The Brooding Captain, an Indifferent Companion, and a Most Snobbish Door Knocker
(2026)(The second book in the Regency: Circle of Sensible Affections series)
A novel by Marisa Paxon
I am the narrator of this book. I already carried the entire affair on my back, from creditors at the door to emotional collapse in the hall, and now they have decided I must sell it as well. Fine. Since nobody else is likely to describe the thing properly, I shall do it myself.
At Marine Parade House in Brighton, I am obliged to manage a composed, sharp-tongued companion named Augusta Harbury, a fluttering widow with nerves enough for six households, one painfully sensible sister, one ledger-minded cousin, and Captain Jonathan Mireford, who arrives with a limp, a scar, a talent for useful silence, and the deeply inconvenient habit of meaning what he says. Add a black front door, a brass lion-head knocker with standards far above the human average, a bouquet from the wrong man, a rival heiress who is intolerably fair-minded, and enough seaside gossip to sink lighter vessels, and I am left to keep order while Augusta must choose between safe exile in Cheltenham and a man who knocks properly, speaks plainly, and ruins her self-command by being alarmingly decent.
What you are getting here is a dry Regency romance of manners, weather, class anxiety, seaside scandal, and one snobbish door knocker who sees far too much. I deliver sharp dialogue, social skirmishes, competent people under emotional pressure, a brooding naval captain who prefers conduct to speeches, and a heroine whose dignity is not decorative, it is hard won. The stakes are not corpses and pistols, thank heaven; they are reputation, dependence, money, marriage, and the risk of wanting someone when life has already shown its talent for invoices.
If you like slow-burn, very low heat, closed-door Regency romance with a hard-earned HEA, wounded captains, capable heroines, razor-dry wit, meddling relations, and love stories built on honesty rather than nonsense, you are exactly the sort of reader I have been forced to identify. This is a fully self-contained standalone, so you may begin here without educational suffering.
In short: come for the polished door, the social peril, and the man who learns to ask; stay because I have made the whole thing far more entertaining than these people deserved. Go on, then. Open the door and see how badly they manage not to fall in love.
Genre: Historical
At Marine Parade House in Brighton, I am obliged to manage a composed, sharp-tongued companion named Augusta Harbury, a fluttering widow with nerves enough for six households, one painfully sensible sister, one ledger-minded cousin, and Captain Jonathan Mireford, who arrives with a limp, a scar, a talent for useful silence, and the deeply inconvenient habit of meaning what he says. Add a black front door, a brass lion-head knocker with standards far above the human average, a bouquet from the wrong man, a rival heiress who is intolerably fair-minded, and enough seaside gossip to sink lighter vessels, and I am left to keep order while Augusta must choose between safe exile in Cheltenham and a man who knocks properly, speaks plainly, and ruins her self-command by being alarmingly decent.
What you are getting here is a dry Regency romance of manners, weather, class anxiety, seaside scandal, and one snobbish door knocker who sees far too much. I deliver sharp dialogue, social skirmishes, competent people under emotional pressure, a brooding naval captain who prefers conduct to speeches, and a heroine whose dignity is not decorative, it is hard won. The stakes are not corpses and pistols, thank heaven; they are reputation, dependence, money, marriage, and the risk of wanting someone when life has already shown its talent for invoices.
If you like slow-burn, very low heat, closed-door Regency romance with a hard-earned HEA, wounded captains, capable heroines, razor-dry wit, meddling relations, and love stories built on honesty rather than nonsense, you are exactly the sort of reader I have been forced to identify. This is a fully self-contained standalone, so you may begin here without educational suffering.
In short: come for the polished door, the social peril, and the man who learns to ask; stay because I have made the whole thing far more entertaining than these people deserved. Go on, then. Open the door and see how badly they manage not to fall in love.
Genre: Historical
Used availability for Marisa Paxon's The Brooding Captain, an Indifferent Companion, and a Most Snobbish Door Knocker