Book Review |The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy – Mackenzi Lee

Title: The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy
Author: Mackenzi Lee
Publication date: Thursday 15th November 2018
My rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads rating: 4.32
Pages: 450
Genre: YA, Historical Fiction, LGBTQ+

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I received an Advanced Reading copy of this book. All opinions and views are my own and are not influenced by receiving a copy of this book.

I would like to thank Shrina from Harper360 for sending me an ARC of this book and of course the author, Mackenzi Lee.

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Overall opinion of the book:

Well, well, well… what can I say? Mackenzi Lee has done it again! She’s stolen my heart by writing an absolutely astounding and incredible novel that I completely adored.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while then you’ll know that the first book in the Montague Siblings series, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue was my favourite read of 2017. I absolutely loved everything about it and was blown away by how amazing it was. It was abso-bloody-lutely brilliant and I can not recommend it enough. Naturally, when the second book The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy was announced, I added it to my TBR list straight away.

In October, the book was included in the Harper 360 mailing list of available ARC’s and I jumped at the chance to receive a copy of it and I was over the moon when I got it on the post. Over the past year and a half of blogging I’ve reviewed some amazing books, but it was an absolute honour to receive a copy of a book I have been so excited to read. It was definitely the biggest highlight of my blogging journey thus far and it was one of those “pinch me, I’m so lucky” moments.

Onto the book review. When I heard the second book in the Montague Siblings series was going to focus on Felicity rather l than Monty, I was a little nervous that I wouldn’t enjoy it as much as The Gentleman’s Guide. This is mainly down to the fact that I knew Monty and Percy weren’t going to be in it as much and they are two of my all time favourite fictional characters, definitely my OTP for sure. I really enjoyed Monty’s sarcasm and tone of voice and was unsure of whether Felicity would live up to it. The thought of reading a book that didn’t include much of Monty and Percy made me a bit disappointed, but boy I was wrong. I knew from the first couple of pages that I was going to absolutely adore this book. Felicity’s tone of voice was just as humorous and sarcastic as her brothers and I lost count of how many times this book made me laugh out loud.

There are so many great things I can say about The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, starting with the plot. It was one I thoroughly enjoyed. It follows Felicity’s quest to become a doctor during a time where women having a career in medicine was virtually unheard of. The plot delves into toxic masculinity and male dominance, through marriage and work. Mackenzi stays true to the time period and it’s clear that she has thoroughly studied and researched the topics before writing. The way in which women and people of colour are treated reflects how society was during the time in which the book is set, which is tough to read at certain points in the book. It’s such a huge comparison to today’s society, not that our society now is by any means perfect however.

The book gave me some Pirates of the Caribbean vibes and the overall plot was brilliant. It contained the perfect amount of action, humour and seriousness and I loved the adventure Felicity goes on and hearing about the different countries she visits. It was interesting to explore what pirates were like. It also teaches the valuable lesson that sometimes the people we look up to the most and idolise are not always who we think they are. The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy doesn’t have an unrealistic plot as Felicity’s outcome doesn’t defy the social norms of the time, yet the book still oozes feminism and female empowerment.

The most interesting aspect other than the main plot for me was watching Felicity grow as a woman. Without spoiling the plot, she is a character torn between great struggle of wanting to be a strong and independent woman and how this relates to femininity. This is why I particularly liked Felicity’s friend Johanna, she emphasises that you can enjoy stereotypically womanly thing and still be taken seriously as an intelligent woman. Also, I love the meaning behind the name of the book, if you’ve read it you’ll know why it’s such a good title. 😊

The language punctuation and grammar was perfect and I loved Felicity’s sarcastic tone of voice, it fits her personality perfectly. This was easily one of my favourite reads of 2018. I don’t have anything constructive to say about this book, other than the fact that I wanted it to be longer so I could read more of it!

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Final thoughts:

I absolutely adore this book and I can’t wait to read whatever Mackenzi Lee has in store for us next. She has such a brilliant flair for writing and balances humour, drama, emotions and relationships perfectly.

I loved reading Felicity’s character development throughout the book and comparing her strength and determination in this book to what it was like in The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue.

The plot was fantastic and there were plenty of twists and turns that kept me on my toes, guessing what would happen next. There characters included were interesting and had a lot of depth to them. I really enjoyed the appearance of Monty and Percy too – obviously!

There is also some Ace rep included in the book, along with gay and lesbian rep too. It’s great that Mackenzi Lee has included this. The book emphasises that you don’t need a relationship to define who you are as a person, you can be just as happy in life while being an independent person. 😊

If you enjoyed The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue then you’ll love The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, it was definitely one of my favourite reads of 2018.

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If you would like to purchase The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, you can do so here:

Waterstones
Amazon
Book Depository
WHSmith

Harper 360 – https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/corporate/harpercollins-imprints/harper360/
Mackenzi Lee – http://www.mackenzilee.com

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