Exclusive Cover Reveal + Excerpt: Mimi Matthews’ Second Crinoline Academy Installment, The Marriage Method

The first installment of Mimi Matthews’ Victorian-set Crinoline Academy romance series hit shelves this week, introducing readers everywhere to the Benevolent Academy for the Betterment of Young Ladies and its mission to further the advancement of women….by secretly disrupting the patriarchy. In the buzzy Rules for Ruin, the academy’s brightest pupil is sent to bring down a viscount attempting to harm women’s rights in Parliament, only to find her plan complicated by a (handsome) betting shop owner looking to protect his own illicit business interests. Sequel  The Marriage Method sees Matthews shift gears to follow the story of a talented Academy graduate who must be willing to do anything to stop a journalist’s investigation into the school. (And maybe solve a murder too.) 

The Crinoline Academy’s second installment will focus on Penelope “Nell” Trewlove, who’s tapped to help divert the (also handsome) newspaper editor who’s a little too interested in the school’s mission statement. But when she and Miles are caught in a compromising situation, they’ll have to come to an agreement that both saves their reputation and make it easier to find the reason behind one of his reporter’s deaths. (Pretty sure you can already guess what that agreement is going to turn out to be….)

Here’s how the publisher describes the story. 

Well removed from London’s more curious eyes, the Benevolent Academy for the Betterment of Young Ladies strives toward one clandestine goal: to distract, disrupt, and discredit men in power who would seek to harm the advancement of women—by appropriate means, of course.

When intrepid newspaper editor Miles Quincy starts to question the school’s intentions, the Academy appoints Penelope “Nell” Trewlove, one of their brightest graduates, to put this nuisance to rest. An easy enough mission, she supposes. Or it would be, if Miles wasn’t so fascinating—too fascinating to resist—and if Nell’s visit to London didn’t perfectly coincide with the murder of one of Miles’s reporters.

When the inexorable claws of fate trap Nell and Miles in a compromising situation, they agree to an arrangement that will save their reputations while enabling them to investigate the story that led to a man’s death, as well as the surprising chemistry between them . . .

The Marriage Method won’t hit shelves until November 25, but we’ve got an exclusive first look at the sequel’s gorgeous cover—and a sneak peek at the story itself!

Chapter One

Miles ran a hand over the side of his face, wishing like the devil he’d followed his instincts and gone to Miss Corvus’s Academy himself. Instead, he’d wasted months, engaged in correspondence with a woman he had foolishly assumed was an antiquated spinster.

But she wasn’t.

Antiquated, that is.

With her flaxen blond hair, heart-shaped face, and graceful figure, Miss Trewlove had more in common with an angel than she did with his, admittedly narrow, preconception of a schoolteacher.

A sultry angel, at that.

Her hooded, long-lashed gray eyes had a deceptively sleepy quality to them. Like a tigress drowsing in the sun, as languorous as it was lethal. The effect was intensified by the elegant curve of her high cheekbones, and the voluptuous fullness of her lush, Cupid’s-bow lips.

A small jet brooch in the shape of a butterfly sparkled at her throat, the only spot of brilliancy in her dull black mourning ensemble. “It’s a personal calculation,” she replied to him. “Every girl has a different set of strengths. A head for mathematics, for example. Or an aptitude for writing, or a skill for sport.”

“Sport,” Miles repeated. “Such as hunting down corrupt lords like Viscount Compton?”

Miss Trewlove lifted her winged brows. They were thick and arched, a shade darker than her hair. “You presume the Academy is connected to his downfall?”

“I more than presume it. Miss Corvus’s name came up often during my investigations. Or rather, the name she went by at the time she was connected to Lord Compton, some two decades ago.”

Miss Trewlove noticeably did not refute that connection. “A man has done wrong and has finally been punished for it. What benefit can there be in violating his victim’s privacy—whomever that victim might be?”

“I don’t mean to publish her story,” Miles said. He’d promised Gabriel he wouldn’t. He hadn’t however, promised to forego further inquiry. The mystery of Miss Corvus and her charity school was the single loose thread in his investigation into Lord Compton’s crimes. And Miles couldn’t abide a loose thread.

“Then what does it matter?” Miss Trewlove asked.

“Call it professional curiosity,” he said.

Disapproval darkened her gaze. “At a lady’s expense? That isn’t very gentlemanly.”

Across the office, the fringe on the bottom of the sofa twitched. Shadow poked her gray striped head out to listen to their conversation.

Miles cast an absent glance in the little tabby’s direction. He had found her only last week here in Fleet Street. Small and thin, with a battered ear and weeping eye, she had summoned up the bravery to eat from one of the dishes he regularly put out for the other street cats. He’d really had no choice but to rescue her.

She’d been living in his office ever since, spending most of her time hiding while she healed from her wounds. Miles intended to remove her to his house in St. James’s Square as soon as she was stronger. He had four strays already in residence. Cats were his weakness.

His only weakness.

“Not just any lady,” he said. “The lady who Compton jilted and defrauded. His crimes against her are what ultimately led to his undoing.”

“Elizabeth Wingard,” Miss Trewlove mused. She adjusted her voluminous skirts. “Yes, I read your articles. She was treated abominably, as far as I can tell.”

“She was,” Miles acknowledged. “Rumor has it that she died abroad. Instead, as I discovered, she returned to England, armed with a new identity, and a new purpose.”

“This is all quite fascinating—”

“She founded a charity school for girls. One of those girls—now Mrs. Royce—played a role in bringing about Compton’s political demise. Do you dispute that there was a relationship between her actions and the mission of Miss Corvus’s Academy?”

“I’m sorry, are you implying that Miss Corvus founded a school solely to raise up a generation of girls to settle a score with her former fiancé?” Miss Trewlove smiled, revealing a startling glimpse of a crooked front tooth. The unexpected flaw lent a roguish quality to her expression. “I am not a worldly woman, Mr. Quincey, but that does seem excessive.”

“Not only Compton,” Miles said. “All men who have wronged women.”

“All men? How very ambitious of her.”

“You don’t deny it?”

“On the contrary. It sounds an admirable goal. I heartily endorse it.” Her face reverted to solemn lines. “Truly, sir, in all seriousness, if that is what you believe, your imagination has run away with you.”

Miles repressed a flare of aggravation. He had long learned not to judge people too quickly, and Miss Trewlove provided ample evidence as to why. She sat across from him, ladylike and subdued in her faux widow’s weeds, and yet she was sparring with him as effectively as one of the bruisers he often faced in the ring at the boxing saloon.

“I have no imagination,” he said. “I concern myself with facts and only facts. It’s what makes me so good at my job.”

“Facts, then,” she said. “It’s just as I told you in my letters—”

“Your very brief letters.” None of them had been over a few sentences in length.

She ignored the criticism. “Our charity school is wholly reputable, and the character of both our students and our teachers is beyond reproach. Any member of the local Parish Council can verify that fact, and that body is uniformly male and hardly what one would label progressive.”

That much Miles did know. He had an appointment with one of its members later this morning. A Reverend Pettiman. Miles had arranged the meeting last month in a last-ditch effort to get information about the Academy after Miss Trewlove had repeatedly rebuffed his requests for an interview.

“As to the role of our girls once they enter society,” she went on, “I can give you the current locations of as many as ten of them who have, after leaving our care, found genteel employment. They are governesses. Schoolteachers. And one is private secretary to a gentlewoman of some stature. None of them can be classed as avenging furies.”

“What about the rest of your graduates?”

“You already know Mrs. Royce.” Miss Trewlove’s impossibly provocative mouth tipped slowly at one corner. The expression was uncannily feline. “And now you know me.”

Miles held her gaze, ignoring the pulse of heat that threatened to dull his senses. He could see what was happening here. Miss Corvus and Mrs. Royce had clearly believed that Miss Trewlove’s astonishing beauty would be sufficient to distract him from his questions. And it was distracting. But he’d faced worse obstacles in getting a story, and overcome them, too.

“Not yet, ma’am,” he said. “But I intend to.” Again, he picked up his pen.

Miss Trewlove may not be the proprietor of the charity school, but she had been one of its orphans and was now one of its teachers. If there were secrets to be had, she must be in possession of a few of them. All that remained was to wrest them from her.

“At what age did you come to the orphanage?” he asked briskly. “And under what circumstances?”

“I doubt my humble history can be of interest to your investigations.”

“Quite the opposite. You interest me exceedingly. If Miss Corvus has deployed you to the front lines—”

“A troubling metaphor.”

“But an apt one, I discern. You’re the heavy artillery.”

She didn’t smile this time, but a dimple formed to the right of her mouth. “Me?”

“You,” he said.

Excerpted from The Marriage Method by Mimi Matthews. Copyright © 2025 by Mimi Matthews. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.  

The Marriage Method won’t be released until November 25, but you can pre-order it right now. 

Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter and Bluesky at @LacyMB