Fun, arch and filled with personality, The Ladies Rewrite The Rules turns the Regency comedies of manners upon its head and gives readers plenty to enjoy.

Diana Boyle is enjoying all the pleasures young widowhood has to offer and has absolutely no plans to re-enter the marriage mart. Unfortunately, the universe seems to have another plan on tap for her. Completely by accident, Diana comes upon her butler reading The Rich Ladies’ Registry or Bachelor’s Directory, a booklet intended to help young bachelors snag themselves rich spouses. Diana is incensed upon discovering that she appears in the ‘widows’ section.

Wanting her name out of contention, she confronts the pamphlet’s writer, Mr. D. Mr. D happens to be Maxwell Dean, a singleton who wants his friends to be well-off, if not happy, in marriage, as he’s quite sure the two states are not always compatible. Diana soon figures out who he is, and she confronts him over having put her name in his book without her knowledge or permission. Max explains that he simply wants to help out younger sons like himself, lost and adrift without proper inheritance, and, though he doesn’t tell her this, he’s tired of watching perfectly nice, honest, kind and handsome friends be thrown over for big buck-bearing bachelors.

Knowing the men pursuing her are merely after her money, Diana gets proactive and calls together all the ladies in the directory, letting them know what’s afoot. Collectively, they decide to dodge fortune hunters and take advantage of their new infamy. But Diana is attracted to Max – and Max is still out there on the marriage mart looking for the right woman…

Some romances are just fun down to the bone, and so things go with The Ladies Rewrite the Rules. It’s peppery, filled with wonderful wisdom about society, and knows its characters so wholly that one ends up enraptured.

Naturally, Max and Diana find love, and the way they get there is tender, fun, and well-thought out. You’ll root for them in spite of their protestations. You’ll also end up caring about all of Diana’s new friends, and for their hopeful wishes for husbands they can trust; my favorite was Mildred, who finds love with one of Max’s rejected second-son friends (I won’t reveal who; you’ll have to read the book yourself).

Joyful, warm and witty, this is a delight of a book. The Ladies Rewrite the Rules rewrites the “rules” in a delightfully effervescent way.