The final book in the Montague siblings series maintains the same high level of whip-smart humor and sensitive social commentary as the earlier titles (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue; The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy). Adventures galore overlay the intense challenges of an anxiety disorder--yes, they had anxiety back in the day, too.
Adrian Montague is a brilliant, profoundly anxious young man in 18th-century England. His secret life as a radical writing about social reform under the name John Everyman is at decisive odds with his public persona as the son of a wealthy, conservative member of parliament. Ever since Adrian's mother's sudden death the previous year, Adrian's anxiety and despair have grown crushing. When a broken spyglass that once belonged to his mother comes into his possession, Adrian becomes convinced that she had inadvertently become tied to a sailor's legend about the Flying Dutchman, a ship said to be doomed to sail the seas forever. Ten years earlier, his mother had been the only survivor of a shipwreck caused, Adrian believes, by the ghost ship.
The young man is driven to learn more about the spyglass and why it "meant so much" ("The kindest way to describe an obsession," he thinks wryly) to his mother. Adrian launches himself into an unexpected world tour that encompasses Morocco, Portugal, the Netherlands and Iceland. Along the way, he picks up Monty and Felicity, the older siblings he never knew existed, as they had left home when he was an infant. Adrian's desperate quest masks a deeper need: to understand and conquer the debilitating anxiety disorder he seems to have shared with his mother.
Mackenzi Lee has established a reputation for adventures both swashbuckling and socially sharp. And very funny. She demonstrates her extensive historical research in surprising details about the vibrant LGBTQ+ community (though they didn't have such a fine acronym back then), as well as the taverns, chamber pots, piracy and politics that made up life in 18th-century cities and ports around the globe.
Packed with political intrigue, romance (gay and straight), angry pirates, ghost stories and more powerful female leaders than you can shake a cutlass at, The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks is what the world needs now. Long-suffering Montague siblings fans will be "abso-bloody-lutely" thrilled. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor
Shelf Talker: The tempestuous final book in the Montague siblings series boasts the complex (pirate-laden) plots, keen social commentary and laugh-out-loud dialogue readers loved in the earlier titles.