Reputation

Georgiana Ellers, bookish and sheltered, has been left by her parents with her stodgy aunt and uncle in the English countryside for the summer. The Regency days stretch out dull and lonely until a tedious party brings her face to face with Frances Campbell.

Frances is wealthy, enigmatic and part of the in-crowd, and she plainly has no use for the rules of polite society. Georgiana, vulnerable and short of company, is quickly drawn into Frances's circle of rich, wild and thoroughly improper friends.

Through them she meets the upper reaches of Regency aristocracy: drunken nights, careless spending and a number of mysterious young men. One of them is Thomas Hawksley, who keeps turning up at Georgiana's most embarrassing moments. There is a spark between them, but Thomas is unimpressed by her new friends.

The historical romantic comedy has a feminist slant and a sharp, funny, somewhat edgy tone. Sex, consent, belonging and status all come up along the way, in a period when a woman's reputation counted for everything. Georgiana has to decide whether she will ever fit in, and whether Frances's gilded world costs more than she is willing to pay.