The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels (India Holton)

'So fierce! So feminist! So FUNNY! A romp like no other...two pages in and I was already in love.

I can't get over what a barrel of fun this book was. These ladies were drinking tea with one hand and calmly gunning down their enemies with the other, but were never too busy to whomp someone with their razor edged parasol for using the wrong fork at dinner. Transports you to a whole other world quite a bit more proper and fun than ours.

Basically, this is the book you'd get if Mark Twain and Jane Austen teamed up--with a wee bit of whiskey in the tea--to write about lady pirates.

Utterly unique and completely charming.' - Michelle Hazen

Cecilia Bassingwaite is the ideal Victorian lady. She's also a thief. Like the other members of the Wisteria Society crime sorority, she flies around England drinking tea, blackmailing friends, and acquiring treasure by interesting means. Sure, she has a dark and traumatic past and an overbearing aunt, but all things considered, it's a pleasant existence. Until the men show up.

Ned Lightbourne is a sometimes assassin who is smitten with Cecilia from the moment they meet. Unfortunately, that happens to be while he's under direct orders to kill her. His employer, Captain Morvath, who possesses a gothic abbey bristling with cannons and an unbridled hate for the world, intends to rid England of all its presumptuous women, starting with the Wisteria Society. Ned has plans of his own. But both men have made one grave mistake. Never underestimate a woman.

When Morvath imperils the Wisteria Society, Cecilia is forced to team up with her handsome would-be assassin to save the women who raised her--hopefully proving, once and for all, that she's as much of a scoundrel as the rest of them.