Slightly different to the other Susan Scarletts I've read thus far, this one is about a governess who's an orphan.
So, no loving family in the background, no shopgirl learning the ropes, no miraculously being spirited away to enjoy the high life at the Savoy.
Instead, this one has slight Sound of Music vibes, as Beverley Shaw takes on three spoiled and difficult children who are at first determined to send her packing. Their mother is an actress who treats her children more like prize pets than humans, and Beverley has her work cut out for her to prod them toward anything like a normal childhood.
And then there's Peter. For reasons which are eventually explained, he's in London without much to do and is mostly at the beck and call of the actress... until he notices the plucky governess in the household.

The romance in this one was easy to spot a mile off, but it ended up being handled in kind of a lickety-split, suddenly-in-love kind of way which was a little jarring, and the end veers into slightly melodramatic territory.
That's okay, though, because as always Susan Scarlett is immensely readable and fun. ( )

Margot Dale is a star of the West End; sometimes dreadful and at others inspired by something akin to genius. She is also an unhappy woman, kept going by her down-to-earth dresser Mrs Brown (she was once brought to the theatre while desperately ill because Margot couldn’t go on without her assistance), organised by her devoted secretary Miss Winkle and manipulated by her selfish French maid Marcelle. She is also mother to three spoilt children Meggie, Betsy and David. Beverley Shaw is their orphan governess brought into this hothouse family after their nanny leaves and just beginning to find her way in a career she thinks important and worthwhile.

Then there is David Crewdson, Margot’s latest admirer apparently. ‘’I’m not like other women. I see what I want and I don’t hang around pining for it. I go and get it. Well, I want you. Why not? You may not be utterly in love with me now, but you will be.’ Beverley hears all this, much to her horror, from the landing. ‘Kiss me good night.’ There was a pause. ‘God, you’d kiss your grandmother like that.’ As Mrs Brown comments ‘No matter who you are it’s no good saying snip if Mr Right won’t say snap.’

All their lives are affected when Margot takes on the role of a murderous heroine in her latest play and then fiction and reality become horrible entwined much to the delight of the loathsome Marcelle and the horror of Miss Winkle and Mrs Brown. Light domestic fiction it might be but there’s a macabre, theatrical reality behind the froth.