With Seduction in Mind by Laura Lee Guhrke

Is 1896 and Daisy Merrick, Girl-Bachelor, has lost yet another post. This doesn't surprise anyone who knows her as she's forever losing her jobs due to her outspokenness, but this time is different, instead of going home to her sister Lucy - who owns and operates an employment agency - and letting her find her yet another job she dislikes, Daisy decides to instead pursue her dream of becoming a published author. To that effect she seeks out Viscount Marlowe (from And Then He Kissed Her) to ask him to read one of her manuscripts. Marlowe - who's married to one of Daisy's friends - agrees to read one of her manuscripts and also gives her the opportunity to write a review of the Earl of Avermore's new play.

Sebastian Grant, Earl of Avermore was once hailed as one of England's greatest writers, but he hasn't written anything worthwhile in almost a decade, he's almost four years past his last deadline, deep in debt and the play that's about to open in the London stage was sort of a last-ditch attempt to make some money he desperately needs, never mind he wrote the play over three years ago and that he knows it isn't any good.

The day after the opening, Sebastian reads a review by some George Lindsay - a.k.a. Daisy - that shreds his play to bits, since said review was published by one of Marlowe's papers - who happens to be his publisher- Sebastian decides to have a talk with his publisher, since this one review has gotten under his skin. There he meets George/Daisy, and while watching them fight and argue about the review, Marlowe gets a crazy idea that just might work: what if he has Daisy and Sebastian work together as critique/writing partners?

Well, to find out how that works out you must read the book.

If there is one thing I love about this series is that Ms. Guhrke writes about mature, capable women who make their own way in life - even with the limited options they have during the late Victorian era - and aren't waiting to be 'rescued' or sit idly by eating bonbons, this has made me a fan from the start and I love reading each new installment of the series because it feels like I'm visiting with an old friend, Daisy's book was no exception. She's hard working, an optimist and full of love and wonder. Sebastian is moody, a perfectionist and even though he knows he is - or was - talented, he, even at the height of his success, has always been plagued with self doubt. This is a book about writing, about two writers in very different points of their career (Daisy's it's just starting, Sebastian fears his is over) and who approach writing in entirely different ways. At the same time, it is a love story.

There is one thing I didn't like, mostly because it reminded me of something that happened in The Wicked Ways of a Duke (Book 2) toward the end. But I still breezed through this book and enjoyed it a great deal.