Review: The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy

11/2/2025

Mackenzi Lee’s The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy is the lively sequel to her best selling young adult novel, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. The story is told from the perspective of Penelope Montague, the intellectual daughter of an abusive English Lord and sister to Henry “Monty” Montague, an aristocratic drunkard, fop and buggerer (to use the 18th century terms). Penelope and her party-boy brother couldn’t be any different if they tried, and the first book did an excellent job of showing both of their strengths and weaknesses as they became reluctant allies on a cross-continent adventure. Although Penelope played a supporting role in The Gentleman’s Guide, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy is entirely her story.

When last we saw Penelope, Monty, and Monty’s lover, Percy, they were sailing with pirates in the Greek Isles, runways from their privileged but stifling places in English society. The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy picks up several years later. Penelope’s working for a kindly Scottish baker and has ambitions to become a physician at a time when being a midwife was the closest a woman could come to a medical career. After suffering numerous rejections from universities, a sympathetic physician encourages Penelope to reach out to Alexander Platt, a brilliant but unconventional doctor. This is a thrilling prospect for Penelope who has followed Platt’s career for years. In an unbelievable coincidence, Platt also happens to be engaged to Penelope’s former best friend, Johanna Hoffman. Penelope leaves for Austria in the company of a female pirate / bodyguard called Sim, who wants access to the Hoffman estate for reasons unknown.

The rivalry between Penelope and Johanna is one of the best things about this book. As girls, they used the Montague’s sprawling estate as a backdrop for games about world exploration, becoming famous scientists and raiding lost temples. Then they grew up. Penelope remained serious and nebbish while Johanna became a “proper lady,” complete with frilly dresses, elaborate hairdos and an utter dependence on men. Although Penelope and Johanna manage to forgive each other for past transgressions, they still disapprove of each other’s life choices. Penelope considers Johanna silly and pretentious, and Johanna finds Penelope elitist and mean-spirited.

Penelope‘s introduction to Dr. Platt is also a wake up call. The rogue physician is not only a drug addict, but not nearly as open minded as Penelope fantasized. Not only is he using Johanna for her wealth and social position, but to gain access to the scientific journals of her late mother, a woman who successfully bucked convention and became that world explorer Penelope and Johanna once fantasized about. Sim also has an interest in the journals, but it’s not until Johanna disappears just before her wedding that the importance of these writings becomes clear.

In many ways, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy is superior to its predecessor with a more lively pace and a roster of interesting characters. McKenzi Lee does it skillful job making this Penelope‘s book, using Monty and Percy sparingly, and authentically depicting the roles and frustrations of European women of the Georgian Era. The hardest thing for Penelope to accept is just how stacked the system is against women — even women of privilege. Denied the freedom of education, movement, economics, and even marriage, the only thing Penelope has under her control is her intellect. And she uses it as often and as effectively as she can.

Lee reminds the reader that women come in different forms and that they can be just as sexist towards each other as men. Whether it’s Penelope the bookish intellectual; Johanna the disgraced heiress; or Sim the roughhewn daughter of a pirate king; they all have skills and values they come to appreciate in each other... but not right away. On the downside, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy suffers from too much coincidental happenstance, such as the aforementioned engagement between Johanna and Dr. Platt. (This was a problem with The Gentleman's Guide, too.) The ending also relies on a deus ex machina plot device which is never a satisfactory way to end any book. Regardless, there’s a lot to like here. Add this one to your reading list.

RELATED: Review of The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue | Historical Young Adult Collection