The Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne

Melissa is organised, so organised that she keeps getting mad redundant after knocking the office in to shape and getting things running smoothly.  Maybe things would have been different if she could toot her own horn about her achievements but well bred "little ladies" just don't do that sort of thing.  So, here she is made redundant from the Estate Agency she has brought kicking and screaming in to some semblance of order, living with her best friend Nathan and trying to dodge her controlling father and doormat, shopaholic, alcoholic mother.

After a brush with working for an Escort Agency she decides that men or "her class" need help.  They are sartorially and romantically challenged and she is just the girl to help them, well, her alter ego Honey is.  There is a great deal of humour here but it is dissipated by MElissa's long monologues about being lonely and insecure, constantly second guessing herself and feeling decidedly "less than".  The juxtaposition between Honey's extrovert and confident nature and Melissa is dealt with well but a little too much time seems to be spent navel-gazing.

When she takes on Jonathan, the American boss of the Estate Agency she used to work for things really start to look up.  He just needs someone to guide him round the etiquette of London and show him the sights.  It is a tad uncomfortable when he asks to pay for her to take him on as her sole project but at least Honey has the backbone to refuse him.  The shenigans of her MP father are rather scandalous and fun and her realisation that her doormat sister, Emery, is not quite as scatty as she seems - hello looking to move to Chicago after the wedding of the century.

It does feel like a glimpse in to another world, a world of privilege where everyone knows everyone in an only 2 steps removed sort of way.  Fun and frothy and definitely whiles away the time in an enjoyable enough way.

I did enjoy the book and will, more than likely, pick up the next in the series as I did enjoy her adventures, I just didn't love them.

**Review originally published January 23rd, 2018**