In Victorian England, identity can be a burden. Richard Maitheson is a nobody as far as Victorian Society is concerned. He scratches a living on a magazine for upper-class ladies, The Gentlewoman, ruled with a rod of iron by the supreme social climber Lady Outhwaite. She looks down on him, but as time passes Richard gains grudging respect from his employer and is offered new assignments that take him to the heart of London Society. And he starts to fall helplessly in love with Adriana, the daughter of Lord Cormanston, an Anglo-Irish viscount and major shareholder in the magazine. Can Richard really win the heart of this beautiful Society debutante? Can he pull off his new assignments and be accepted among the social elite? Can he at last begin to assert his true identity? Amid calls for Home Rule in Ireland, Fenian rebels are upping the ante against the British establishment and its supporters. Events take a dramatic turn when a singer performing at Lady Outhwaite's charity Carol Concert is gunned down in the church and Richard is starting to cover a very different story. Set in the glittering and darkly sordid milieu of London's Covent Garden, Dear Miss Maitheson is historical fiction set near the end of Queen Victoria's reign.

Given that age's preoccupation with appearance and class, things are seldom quite what they seem and this intriguing novella will delight lovers of Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde. Tim Heath read English at University College London. He has been an actor, director and writer all his life, appearing on stage, TV, radio and film (for more information, please visit www.timheath1.com). His previous books are: The Dragons at Marshmouldings (a children's book); a stage play, Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure at Sir Arthur Sullivan's and The Fear at Rockbridge Hall (the prequel to Dear Miss Maitheson).