Lynn Messina Books In Order

Publication Order of Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries Books

Publication Order of Love Takes Root Books

Publication Order of Verity Lark Mysteries Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Anthologies

Lynn Messina
Lynn Messina was born and raised on Long Island. She studied English at Washington University in St. Louis, where she received a library degree and at King’s College, London. Her first job was at the Museum of Television & Radio as an editorial assistant.

From there, Lynn went to work for a publisher of TV guides, where she did interviews with minor celebrities for which she was unprepared frequently. Now she copyedits on a freelance basis for a variety of magazines in New York.

While writing “Fashionistas”, she was working at InStyle Magazine and was fired after her bosses learned that she was writing the novel.

Lynn’s essays have appeared in American Baby, Self, and the Modern Love column in the New York Times, and she is a regular contributor to the Times Motherlode blog.

Lynn’s debut novel, called “Fashionistas”, was released in the year 2003, which has been translated into sixteen languages. Here work is from the young adult fantasy, historical mystery, and historical romance.

“The Harlow Hoyden” is the first novel in the “Love Takes Root” series and was released in the year 2014. Miss Emma Harlow has not earned the reputation of a hoyden for nothing. The Duke of Trent finds her in his conservatory stealing an orchid, he’s not all that surprised. Delighted, charmed, and puzzled, sure, but not all that surprised.

It’s Emma that is amazed. She has naturally concluded that the guy reading in the conservatory has to be the country cousin (because who else in London would actually spend time reading?) and is rather vexed to learn that he’s the Duke of Trent himself. Imagine that, stealing the duke’s prized Rhyncholaelia digbyana right under his very nose! However her vexation doesn’t last all that long.

Because Emma’s a practical young lady with her own mission: ending her dear sister Lavinia’s engagement to the villainous, not to mention dreadfully dull, Sir Waldo Windbourne, and she believes that the famous libertine is just the right guy for the job. If he’d just seduce her sister away from Sir Waldo. Not seduce, but flirt mercilessly and engage her interest. Possibly then Lavinia would jilt the baron. The Duke of Trent is resistant, obviously. Despite his reputation, he doesn’t toy with the affections of innocents. And besides, it is not her sister that he’s longing to seduce.

Readers adored this heroine and her hoydish, devil may care attitude. This novel has an excellent plot and is filled with intrigue.

“The Other Harlow Girl” is the second novel in the “Love Takes Root” series and was released in the year 2014. A woman in the British Horticultural Society! The mere idea of it terrifies everybody, including Lavinia Harlow, an ardent horticulturist, whose own name has been put forth for membership by the provoking Marquess of Huntly. It’s just a joke, obviously, to get back at her for some imagined slight, though to be fair, she did insult his writing, and Vinnie (older sister of the infamous Harlow Hoyden) is much too sensible to rise to some ridiculous challenge like this.

Determined to head off further scandal, as her name’s already been recorded in Brooks’ betting book, Vinnie scribbles off a polite note and refuses the honor, which she has got every intention of sending out. Truly. But she just cannot help but chafe at the way everybody continues to demand she decline immediately, including the marquess. Especially the marquess, whose perfection she finds so very intolerable.

Who ever heard about a gentleman being so very informed about foreign flora, so very handsome, and so intelligent? Obviously the guy needs to be taken down a peg, and somehow, despite all twenty-four of her years of faultless propriety, she’s exactly the hoyden to do it.

“A Brazen Curiosity” is the first novel in the “Beatrice Hyde-Clare” series and was released in the year 2018. Nothing ruins a wonderful house party quite like a bloody murder. Miss Beatrice Hyde-Clare, at the decrepit old age of six-and-twenty, has got virtually no chance of landing a husband. An orphan that lives off the charity of her relatives, her job’s to sit with her needlework and to keep all of her thoughts to herself.

When she gets invited to an elegant country style party, she intends to do exactly that. Not even the presence of the aggravatingly handsome Duke of Kesgrave could lead such a young lady as this to scandal. True, she may wish to pour her entire bowl of turtle soup onto his aristocratic head, but she would never actually do it. Though a lady can fantasize.

However she stumbles upon the corpse of another house guest, all of her good intentions fly right out the well-appointed window. Even though the magistrate declares this a suicide, she knows much better. Time for unladlylike behavior.

“A Scandalous Deception” is the second novel in the “Beatrice Hyde-Clare” series and was released in the year 2018. As much as Beatrice Hyde-Clare relished the challenge of figuring out who it was that murdered a fellow guest during a house party in the Lake District, she definitely doesn’t consider herself an amateur investigator.

So when a London dandy falls down dead at her feet right in the entryway of a London Daily Gazette, she feels absolutely no compulsion to investigate. It was a newspaper officer, and there were reporters on scene to investigate, as are the authorities. And anyway, she has her own issues to deal with, like extricating herself from this seemingly harmless small fib which has grown somehow into a ridiculously huge fiction. She truly has zero interest at all.

Except the dagger which killed this poor earl appeared disconcertingly familiar. And so Bea is headed off to the British Museum since she can’t rest until she can confirm her suspicion, as she tries to allay her family’s concerns and understand the Duke of Kesgrave’s compulsion. For this handsome lord has got no reason to waste any of his time solving a mystery alongside this shy spinster. Yet he continues to turn up everywhere that she goes.

One Response to “Lynn Messina”

1. Aquielle r Morris: 2 years ago

   Luv luv all of your stories New of course is y favorite. I can feel the love between the lovers in the series .

   Reply