A Perfect Hand by Ayelet Waldman
Unlike most historical romances, the heroine of A Perfect Hand is not a member of the aristocracy but a lady’s maid, Miss Alice Lockey. Alice is a true member of the servant class, not a Duke’s daughter in disguise or an orphan who is discovered to be an heiress!
Alice has some peculiar ideas for her station. She is ambitious for a life beyond “downstairs” and considers herself the equal of her silly, smelly employer, Lady Jemima Alderwick. Marriage never interested her until a visiting servant, Charlie Wells, appears at Marlecombe Park. Romance blooms, but sadly, with different employers, Charlie and Alice can never be together under one roof unless Lady Jemima and Charlie’s employer, Viscount Wynstowe, get married. Undaunted, the two servants start on the herculean task of matchmaking two members of the aristocracy.
While manipulating Lady Jemima’s movements (quite exhausting), Alice finds time to attend the London meetings of the nascent women’s suffragette movement, even meeting a young Emmeline Pankhurst.
Will Alice and Charlie succeed in their machinations? Or will Alice forge a different path for herself?
The novel suffers a bit from multiple identities, part romance, part satire, and part feminist manifesto, but the premise is clever even if the execution is choppy.
WHO WROTE IT
Ayelet Waldman is the bestselling author of numerous novels, an essay collection, a memoir, and the Mommy-Track Mystery series. She also co-developed and was an executive producer of the Emmy nominated Netflix series Unbelievable. She lives in California with her husband Michael Chabon.