The Spinster and the Naturalist

A Midlife Regency Romance

He prays for rare beetles. She prays for order. Heaven help the village.

Miss Tabitha Hardy, age forty-eight, runs the village of Little Muckleton like a military operation. As the church organist and self-appointed guardian of morality, she has zero tolerance for dirt, disorder, or tardiness.

Enter Reverend Barnard Colborne. Fifty, single, and more interested in the mating habits of garden slugs than his parishioners’ souls, the new Vicar is a walking disaster zone. Within a week, he’s tracked mud on the altar, lost the communion wine, and turned the vicarage into a greenhouse.

When Barnard gets helplessly stuck in a bog while chasing a butterfly, Tabitha is the only one around to pull him out. She intends to lecture him into submission, but instead finds herself drafted to organize his chaotic life.

As Tabitha imposes order on his mess, Barnard uncovers the secret passion she’s hidden for decades: her music.

Suddenly, the village spinster is breaking her own rules, and the distracted Vicar is paying attention to the only creature more fascinating than a beetle—the woman trying to save him from himself.