A Lady's Formula for Love by Elizabeth Everett (Tuesday Intros & Teaser Tuesday)

 

Title: A Lady's Formula for Love

Author: Elizabeth Everett

Publication: 09 February 2021

Format: Kindle eBook

Amazon Description: 

What is a Victorian lady's formula for love? Mix one brilliant noblewoman and her enigmatic protection officer. Add in a measure of danger and attraction. Heat over the warmth of humor and friendship, and the result is more than simple chemistry--it's elemental.

Lady Violet is keeping secrets. First, she founded a clandestine sanctuary for England's most brilliant female scientists. Second, she is using her genius on a confidential mission for the Crown. But the biggest secret of all? Her feelings for protection officer Arthur Kneland.

Solitary and reserved, Arthur learned the hard way to put duty first. But the more time he spends in the company of Violet and the eccentric club members, the more his best intentions go up in flames. Literally.

When a shadowy threat infiltrates Violet's laboratories, endangering her life and her work, scientist and bodyguard will find all their theories put to the test--and learn that the most important discoveries are those of the heart.

Ramble-y Teaserish Stuff
I really wanted to have this be my I'll Sleep When I've Read... post for this week, but there ended up being no post at all. I lost a dear friend to a long horrible illness and reading just wasn't happening. As it is I'm still only 21% in, but A Lady's Formula for Love is already so perfectly delightful that I've already placed the second in the Secret Scientists of London series on the wishlist. I may need both of them -- and whatever may follow -- on my actual shelves instead of just my Cloud. It's that good.

Widowed for five years, Lady Violet Greycliff is the creator of Athena's Retreat -- a social club for women in London. For all appearances sake, it is simply the female version of the popular gentlemen's clubs that most Regency fans know of already, like White's, Brooks, and Boodle's. When you get deep enough in, though, there are secret laboratories and libraries where the members study and experiment. These aren't the needlepointing gossipers (although there is plenty of gossip and I'm sure they each know their way around a needle). These women are interested in things like mathematics and astronomy and medicine and chemistry.

Violet's stepson, William (commonly called Grey), works for a top secret agency for the Queen and, as such, has commissioned his brilliant stepmother to assist in discovering an antidote to a new poisonous weapon that has been developed. Of course, there are plenty who do not want her to succeed and Grey employs Arthur Kneland to be her bodyguard. Violet is unaware until Arthur rushes in to save her from an explosion that, in all likelihood, was not caused by one of her members.

The attraction between the two is instantaneous and almost combustible all in its own right. 

I love watching Violet and Arthur interact. They are both wonderfully awkward. He is afraid that getting too close to her will make her a distraction from the task at hand of making sure she stays safe. She is just a delightful bundle of brilliant flibbertigibbetness. (It's a word. Trust me. I just typed it so it must be.) 

Like I said, I'm only at 21% right now but I just know that the next 79% will be amazing. I might even sleep with a well-read smile on my face ... after a few more chapters.

"First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros" is from the first paragraph or two

of a book being read now (or in the future) and is hosted by Socrates' Book Reviews. 

"Teaser Tuesday" at The Purple Booker asks for a random line or two
from anywhere in the book currently being read.