Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Manners and Monsters #1-3

Manners and Monsters Collection, #1-3

Rate this book
Hannah Miles navigates the etiquette of monster hunting through the parlours of a magical Regency England. This collection contains the first three books of the series; Manners and Monsters, Galvanism and Ghouls and Gossip and Gorgons.

Manners and Monsters
Hannah Miles lives a quiet existence, helping her parents conduct research into a most terrible affliction - until a gruesome murder during her best friend's engagement party pulls her from the shadows. Hannah must work with the obnoxious Viscount Wycliff to find the murderer before the season is ruined.

Galvanism and Ghouls
A new Unnatural horror is about to rattle Hannah Miles' quiet existence, and it's not the short-tempered viscount prowling the hallways of her home. can Hannah and Wycliff find the monster - and will it be the hand that wields the scalpel, or the creature hiding in the dark?

Gossip and Gorgons
The newly married Lord and Lady Wycliff are cordially invited to a house party--to be mocked and ridiculed as entertainment. But someone among the house guests has murder on their mind. The newlyweds need to determine who, as guests are immortalised is stone...

742 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 25, 2020

Loading interface...
Loading interface...

About the author

Tilly Wallace

27 books519 followers
Tilly writes whimsical historical fantasy books, set in a bygone time where magic is real. With a quirky and loveable cast, her books combine vintage magic and gentle humour. Through fierce friendships her characters discover that in an uncertain world, the most loyal family is the one you create.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
101 (52%)
4 stars
69 (35%)
3 stars
20 (10%)
2 stars
2 (1%)
1 star
1 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
Profile Image for Montzalee Wittmann.
4,940 reviews2,297 followers
September 13, 2021
Manners and Monsters Collection, #1-3
(Manners and Monsters #1-3)
by Tilly Wallace
This series is just perfect for me! It has a world of creatures such as lupins, zombies, goblins, trolls, and more. It's back in the mid 1700's I believe and women are not given many rights. ( That part I am not thrilled with but it works with the theme and plot.)
Someone poisoned and did some magic to the face powder and made some women, a few men, die but they came back as zombies. It was discovered before too long and the powder destroyed. The face powder was high quality and expensive so it effected the richer women.
Our gal of the story has a father is a notable doctor and trying to find a cure. Her mother was a powerful mage in the wars and was afflicted with this powder.
Our gals best friend is getting married and having a engagement party. At the party, a servant is found dead. Bashed in the head and his brains gone. Is it one of the undead or someone trying to make it look like it?
A handsome but sour investigator from the dept that handles cases of the unnatural is there and takes over the case. He does not like the undead at all! She is drafted to help him.
The books continue with more mysteries, and our gals home gets quite the collection of oddities. The poor maid's nerves are shot! Lol!
It's an unusual fantasy with a dose of alternative history, humor, touch of clean romance, strange and wonderful magic. I was never bored. I bought the chirp edition for practically nothing and the narration was excellent!
Will certainly watch for more sales!
Profile Image for Lata.
4,422 reviews229 followers
March 8, 2021
2021-02: Manners and Monsters: 4 stars. A fun, romp through a Regency-like world, full of war, espionage, manners, and a variety of monsters.
Hannah Miles helps her surgeon father with his autopsies of people suffering from some bizarre affliction from which they died, then rose and functioned just as before, except for the rotting flesh and deep hunger they experience, both mitigated from a specially prepared diet of pickled brains, known as "pickled cauliflower". Where these brains come from is kept mostly quiet.
Hannah's mother is both a powerful mage, and one of the afflicted, so Hannah's particularly concerned about finding a cure for this disease, which was developed by the French and inflicted on the upper classes, causing the deaths of many of the ladies the ton.
During Hannah's best friend's engagement party, a servant is murdered. Enter Viscount Wycliff, who has a damaged reputation after action in the war, and a bad temper, and guess which two people get to work together to figure who is behind the escalating numbers of murders? Yup.

For something I picked up on a whim, I enjoyed this quite a bit more than I expected. Hannah's smart, and is intent on solving both the case and the cause of her mother's Affliction (and others' as well). Hannah and Wycliff go together like oil and water, and it's fun to see how they gain respect for each other, and how Wycliff, hardheaded idiot that he often is, begins to take Hannah and her concerns seriously.
Am I reading the next book? Yes.
Profile Image for Mike.
Author 45 books173 followers
June 15, 2022
Entertaining, but falls a little short in several ways.

There are four main threads going on. One is an extremely slow-burn romance , so slow-burn that it doesn't qualify as the driving force for the series in my mind. One is a mystery in each of the books; in the first and third, especially, the murderer was very obvious to me long before the characters worked it out, and I guessed the second one before they did too, so the mystery plots, though filled with good investigative process, were not as satisfying as they could have been. Another thread is finding a cure for a curse enacted by the French during the Napoleonic wars, which has resulted in a number of highly-placed members of English society, including the main character's mother, becoming undead; little progress is made on finding the cure during the first three books, though it's always being worked on and kept before the reader's mind. And the last thread is the Regency setting, which occasionally stumbles over an anachronism. For example, the author brings the craze for seances forward from the mid-19th century to the early 19th century, and gives us, at one point, a Ouija board (not called that, but obviously that), which wasn't invented until the 1880s. Sure, it's historical fantasy, and there can be some anachronisms, but those particular anachronisms seemed not to have much purpose, and I had to wonder whether they were deliberate or accidental. There's an anachronistic-seeming piece of scientific method at one point, too.

More significant is the fact that, although it's mentioned at one point that the heroine can't visit an unmarried man unchaperoned, she wanders around half London unchaperoned with the hero and nobody seems to care at all.

Punctuation is usually correct, but there are a few dangling modifiers, comma splices, and vocabulary errors, including "omnipotent" for "omniscient" and "minds" for "brains". The author frequently refers to people being "interred" (which means "buried") in a facility where they are in fact "interned" - kept locked up to prevent them possibly doing harm.

She confuses gentry and nobility at one point (though at least she doesn't refer to nobles as "royals"), calls someone a "peer" who does not herself hold a noble title, and several times has people address the hero as "milord" when they have no way of knowing he's a viscount. In one case, it's specifically noted that he's not dressed "like a toff".

She misspells the name "Jonathan" consistently as "Jonathon". A (rather amusing) disembodied and self-aware hand is euphemistically named a "Romanian hamster" in one book, and in the next book has, without notice, become a "Hungarian hamster".

All these are minor irritations, but they added up, for me, to an overall impression of something a little bit scruffy and sub-par. That's a pity, because the big strength of these books is the characters- who are appealing and well drawn, and whose concerns engaged me.

They engaged me to the point that I happily read all three books, and that I want to read the next three. But the scruffiness means that I'm not quite prepared to pay full price for them. I don't feel that the quality is there to justify it.

It also means that, while this collection just squeaks in to my Best of the Year list, it comes in at the lowest tier. I've read far, far worse Regency novels, but the standard of the fantasy Regency novels I've been reading lately has generally been higher than this.
Profile Image for Kim McDougall.
Author 40 books319 followers
August 3, 2024
Paranormal cozy mystery, alternate history, low fantasy

Includes:

1. Manners and Monsters

Hannah Miles is a wallflower with an exceptional brain and a most unusual family. Her mother is a great mage and one of the inflicted—the two hundred or so noble ladies who live an undead existence through a cursed French face powder. The ladies (and a few men) must exist on a diet of human brains or what polite society calls “pickled cauliflower.” Hannah gets paired with the obnoxious Viscount Wycliff to discover which of the afflicted is greedily gobbling up unpickled brains.

2. Galvanism and Ghouls

Viscount Wycliff is back and living in Hannah’s home as he tries to understand the workings of the inflicted in an effort to solve a new string of murders. Hannah is not happy about having his gloomy personage around the house. But life perks up when a dismembered but highly active hand joins their little family.

3. Gossip and Gorgons

Hannah and Wycliff’s marriage of convenience gets off to a rocky start when they are invited to a house party and end up being the prime suspects in a particularly gruesome and vexing murder. However, the time away allows them to put aside their differences and find common ground to let their relationship blossom.

This collection of cozy paranormal mysteries was just what I was looking for. They take place in and around London and offer an alternate history of the Napoleonic war—one where mages and other supernatural creatures fought for both sides.

Hannah is a kindhearted but determined hero. Wycliff is obnoxious in the beginning, but Hannah’s influence soon softens his hard edges, just as he pushes her to come out of her shell. Both have shocking secrets and will have to learn to trust the other.

Book 2 was probably my favorite with the introduction of the pet hand and the Frankenstein-esqe monster. Unlike other ladies who scream and run away at their sight, Hannah is able to see past their monstrous appearances to the spirits beneath them. Add to this menagerie a young boy who can sense ailments in a person with a touch, Hannah seems to be collecting an even odder family around her.

Other things I liked: The “manners” part of the stories was really fun—from the pickled cauliflower brains to the undead ladies hiding behind veils. Hannah, of course has to navigate a world that isn’t made for women, and she does it with grace and courage. There was humor and a believable enemies-to-lovers romance.

I listened to the audiobook on Kobo. It’s a free listen with a Kobo Plus subscription. The narrator, Marian Hussey, did an amazing job. She is now one of my new favorite narrators.
Profile Image for Miepers.
7 reviews
December 14, 2023
If you're having issues with the first book, and wondering if it's worth continuing, the following contains minor story-structure spoilers designed to help you make up your mind.

The short, spoiler-free version:
It not only gets better, but does it in an unexpected way. I'm glad I went with the collection, instead of the individual books. And, I'm sad my library doesn't yet carry the second collection.

4 reviews
January 5, 2023
What a wonderful, magic/paranormal/murder mystery series to keep one guessing!

Set in a time where magic is real, and where Greek mythology, paranormal and Fae traditions are combined, the author uses these elements combined with gentle humour and a unique cast of characters. I enjoyed a completely different take on the zombie and undead concepts central to this story line along with various elements of the classic murder mystery genre set in Victorian England. The author uses well developed methodology to reach the conclusions of each book, ensuring the reader is not only brought along for the ride, but is an eager participant in trying to determine "who dun it", before the author has her final reveal. I would recommend this series to anyone who enjoys mystery along the lines of Sherlock Holmes, Miss Maples and Hercule Perriot. I can't wait to read other books in this series and to discover more gems by this author!
Profile Image for The Reading Ruru (Kerry) .
525 reviews35 followers
April 28, 2021
I needed some brain candy reading so searching through recommendations I found this box set - the first 3 books in a series by Tilly Wallace.
Set in Regency England (I usually shy away from books set in this period as I once spent a holiday where there was nothing to read except for Georgette Heyer and Mills & Boon)
This charming trilogy are murder mysterys that has Mages, Aristocratic female zombies, Frankenstein creatures and Hell hounds.
The main protagonists are one intelligent young woman called Hannah who helps her parents in trying to find a cure for the Afflicted (nice term for upper class zombies) and a unpopular dark, broody young man Viscount Wycliffe. They are forced to work together to solve the mysterious goings on as Hannah has the feminine manners to talk to women in high society, the complete antithesis of the Viscount.
If you are a fan of foes to lovers as a story arc then you will enjoy these. They are not enemies but share a mutual dislike of each other but slowly they realise their initial feelings change into mutual respect and attraction. There is no sex or even moments of passion - it is a slow burn that I'm sure will intensify in the next 3 books in the series.
6 reviews12 followers
May 13, 2021
Enthralling

I became obsessed with finding out more in each story, being a well read person it’s really hard to find a book to a) loose myself in & b) not guess aspects of the story. These stories kept me guessing and wanting more, they are well written and the narration is excellent. I am excited to continue the story’s with the next books
Profile Image for K.R..
Author 2 books8 followers
December 2, 2021
I have officially decided that Hannah Miles and Wycliff are one of my favorite book couples. I had to wait for three whole books for just one kiss and it was entirely worth it! I listened to the audiobook version of this collection and I believe that is partly why I enjoyed these books so much. Marian Hussey brought the story to life in a way that was so consuming that I couldn't stop listening.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 23, 2022
well written monsters

I almost stopped reading about a quarter into the first book, but I am glad I did not. This is a fascinating blend of regency and paranormal. If you like medical drama or police drama with a paranormal flare, then this series is for you. The romance between the two main characters has been slow and sweet. I cant wait to see what happens next.
Profile Image for julia gray.
55 reviews1 follower
July 12, 2020
Just discovered this author and wow. I bought it on a whim ( i rately buy books as have kindle unlimited subscription) but was intrigued by the synopsis. I loved the books the characters the way it has been written. 4th book is on pre order
Profile Image for Bev.
627 reviews13 followers
July 27, 2023
Loved it!!! I can't wait to read more---please let there be more! Was drawn hook, line, and sinker by 1st chapter and so grateful that all 3 books were together in one reading and I didn't have to wait to sink into the next one!
Profile Image for Tisha.
147 reviews2 followers
May 27, 2021
Loving the series

Gothic, magical, humorous, murder and mysteries, learning to love, finding a soulmate. Happy endings and sequels. What's not to love?
71 reviews1 follower
August 10, 2021
Just a beautifully written series. Though I could use a bit more common sense in the MCs regarding each other. Wanted to refresh my memory before diving into Sixpemse and Selkies.

Loads of fun.
Profile Image for Mark.
219 reviews5 followers
March 24, 2022
Excellent series. Read the books individually.
83 reviews
March 16, 2023
Characters:
Lady Seraphina Miles - Foremost powerful Mage. Wife to Sir Hugh Miles, mother of Miss Hanna Miles
Sir Hugh Miles - Husband of Lady Seraphina Miles, father of Hanna Miles. A renowned Battle Surgeon and researcher into the malady known as the "Affliction" in effort to discover a cure.
Miss Hanna Miles - Daughter of Lady Seraphina Miles and Sir Hugh Miles. Assists her father in his research
Lord xxx - xxx is a Viscount. He is an investigator for the Bureau of Unnatural yyy and has a deep personal secret.

Book 1<\b> of the collection - Manners and Monsters<\b><\i>
This is the introduction to the series. Introduces the "afflicted" and how they became afflicted and what it means to be afflicted.
Someone or something is killing people, bashing in their skulls and taking their brain.
Lord xxx secret is hinted at

Book 2<\b> of the collection - Galvanism and Ghouls<\b><\i>
Someone is murdering people and performing ghoulish surgeries of cutting off limbs and attaching them to other bodies.
More details of Lord xxx's secret is revealed.

Book 3<\b> of the collection - Gossip and Gorgons<\b><\i>
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.