A Little Light Mischief

A Little Light Mischief (The Turners #3.5)
By  Cat Sebastian

ISBN: 9780062951045
144 Pages
Available in Paperback, Audiobook, and on Kindle

Synopsis:

A seductive thief

Lady’s maid Molly Wilkins is done with thieving—and cheating and stabbing and all the rest of it. She’s determined to keep her hands to herself, so she really shouldn’t be tempted to seduce her employer’s prim and proper companion, Alice. But how can she resist when Alice can’t seem to keep her eyes off Molly?

Finds her own heart

For the first time in her life, Alice Stapleton has absolutely nothing to do. The only thing that seems to occupy her thoughts is a lady’s maid with a sharp tongue and a beautiful mouth. Her determination to know Molly’s secrets has her behaving in ways she never imagined as she begins to fall for the impertinent woman.

Has been stolen

When an unwelcome specter from Alice’s past shows up unexpectedly at a house party, Molly volunteers to help the only way she knows how: with a little bit of mischief.

My Thoughts:

A Little Light Mischief is a much shorter addition to Cat Sebastian's The Turner's book series. Often referred to as book 3.5 in the series, this novella is the first to feature a F/F relationship, focusing on the previously introduced Molly Wilkins and her current mistress' young charge Alice Stapleton. This is the first F/F historical romance that I have read and it was interesting to see the differences in how these characters were handled.

The main character in A Little Light Mischief is Molly Wilkins, acquaintance of Jack and Georgie Turner from A Soldier's Scoundrel and The Lawrence Brown Affair. Like Georgie, Molly is a morally ambiguous, chaotic bi confidence artist. Or rather, a former confidence artist. Due to some life changing circumstances, Molly has secured legitimate work and is trying to live an honest life. Which most recently has brought her into the household of  Mrs. Wraxhall and into the life of Alice Stapleton, Wraxhall's ward.

Both Molly and Alice are depicted as feminine and innocent, each in their own way, and they are both likeable characters. Molly has had a rough life, has been taken advantage of, and came out of it more worldly, while Alice is more demure and naïve. Her naivete causes her to be slow to outwardly admit to her feelings for the ladies maid. Thus their relationship is very slow to develop. The couple only get physically intimate once in the entire book, and it does not go into the same illicit amount of detail as most of Sebastian's novels. This seems fitting given Alice's inexperience and upbringing, not to mention her trauma.

As typical with Sebastian's books, A Little Light Mischief offers a well thought out and developed non-romance side plot. For Molly, this revolves around a little secret that is kept in a house across town, and in the case of Alice, this involves family drama and betrayal. The story is surprisingly detailed for how short the book is overall. All in all, A Little Light Mischief was a good story and I found it to be a pleasant quick read, and a nice addition to the Turner-verse. 

Parent's Guide:

Probably not appropriate for any degree of youths. While being pretty vanilla when compared to the writer's other books, A Little Light Mischief is still adult in nature, with clear sexual situations. Definitely should be  18+