Agency for Scandal

THE AGENCY FOR SCANDAL is the first in a series following a secret detective agency for young women that specialises in digging up scandal on powerful men. Reminiscent of BRIDGERTON and CHARLIE’S ANGELS, it is a brilliantly plotted and swooningly romantic story with a host of beguiling characters. It will be published in the UK by Scholastic in January 2023.

An all-female detective agency righting wrongs at the end of the nineteenth century; infiltrating a scandalous upper class world straight out of Bridgerton and using their wit and bravery to unmask a villain. Eighteen-year-old Isobel Stanhope is keeping a lot of secrets. There’s the fact that she’s head over heels in love with a Duke who doesn’t know she exists; there’s the fact that her family is penniless but nobody in society knows about it; and then there’s her job at the Aviary, an investigative agency run by women that specializes in digging up scandal on powerful men.

When Izzy finds herself pulled into a case that involves gaslighting, blackmail, and missing jewels, as well as the Duke who holds her heart, can she and her friends untangle the web of secrets and lies to uncover the truth and protect the innocent? And when the stakes are so high, what happens when the crush she’s been hiding begins to turn into so much more? A smart, charming, brilliantly plotted and swooningly romantic story about a collective of bold women changing their world.

Laura Wood is a bestselling author whose first novel won the Montegrappa Scholastic Prize for Children’s Writing. She mostly writes for children and young adults, and she also holds a PhD in nineteenth-century literature from the University of Warwick. She loves Georgette Heyer novels, Fred Astaire films, travelling to far flung places, recipe books, poetry, cosy woollen jumpers, crisp autumn leaves, new stationery, sensation fiction, salted caramel, feminism, Rufus Sewell’s cheek-bones, dogs, and lashings of ginger beer. Laura Wood is represented by Louise Lamont at LBA books.