Perfecting Fiona (Nightingale Series)

Rating:
Summary: Highly Amusing
Review: This book is the second in Marion Chesney's fantastic "School for Manners" series. Set in the Regency era, the premise involves two spinster ladies, twins, who are in their fifties. Miss Amy and Miss Effy Tribble are desperately poor, but have in their favor their excellent address (on Holles Street) and good family name. Unable to make ends meet, they despair of ever being warm again. Their salvation arrives in the form of Mr. Haddon, a friend from long ago who returns from India a very wealthy man. Shrewd Mr. Haddon, knowing the sisters will never accept the financial help he is longing to give, suggests the girls go into genteel business for themselves, presenting difficult young misses into society, ensuring good marriages. _Perfecting Fiona_ is about Fiona, a girl from a strict Scottish family who is an heiress. She has almost received numerous proposals, but each time the prospective bridegroom goes into the drawing room to ask her to marry him, he exits as if shot from a cannon, babbling to her chaperones that he only meant to get a recipe for mincemeat pie, or something equally silly. Her aunt and uncle, in despair of ever getting their niece off their hands, turn her over to the Tribble sisters, and that's when the real fun begins. Can Effy and Amy discover the truth behind Fiona's determination not to marry? Will Fiona ever find true love? What about the rakish Lord Peter Havard, who seems too interested in a girl from the gentry to suit his haughty duke and duchess parents? And will Mr. Haddon *ever* realize Amy's affection for him is more than platonic? This is a rollicking good time from one of the masters of the Regency genre.