Lords, ladies, foreign dignitaries, and the cream of Victorian society have turned out to celebrate Petronella Eunice Arbuthnot’s sixteenth birthday. But Petronella herself has bigger fish to fry. Her beloved guardian, the honorable Augustus T. Percival, has met with an unfortunate accident that has unexpected side effects—he has inadvertently swallowed a beetle and now has an insatiable appetite for insects. Such an impulse poses many opportunities for social embarrassment, particularly at an event as important as a young lady’s coming-out party. But things go even more awry when two particularly esteemed guests are kidnapped right from under Petronella’s elegant nose. Aided by her guardian (who keeps plucking moths from the air and popping them into his mouth), her best friend Jane (another pretty young thing with the heart of a prankster), and Jane’s well-connected big brother James (whose virile charms make her stomach do flips), Petronella plunges into a political mystery laden with ransom notes, midnight meetings, and hordes of oppressive Victorians determined to keep an upper-crust young lady from having the adventure of a lifetime. Petronella, needless to say, outwits them at every turn. Author Dene Low invests her debut novel with sly humor, charming period slang, and deliciously absurd details. Readers will be pleased as punch to learn that more adventures starring intrepid Petronella and her bug-hungry guardian are on their way.

posted Oct 12, 2010 at 11:49AM

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