Confessions of a Little Black Gown

By Elizabeth Boyle

The setting is England, 1814. England and the United States are enemies. Thalia Langley's twin sister, Felicity, Duchess of Hollindrake, is throwing a big house party meant to establish her reputation as a society matchmaker. She is bringing together eligible society bachelors and belles in the hopes of making several matches. One of the girls she has her sights set on is her sister, Thalia.
Thalia and her cousin Philippa are not the typical young English ladies of the gentry. They are two young women of action and intrigue and at the moment they are concealing a wanted criminal, an American privateer condemned to die. They are helping him escape the hangman's noose, because Philippa is madly in love with him.
The British government suspects the two girls might be hiding the man and so they send an agent in disguise as a vicar to the house party, his orders are to murder the American if he finds him. But the agent, Lord Larken, finds himself smitten by young Thalia and becomes involved with her, compromising his mission. Things become even more complicated the night of the big dance when a deadly French agent shows up at the house determined to get to the American first, a French agent who holds the key to Lord Larken's father's untimely and disgraceful death, information that Larken has been tying to obtain for years.

This was an OK story. However, I found the girls too forward and unladylike, more like modern women than young ladies of the 1800s. Thalia willingly lets Larken seduce her and then it turns out cousin Philippa is pregnant so she has been rolling in the hay with her lover too. I know loose women are not a modern invention still I find it disconcerting to read about girls of that time with no more scruples than any slutty girl of today. Then at the end Thalia and her lover run off to get married at Gretna Green and the scene in the wedding chapel read like something from a Las Vegas wedding chapel not 19th century Britain. I also didn't find the spy story all that interesting or compelling or even believable. And finally, I don't care for the cover of the book with the woman's head missing as if the most important thing about her is her tits that look as if they are about to fall out of her dress, talk about objectifying a person.