A Most Dreadful Guide to Ruin
(2025)(The first book in the Trouble with the Tollivers series)
A novel by Samantha Blok
From the author of The Haunting of Rosehill and The Heir of Ravens comes the Season’s most delightfully wicked entertainment: the first book in the highly anticipated Trouble with the Tollivers series — a Regency romance comedy that has readers laughing and swooning in equal measure.
London Society demands perfection. Hetty Tolliver is about to deliver absolute chaos.
As the eldest of five sisters, Miss Henrietta Tolliver is everything a proper young lady ought to be: elegant, accomplished and endlessly agreeable… and she is utterly, mind-numbingly bored of it. If she must smile sweetly through one more pianoforte recital or suffer another dull dinner party spent discussing drainage, she might very well scream. Her solution is simple, and entirely improper: she shall engineer a scandal so ruinous that no respectable gentleman would dare offer for her hand.
Theodore Winslow, the Earl of Langley, is her childhood friend, London’s most notorious flirt and precisely the sort of man foolish enough to help. Theo considers Hetty’s plan absurd... which makes it all the more irresistible. After all, what harm could come from a few stolen dances, a scandalously low neckline, and perhaps a duel or two?
Unfortunately, what begins as a mock courtship soon unravels in a most inconvenient fashion: Hetty is declared the Diamond of the Season, suitors flock by the dozen, and the gossip columns swoon over their tender romance. Somewhere between moonlit kisses, an accidental shooting and a faux engagement that refuses to remain pretend, Hetty discovers that the true danger is not in scandal… but in falling hopelessly, disastrously in love.
A riotous Regency romantic comedy bursting with banter, bedlam, and one increasingly besotted earl.
What readers are saying:
" ...the perfect book to curl up in a blanket with a cup of coffee or tea while you giggle and squeal over the hilarity that is the Tolliver family. I instantly fell in love with Hetty and all of her sisters! If you love Bridgerton vibes with a dose of laughter and a pinch of spice, this is for you!" - Ally Knight
"...an elegant, witty, and utterly swoon-worthy Regency romp that had me laughing, sighing, and fanning myself in equal measure. A five-star gem for fans of Julia Quinn, Tessa Dare, or anyone who adores a clever, comedic Regency romance" - Tracey Cotton
"I’m a total Bridgerton fanatic, but this book was even better! Friends to lovers, fake dating, AND a slow-burn romance all in one book? Utterly delicious and delightfully scandalous—a tale for the Ton. I was absolutely ruined." Ally
Step into the glittering ballrooms and ungovernable chaos of The Trouble with the Tollivers — where Hetty Tolliver’s scandalous scheme becomes the most irresistible love story of the Season.
Genre: Historical Romance
London Society demands perfection. Hetty Tolliver is about to deliver absolute chaos.
As the eldest of five sisters, Miss Henrietta Tolliver is everything a proper young lady ought to be: elegant, accomplished and endlessly agreeable… and she is utterly, mind-numbingly bored of it. If she must smile sweetly through one more pianoforte recital or suffer another dull dinner party spent discussing drainage, she might very well scream. Her solution is simple, and entirely improper: she shall engineer a scandal so ruinous that no respectable gentleman would dare offer for her hand.
Theodore Winslow, the Earl of Langley, is her childhood friend, London’s most notorious flirt and precisely the sort of man foolish enough to help. Theo considers Hetty’s plan absurd... which makes it all the more irresistible. After all, what harm could come from a few stolen dances, a scandalously low neckline, and perhaps a duel or two?
Unfortunately, what begins as a mock courtship soon unravels in a most inconvenient fashion: Hetty is declared the Diamond of the Season, suitors flock by the dozen, and the gossip columns swoon over their tender romance. Somewhere between moonlit kisses, an accidental shooting and a faux engagement that refuses to remain pretend, Hetty discovers that the true danger is not in scandal… but in falling hopelessly, disastrously in love.
A riotous Regency romantic comedy bursting with banter, bedlam, and one increasingly besotted earl.
What readers are saying:
" ...the perfect book to curl up in a blanket with a cup of coffee or tea while you giggle and squeal over the hilarity that is the Tolliver family. I instantly fell in love with Hetty and all of her sisters! If you love Bridgerton vibes with a dose of laughter and a pinch of spice, this is for you!" - Ally Knight
"...an elegant, witty, and utterly swoon-worthy Regency romp that had me laughing, sighing, and fanning myself in equal measure. A five-star gem for fans of Julia Quinn, Tessa Dare, or anyone who adores a clever, comedic Regency romance" - Tracey Cotton
"I’m a total Bridgerton fanatic, but this book was even better! Friends to lovers, fake dating, AND a slow-burn romance all in one book? Utterly delicious and delightfully scandalous—a tale for the Ton. I was absolutely ruined." Ally
Step into the glittering ballrooms and ungovernable chaos of The Trouble with the Tollivers — where Hetty Tolliver’s scandalous scheme becomes the most irresistible love story of the Season.
Genre: Historical Romance
Used availability for Samantha Blok's A Most Dreadful Guide to Ruin