Vexingly Tangled Curtain Rope, Unsettling Murder, and a Most Flirtatious Ghost
(2026)(The first book in the Regency: Ghosts & Gentlemen League series)
A novel by Marisa Paxon
I am the narrator of this book. I carried the whole wretched business, murder, haunting, flirtation, and all, and now they have decided I must sell it too. Fine. In a fashionable private theatre in Regency London, one collapsing garden drop kills the indomitable Mrs Pavey in the middle of rehearsal, leaving Mr Simon Etheridge, who prefers order to feeling, and Miss Ruth Norcott, who catches every missed cue and altered story, to pick through the wreckage. Mrs Pavey, very inconveniently, refuses to stay properly dead, and continues arranging everyone from the other side.
Simon wants a tidy accident; Ruth wants facts; I, having been trapped with the lot of them, can assure you the ropes were tampered with, the papers are in the wrong hands, and half the company has something to hide. What begins as a death by scenery becomes a social and romantic catastrophe involving forged notes, theatrical vanity, one select amateur company in a state of moral collapse, and a hero and heroine who are far too intelligent to leave each other alone. If Ruth cannot untangle the truth, she risks her position, her peace, and the usual reward for female competence, being ignored until disaster proves her right.
If you like sharp-tongued historical mysteries, competent heroines, dry banter, haunted theatricals, and romance that advances by way of mutual exasperation, you are plainly the sort of reader this was designed to catch. It is also a fully stand-alone entry in the Ghosts & Gentlemen League, which is my courteous way of telling you that you may begin here and continue misbehaving later.
A clue-rich Regency mystery with a satisfying logical reveal, non-gory violence, and a closed-door slow-burn romance with an HEA.You may now stop pretending you do not want exactly that. Open the book and let me drag you into the rehearsal before someone else drops the scenery.
Simon wants a tidy accident; Ruth wants facts; I, having been trapped with the lot of them, can assure you the ropes were tampered with, the papers are in the wrong hands, and half the company has something to hide. What begins as a death by scenery becomes a social and romantic catastrophe involving forged notes, theatrical vanity, one select amateur company in a state of moral collapse, and a hero and heroine who are far too intelligent to leave each other alone. If Ruth cannot untangle the truth, she risks her position, her peace, and the usual reward for female competence, being ignored until disaster proves her right.
If you like sharp-tongued historical mysteries, competent heroines, dry banter, haunted theatricals, and romance that advances by way of mutual exasperation, you are plainly the sort of reader this was designed to catch. It is also a fully stand-alone entry in the Ghosts & Gentlemen League, which is my courteous way of telling you that you may begin here and continue misbehaving later.
A clue-rich Regency mystery with a satisfying logical reveal, non-gory violence, and a closed-door slow-burn romance with an HEA.You may now stop pretending you do not want exactly that. Open the book and let me drag you into the rehearsal before someone else drops the scenery.
Used availability for Marisa Paxon's Vexingly Tangled Curtain Rope, Unsettling Murder, and a Most Flirtatious Ghost