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I like to offer books as contest prizes, so when I heard that Janet Mullany‘s new Regency chick lit novel, A Most Lamentable Comedy, was coming out this summer (published by the British company Little Black Dress) I emailed Janet for some info — as well as a promise of two signed advance copies my next pair of contest winners. The contest begins this Wednesday, March 25 — after I announce the winner of the contest that has just finished yesterday (to see if you won, check my next blog entry, tomorrow).

Janet cheerfully and generously agreed, and sent me a cover graphic — very spiffy, no? — a back cover blurb (see below), and an excerpt which I hadn’t intended to print, but which made me giggle and snort — and admire. So much that I had to share it with you…

But I’ll start with the back cover blurb, to set the scene. To wit:

1822, England. Young, beautiful Lady Caroline Elmhurst is down on her luck. Twice-widowed (once is unfortunate, twice just looks like carelessness…), pursued by creditors, she needs to get back on track before the world realizes just how desperate she’s become.

But she’s optimistic about finding a new husband and when she meets handsome, mysterious Nicholas Congrevance at a houseparty in the country, she sets out to entice him. For his part, Nicholas simply sees Lady Caroline as just the sort of woman he’s used to exploiting — rich, available, and gullible. Neither realizes the other is penniless — and neither has any intention of falling in love…

While as for the excerpt (in Lady Caroline’s voice, which is to say in Janet’s supple first-person, present-tense Regency chick lit style)…

In for a penny, in for a pound. Somehow I have decided, and I’m not quite sure when this happened, that if I’m to be the Duke’s mistress I shall be the best he ever had — entertaining, charming, and endlessly inventive in the sensual arts. I select my finest gown and my least-darned stockings. I suppose I should have shopped for some new ones, but at least I have some pretty garters to wear.

Mary and the Tysons haul hot water upstairs for me and fill a tin bathtub. I abandon myself to the pleasure of hot water and lavender-scented soap, and Mary scrubbing my back.

A horrible thought occurs to me. “Mary, what about my hair?”

“We’ll wash it of course, milady.”

“No, no. Not that hair. That hair.”

“That hair? Oh, lud, milady, do you mean we should — it wouldn’t be nice, milady.”

But I’m not nice anymore, and somehow—well, it must be from certain obscene prints that Elmhurst was good enough to share with me—I am convinced that his grace should find me as bald as an egg beneath my skirts.

“Yes, we should remove it. Will—will it hurt, do you think, Mary?”

“Ooh, I expect so, milady. I’ve never done it, but I believe you use boiled sugar and rags, at least that’s what I’ve heard.”

It hurts already, just thinking about it, and I believe it may take some level of expertise. I am not too keen on Mary learning the skill on my person (hot sugar syrup!). I clamp my knees together in a self-protective gesture.

“We should have asked his grace’s manservant if that is what the Duke prefers.”

“Yes, milady.” She giggles, but a drop of what can only be a tear falls onto my shoulders. I must add manservant to the list of words that make Mary cry, in addition to earrings, flowers, ironing, ribbons, cucumbers (I do not enquire too closely into the last item)—it goes on and on.

“Maybe you could practice on yourself.”

“No one’s likely to see, milady.” A heavy sigh, another tear. “Besides, I don’t think it’s decent for a woman of my station, begging your ladyship’s pardon.” — © Janet Mullany

Isn’t that fun? Don’t you love the name Nicholas Congrevance?

And you can win a copy — autographed, weeks before it hits the bookstores in England and way way before it makes its way here. Just check out my contest page this Wednesday, March 25.