A Wallflower’s Guide to Viscounts and Vice

A sunshine spinster and a grumpy viscount use their fake engagement to solve a murder mystery in the first book of a new series from Manda Collins.

A wallflower by choice, wealthy Lucy Penhallow would rather sit out the dancing all season than listen to false flattery from the fortune hunters who pursue her. But when she and her best friend’s brother witness a crime in progress, they’ll need to put every skill Lucy’s learned from reading detective stories to the test in their hunt for a missing woman. And if Viscount Gilford happens to be handsome as sin and clever to boot? Well, that's no hardship for her.
    Viscount Gilford needs a wife to save him from financial ruin, and there’s only one heiress who’s off limits. So when he and Lucy find themselves inextricably linked in the tabloids, it’s a disaster. As their investigation progresses, their once unwelcome alliance becomes something more—a love match neither will give up. But there’s a killer watching their romance from the wings who’s only too happy to keep these meddlesome sleuths together . . . in the afterlife.

Manda Collins grew up on a combination of Nancy Drew books and Jane Austen novels, and her own brand of historical romantic suspense is the result. A former academic librarian, she holds master’s degrees in English and Library & Information Studies. Her novel Duke with Benefits was named a Kirkus Best Romance of 2017. She lives on the Gulf Coast with a squirrel-fighting cat and more books than are strictly necessary.