finery inside, Mary slides an 1870s ballgown, by herself and *right over her working barmaid clothes*, and immediately swans around in it, back on chapter 2, so it was overdue. (Let us remember that at this point in time, bodices were tight to the waist, and the skirts were straight in front and pulled to the back into the bustle. The point being: unless the owner was twice Mary’s size, she couldn’t have just “slipped it over her clothes”, and even then, she would have needed some help–evening gown bodices of the period close at the back)

In short (too late, obviously), I am not the audience for this novel, or indeed, the author.

Seven Days at Mannerly is a DNF

Seven Days At Mannerly is a tongue-in-cheek almost campy Cinderella based story. It was amazing how much trouble Mary ended up getting in with the lies building every day she was at Mannerly. I actually wondered how she was going to get out of all of it. You just knew this wasn't going to be just a single night event at the ball. Half of the time I was just shaking my head at how she kept getting in deeper and deeper. But, because Audrey Lancho is a great writer, Mary did come out on top and there's a sequel next year.
Thank you to netgalley for the ARC. Opinions are my own.

I liked the idea of the plot but found the characters dialogue to be slightly unrealistic making it difficult to connect to the characters.

A farce, a romp and a stolen identity...

Set in Victorian England, Mary finds a suitcase and crashes a house party as "Agnes."
As Agnes and in her clothing and living her life, Mary has not one, but two suitors.
Will the truth come out?
It takes a lot to go along with the charade for a week.

This book was fun and lighthearted. It had all of the things I like about a historical romance. It is told in a unique way where there is a narrator telling it from an outside perspective. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t just at the beginning of the chapter like Bridgerton, it would come in the middle of a chapter as well which was kind of an odd placement.

Mary is of lower class and she definitely wonders what it would be like to have a different life. It’s one reason she takes the opportunity of the ball, but also questioned whether it was a good idea or not. Her family pushed her a lot which wasn’t a bad thing, but it does get her into situations. She was a good character. I liked that even though she wasn’t like those at Mannerley when it comes to having money they never saw her any different because they didn’t know. She could easily converse with them and made lifelong friendships.

Since it is a shorter book everything does happen quickly. I wouldn’t say there was enough time for the romance, but it’s not that I didn’t like it. It worked for the story. Some of the drama felt anticlimactic and wrapped up quickly.

Overall, this was a good popcorn read that kept me entertained throughout.

I really liked the tongue in cheek attitude of this book. There was a lot of dry humour especially when the narrator spoke directly to the reader. The plot is interesting, what would happen if two people, one rich, one poor swapped places. There was a really pleasing emphasis on forgiveness, where the lead character was clearly repentant and this was expected. Parts of this book need clarifying. It was great to see a multicultural relationship. There was an explanation of Indian culture, a description of the caste system, and the Indian lady wore a bhindi. However, the surname was Singh, a Sikh name. Sikhism does not subscribe to the caste system, in fact took an opposite position, asserting that all people were equal. Less than 30%of Sikh women wear a bhindi. Perhaps a change of name to a typically Hindu name is needed?

"It's not you, it's me," said the reviewer to the book.
I realize the narration style was inspired by the classics, the narrator being a stranger retelling the story of the main character to the readers. It wasn't badly executed but I just couldn't like it, there were multiple times where I was engrossed in the story when suddenly the narrator jumps in to remind the readers of another character or just prepping for another problem. It made me detach from the story.
The writing was really good, I thought with the concept of the book referencing the classics the writing would be too verbose and lyrical, which thankfully wasn't the case. It had the perfect balance between poignant and easy to read.
Part of the reason why I wasn't taken with the book was the main character, Mary. She was pretty irritating to be honest, she was literally playing the rope with both of Anthony and mr Singh. One moment she was captivated by Anthony's attention, and the next feeling emotionally close to Singh.
I thought the romance lacked chemistry. For Mary, I believe she was more in love with the novelty of being in love, while for Singh, he was just there to be the love interest. His character arch was rather weak and kind of bland.
Some of the side characters definitely redeemed the book, like Roy, Antoinette and mrs Singh. They added more levity to the plot.
Overall, it wasn't a bad book, just not my cup of tea.
*I received an ARC of this book through netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review*

This was a great book! The cover is one of my favorite covers ever. This book was very well written and the romance was so perfect. I would highly recommend this book.

This book is not historical romance, as described, but Christian historical fiction with a love triangle. It doesn’t read like historical romance at all. Since I specifically don’t read Christian fiction, I don’t know whether it meets the genre expectations. The book isn’t poorly written, and since it’s described as a farce, the utter implausibility of the story is to be expected. But ultimately, Mary does people serious harm, fails to take full responsibility for her actions, and doesn’t really grow as a result of her journey.

This author shows promise, and I hope her future books will do a better job of meeting the expectations of whatever genre she’s writing in.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.