BookBrowse has a new look! Learn more about the update here.

BookBrowse Reviews The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Beyond the book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy

by Mackenzi Lee
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • First Published:
  • Oct 2, 2018
  • Paperback:
  • May 2020
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Reviews

BookBrowse:


The highly anticipated sequel to the New York Times bestselling The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue.

After an unorthodox grand tour of Europe with her brother Monty and his now-partner Percy, Felicity Montague has been following her dream of becoming a doctor – or at least, she's trying to. Unfortunately, for an eighteenth-century woman, it's not a career option that she's actually allowed to pursue. Mackenzi Lee's second Montague Siblings novel focuses on Felicity's journey to find herself, and her place, in a world that does not account for her ambitions or passions. Like its predecessor The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, the impeccably researched historical novel is full of adventure and draws from true events and conditions.

While readers do not have to read The Gentleman's Guide, necessarily, to enjoy this novel, I do think that its context adds to the reader's understanding of the world and the family the Montague siblings exist within, and how and why Monty and Felicity created the lives they are living. I wonder if, without that prior knowledge, readers might not buy as fully into their experiences. That being said, Felicity, Johanna, and Sim are believable and dynamic as a trio of strong women, each with their secrets and strengths, each unwilling to just be boxed into the roles that society expects them to play.

When Felicity's hopes of being taken seriously as a student of medicine are stymied in Edinburgh and she faces an unwanted proposal, she sets off on a path to Stuttgart to try to convince the doctor whose work she admires to take her on as a student. But as rules of society and reuniting with an old friend change her plans, she finds herself traveling across the world and farther away from her comfort zone than she could have imagined. Lee's novel, firmly rooted in the 18th century, provides a window into the struggles faced by women who wanted more than society allowed them to have, and explores how they might have coped with their situations. Felicity, Johanna, and Sim each complicate the idea of the "right" way to be a woman. The narrative centers on Felicity's point of view and engages with both her present circumstances and her memories of the past, without shirking from complicated emotions.

If I have any criticism, it is that I wish there had been more time and space taken to really dig into the relationships between the three women, specifically Felicity's internal reflections on her and Johanna's damaged-then-repaired friendship. Especially as the story reaches its climax, I did question if the trust needed between them to resolve conflicts had been built up enough through the trials they underwent together. One of the most common criticisms about historical fiction is that the female characters seem like they have been dropped from the present day into a historical setting and, thus, their reactions, their internal monologues, and their wants and needs are somehow asynchronous with the period. This is something that Lee writes in response to with impeccable, thorough research. Her attention to detail in A Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy allows her to craft believable women who seem of their period.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in October 2018, and has been updated for the June 2020 edition. Click here to go to this issue.

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access become a member today.
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book:
  Women Who Ruled the Waves

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, try these:

  • The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye jacket

    The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye

    by Briony Cameron

    Published 2024

    About This book

    This epic, dazzling tale based on true events illuminates a woman of color's rise to power as one of the few purported female pirate captains to sail the Caribbean, and the forbidden love story that will shape the course of history.

  • My Fine Fellow jacket

    My Fine Fellow

    by Jennieke Cohen

    Published 2023

    About This book

    Culinary delights abound, romance lingers in the air, and plans go terribly, wonderfully astray in this gender-bent take on My Fair Lady from Jennieke Cohen, author of Dangerous Alliance - perfect for fans of Bridgerton or A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue.

We have 6 read-alikes for The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Mackenzi Lee
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

Become a Member

Join BookBrowse today to start
discovering exceptional books!
Find Out More

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Briar Club
    The Briar Club
    by Kate Quinn
    Kate Quinn's novel The Briar Club opens with a murder on Thanksgiving Day, 1954. Police are on the ...
  • Book Jacket: Bury Your Gays
    Bury Your Gays
    by Chuck Tingle
    Chuck Tingle, for those who don't know, is the pseudonym of an eccentric writer best known for his ...
  • Book Jacket: Blue Ruin
    Blue Ruin
    by Hari Kunzru
    Like Red Pill and White Tears, the first two novels in Hari Kunzru's loosely connected Three-...
  • Book Jacket: A Gentleman and a Thief
    A Gentleman and a Thief
    by Dean Jobb
    In the Roaring Twenties—an era known for its flash and glamour as well as its gangsters and ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The 1619 Project
by Nikole Hannah-Jones
An impactful expansion of groundbreaking journalism, The 1619 Project offers a revealing vision of America's past and present.
Book Jacket
Lady Tan's Circle of Women
by Lisa See
Lisa See's latest historical novel, inspired by the true story of a woman physician from 15th-century China.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl
    by Bart Yates

    A saga spanning 12 significant days across nearly 100 years in the life of a single man.

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

L T C O of the B

and be entered to win..

Win This Book
Win Smothermoss

Smothermoss by Alisa Alering

A haunting, imaginative, and twisting tale of two sisters and the menacing, unexplained forces that threaten them and their rural mountain community.

Enter

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.