A Perfect Hand

by Ayelet Waldman

A richly drawn, captivating, and endlessly amusing novel of love and subterfuge between a lady’s maid and her clandestine lover, set in the country estates of nineteenth-century England.

Miss Alice Lockey, daughter of a tenant farmer, has by dint of hard work, innate intelligence, and a cunning ability to predict the moods of her betters, raised herself to the lofty status of lady’s maid at Alderwick Park. Though her mother has advised Alice to work only until marriage, Alice has thus far resisted the temptations of matrimony among the neighboring widowers and pig farmers, more content to enjoy the fruits of her labor—or at least the portion of it her father will share after it is paid to him. Alice spends her days arranging Lady Jemima Alderwick’s blond hair into the latest French styles, chignons and plaits, laundering her lady’s surprisingly malodorous petticoats and drawers, and carefully sewing all manner of fripperies, ribbons, lace, and silk flowers, to her lady’s bonnets and gowns.

But when a visiting servant, a valet named Charlie Wells, catches her eye, Alice begins to understand the constraints of her position. In a ploy to spend time with the object of her affection, Alice attempts to arrange a romance between Lady Jemima Alderwick and Charlie’s employer, one Baronet Sir Nigel Wynstowe. If only they would fall in love—then Alice and Charlie might live together as man and wife! Challenged by Lady Jemima’s love for another and Sir Wynstowe’s eccentric personality, Alice must use all of her cunning to bring about this unlikely romantic union. Will this low-born servant successfully manipulate the hearts of these lords and ladies? Will Charlie and Alice ever improve their stations? Or, as the beginning of women’s suffrage begins to percolate in the drawing rooms and salons of London, will Alice discover a different sort of path for herself?

A deliciously funny, gorgeously detailed, utter enthralling novel, A Perfect Hand is a glorious novel of class, gender, and England on the cusp of enormous change.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Romance, Adult Fiction, Historical, Adult, Historical Romance

304 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication May 19, 2026

About the author

Ayelet Waldman is the author of A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life, Love and Treasure, Red Hook Road and The New York Times bestseller Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace. Her novel Love and Other Impossible Pursuits was made into a film starring Natalie Portman. Her personal essays and profiles of such public figures as Hillary Clinton have been published in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, Vogue, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Her radio commentaries have appeared on "All Things Considered" and "The California Report."

You can follow Ayelet on Facebook and Twitter.

Love and Treasure is available for purchase here.

Reviews

[Book Riot Community]

Book Riot’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026:

As a 19th century-set romance, this novel hits all the beats that you’d expect and the language is pitch-perfect. However, the main characters are a lady’s maid named Alice and a young valet she falls for, Charlie. Alice and Charlie’s employers, Lady Jemima Alderwick and Baronet Sir Nigel Wynstowe, are both highly specific in what they want and how they want their servants to act. In order to be together, Alice and Charlie have to trick the finicky aristocrats into a marriage. It’s a very fun upstairs-downstairs novel, perfect to read while traveling around the English countryside. —Julia Rittenberg

[Emily Poche · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Penguin Random House/ KNOPF for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

A Perfect Hand by Ayelet Waldman is a historical romantic but not “romance” novel. Following Alice, a lady’s maid to Lady Jemima has fallen in love with Charlie, a valet. Unfortunately, due to the systems in place for servants in love, it’ll take a fair bit of scheming and influencing to find themselves able to be together. Combine this with Alice’s burgeoning interest in Universal Suffrage, and the story seems to spiral into (controlled, Victorian) chaos.

What I liked most about this book was that for once it seemed was that the story’s center was on the servant class. At no point does a duke, viscount, or queen fall in love with Alice or Charlie. While there are upper class people, this story is solidly not about them. They’re the set dressing and the bit parts. We instead find ourself in the world wedged between the demimonde and the upper crust. These people go to the music hall, but also know that they’ll be working for their livelihood. There may be some upward mobility, but it’s through their own efforts or their own means.

I also liked that Alice and Charlie have a realistic romance. I personally avoid “romance” books because of the unrealistic way I feel that they write dynamics. Charlie and Alice are much more realistic; pleasant and good natured attraction growing through the story through repeated meetings, letters, and mutual feelings of being cared for. This is a relationship free from drama and will-they-won’t-they. It felt refreshing to root for a couple because they felt relatable and normal.

What I didn’t like quite so much was the Lady Whistledown style narration that’s revealed in the final chapter. As someone who really enjoyed the pithy narration, it really felt better when it was an unrelated omniscient narrator. Trying to tack the narrative structure and narration onto someone after the fact felt like a desperate grab to use the well-liked Bridgerton style without actually improving the plot or understanding of the characters.

In a book review is there such a thing as half credit? On one hand, I appreciated the plot line of Alice’s interest in suffrage growing from a reading of some cast off literature to a fever pitch at the end of the book. It was nice to have a heroine with interests like politics and women’s liberation. On the other hand, it did feel a little bit clumsy and heavy handed. It’s nice to have the inclusion, but I’m not sure it’s so well executed.

Are you looking for a historical fiction option that gets away from the ballroom? Are you interested in cute but realistic romances? Do you like suffragettes? This is one has a lot of qualities to recommend it. I’m giving it a 3.75/5 rounded up to a 4/5.

[emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

thank you to knopf & netgalley for arc!

despite the cool premise of a maid and her lover playing matchmaker in high society, this book left me wanting. at its worst, a perfect hand was trying too hard. there were moments where the narrator would break the fourth wall and when that would happen, it took me out of the story completely. i also think the story got too busy almost. there were discussions on class, gender, women's suffrage, and on top of that there was a romance going on. i felt like i was being pulled in a million different directions as a reader.

overall, i liked how this was a lot like jane austen in tone & spirit!

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this, kind of a romance set in 19th century England with Alice, a lady’s maid as the main character. It is interesting to see what the job entailed- which was everything, constant vigilance at anticipating her spoiled young lady’s every whim. She gets a half day off every two weeks, and her young lady makes her feel guilty even about having that brief time to herself. She’s a good character, curious and bright and increasingly bored of being a servant, even though it’s a pretty high position she’s worked her way up to and she’s very good at it.

A gentleman visiting the family brings his valet, Charlie, and a romance begins. The two servants realize that the only way they can be together is if they can manipulate their two employers into falling in love, a difficult task, because the gentleman is uninterested and the lady actively dislikes him and has a crush on someone else.

It’s fun to watch their machinations and to watch an interesting new world open up to Alice, a character I really liked. Plus, I just enjoy fiction that bashes terrible rich people.

Alice is very good at being a lady's maid, but she might be too bright and curious for this job? When she falls in love with Charlie, a handsome valet, the two of them conspire to make their lord and lady fall in love and marry so that they can actually get to see each other. I enjoyed this window into the world of 19th century servants, and I enjoyed Alice and Charlie's machinations. This novel will be released in spring of 2026.

[Stella · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 rounded down -- This book felt like it was trying to do a crossover of Bridgerton and Downton Abbey (great concept!) but wasn't executed very well. I really appreciated the vocabulary and style, which felt very true to a 19th century novel. However, I felt like the narrator breaking the fourth wall made the book feel quite silly, which gave me whiplash when it was also trying to address labor issue, women's rights, and the abolitionist movement at the same time. I liked the ending quite a bit and I feel this was a fun silly read, it was just a bit all over the place and could have been better structured.

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, and Vintage and NetGalley for advanced access to this book in exchange for my unbiased review.

[Olivia Allbritton · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5

There were some really good moments here, but everything felt very surface level. The romance plots, the class and gender equality element, the scheming all fell a bit flat and distant. Most of all, the choice in narration really took me out of the story; the somewhat omniscient narrator didn’t really work in this context and the constant fourth wall breaking became distracting.

*thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the eARC in exchange for my honest review*

[RMazin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the late 187os in England, Alice Lockey is an abigail (maid) to the ever-demanding young and wealthy, Lady Jemima. Alice prides herself on her work which is often tedious and unstimulating. When she meets Charlie Wells, she and he are both taken with each other. But how can a romance between the two proceed when he is a valet to another “house” of means? Maybe if they can somehow make a match between Lady Jemima and Charlie’s somewhat idiosyncratic Lord, the households would combine! The first part of the book is a wonderful, descriptive romp of the foibles of the rich and difficulties of the class that serve them. But Ayelet Waldman, never tips her hand as to what surprises will come as the story proceeds. Like a good play, the author has the narrator break down the fourth wall for the reader with insights into characters and what may be looming ahead. Vocabulary, setting, dialog and historical references make this a very good title for those wishing to escape into the past (which echoes into today). Recommended. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing this title.

[Jennifer Cintron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

What an odd little book. It was pleasant enough, but seemed as if nothing would happen for several chapters. The setting was impeccable, the quietly growing love story was endearing, and I enjoyed the unconventional manipulations of the household staff. The unexpected drama near the end seemingly came out of nowhere, but I dissolved in tears at the ending, which was truly unexpected and so lovely. I think some edits to the pacing and/or foreshadowing would make a big impact.

[Zehava (Joyce) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a complete hoot and so much fun to read. A Perfect Hand tells the story of Alice Lockey, an industrious and bright ladies maid, always striving to improve her station. She meets a young valet, Charlie Wells, and there is an immediate attraction. You might expect that you know how the story will unfold but it truly goes in unexpected directions. I really enjoyed the hilarious narration and the breaking of the fourth wall as well as the surprising ending. This is a great book, a regency comedy I’d call it, and not at all what I was expecting from the author.
Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for an advanced copy of this book.

[Seawitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a somewhat light story (for the most part) told in a Jane Austen tone.

The setting is the late 1800s in England amongst the gentry. A lady’s maid is the protagonist. There is a rather long love story between the maid and a gentleman’s valet that develops “downstairs” but then a twist that involves the women’s suffrage movement.

I enjoyed this book as lighter fare. There are some humorous asides from the narrator and the writing is engaging.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Penguin Random House & Knopf for the digital ARC!

A PERFECT HAND is a witty, funny, and feminist regency-style novel based on the love life of a lady’s maid. The story starts off slow-paced and tedious, but I quickly became enthralled in the lives and shenanigans of Alice and Charlie. I loved the mishaps and the feminist quotes equally! The book’s ending is on brand for Ayelet Waldman and I expected nothing less (complimentary, of course).

“So, too, can you and your daughters become anything you desire. May you go forth, your aspirations limited only by your imagination” ❤️

[Demetri Papadimitropoulos · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Hand That Refuses the House
In Ayelet Waldman’s “A Perfect Hand,” a lady’s maid learns that love may be real, tender, and still too small for the life she wants.
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | May 16th, 2026


The Hand at the Dressing Table – Alice’s working hand, surrounded by ribbon, pins, mirror, fabric, and a half-hidden pamphlet, becomes the quiet center of “A Perfect Hand”: service, beauty, class, and selfhood gathered into one unfinished gesture.

Alice Lockey spends the early pages of Ayelet Waldman’s “A Perfect Hand” making other women fit to be admired. She arranges hair, rescues gowns, subdues odors, coaxes stains into invisibility, studies moods, and performs the thousand small acts by which aristocratic ease persuades itself it was born effortless. Her own hands are almost beautiful enough to be admired, except that work has roughened them.

That “except” is where the novel lives.

In this country-house comedy, the servants’ stairs lead to the true subject: the hand. It is ledger, wound, tool, rank written on the body, object of desire, and finally a claim on rooms where no bell can summon her.

At first, Waldman appears to be winding a neat little belowstairs clock: maid loves valet, valet serves baronet, maid serves lady, and one upstairs marriage might unlock a downstairs life. Alice, the daughter of a tenant farmer, has risen to the position of lady’s maid to Lady Jemima Alderwick, a young woman of beauty, vanity, and a gift for making other people hurry.

Into Alderwick Park comes Charlie Wells, valet to Sir Nigel Wynstowe. Charlie is handsome, capable, kind. His master is absurd, anxious, and unexpectedly honorable, with a private religion devoted to digestion, physiognomy, and the many ways fresh air may be conspiring against him. Alice and Charlie fall for each other with the seriousness of two people who recognize skill in another pair of hands. He repairs a watch; she repairs the world around Lady Jemima before anyone upstairs notices it has frayed.

Their romance is never only weather in the heart.

Service has logistics: wages, train fares, references, rooms, stolen half-days, permission. If Lady Jemima can be steered away from the glittering and useless Thomas Smythe-Roberts and toward the odd, anxious, honorable Sir Nigel, Alice and Charlie might end up in the same household. Marriage, a shop, children, modest prosperity – the future is not grand, but it is warm enough to look like mercy. Alice, who has recently been reading “Emma” by Jane Austen, becomes a servant-class matchmaker with far more at stake than Emma Woodhouse ever had. The joke has lace on it, and a little blood under the lace: the maid arranges the lady’s marriage so that the maid might have one of her own.


Service Has Logistics – A letter, coins, glove, key, ticket, and bell cord turn romance into material fact, showing how love in “A Perfect Hand” depends on wages, time, rooms, references, and permission.

But “A Perfect Hand” is cannier than its contraption. The marriage-plot machinery is bait, mirror, and trap. Waldman lets us enjoy flirtation, misreadings, ornamental scoundrels, comic embarrassments, secret letters, bells, corridors, gossip, and domestic emergencies. Then she gradually makes those pleasures too narrow for Alice’s impatience with the size of the life on offer. Alice wants Charlie, and the novel honors the wanting. He is not a dummy set up for dismissal, not a brute conveniently placed in the path of her liberation. The life he offers is decent: shop, children, education, steadiness, affection. That is the painful pinch. Waldman gives Alice a bargain any sensible woman might accept, then lets her discover that worth is not the same as freedom.

The book is at its best when service becomes perception sharpened by dependence. Alice’s labor is not background upholstery or cheap proof of virtue. It is cleverness practiced under orders. She reads fabric, bodies, schedules, tempers, rooms, rank, and danger. She knows when a stain will expose a household. She knows when a compliment will pacify a mistress, when silence is safer than truth, when truth must be smuggled in dressed as flattery. A gown is money, hierarchy, desire, evidence, and disguise. Hair is status arranged with pins. A castoff dress can be generosity, insult, aspiration, and leash all at once.

The novel’s bite comes from Waldman’s refusal to look away from the scrubbing beneath the polish. She is very good on the laundry room behind the ballroom. The aristocratic body, so often treated in period fiction as an elegant abstraction, is here insistently physical: malodorous petticoats, stained drawers, crushed fans, damp shoes, digestive trouble, servants at work, stale rooms, and garments that must be scrubbed, powdered, perfumed, altered, and made to behave. This is not grossness for its own sake. It is a lesson in who pays for polish, with sponge in hand. The more the novel shows what beauty requires, the less natural beauty looks.

The prose wears Victorian dress with one eye on the seams. Waldman favors long, socially alert sentences, direct address, comic asides, and the crisp rustle of “m’lady,” “betters,” and “matrimony.” The voice seems to sit beside the reader with a fan, a ledger, and several uncharitable but accurate observations. It is arch but affectionate, brocaded but not embalmed. It borrows nineteenth-century manners to send the reader down the servants’ corridor. The spotlight shifts from drawing room to dressing room, from the young lady being admired to the woman tightening the corset.

Sometimes the narrator lingers too long over her own cleverness. The book has a habit, especially in explanatory moments, of making sure the reader has not missed what the scene has already demonstrated. Still, the performance has purpose. Waldman is not trying to make the prose disappear. She is using style to move the eye from wearer to mender. The servant is not furniture. The maid is not atmosphere. The woman behind the dressing screen is the intelligence in the room. A little less pointing would sharpen the pin.

“Longbourn” by Jo Baker is the most obvious comparison, another turning of the country-house novel until the servants’ door faces front. But Waldman’s book is lighter, earthier, and more openly comic. Baker turns the world of “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen around to see who is washing the linen; Waldman asks what the washer, mender, dresser, listener, and liar with a needle might do with all she has learned. The Austen comparison is built into the book, but it only helps if handled with tongs. This is not simply Austen from the servants’ hall. Austen’s comedy is cooler and more exacting; Waldman’s is warmer, messier, more perfumed and more pungent. She is less interested in who misreads whom than in who can be ridiculous safely and who may lose a place.

The plot bustles like a household before dinner: bells ring, doors open, and everyone pretends not to run. Thomas must be exposed; Sir Nigel must be seen as more than a handsome hypochondriac; Lady Jemima must be educated out of her appetite for charming worthlessness; Alice and Charlie must steal time from households that own nearly all of it. London offers music halls, reformist dinners, secret meetings, letters, work schemes, and the wider world of pamphlets and platforms. A mistress, a locket, a debt, and a racecourse confrontation send the comic clockwork ticking toward public exposure. At its best, Waldman’s plotting makes incident feel like money, scandal, employers, and the bell pressing inward. People cannot simply choose. They must maneuver.

Alice’s reading matters as much as her access to Charlie. Through Miss Bennett, Lady Jemima’s spinster aunt, she encounters writing on married women’s property, employment, legal personhood, and suffrage. The pamphlets do not sit in the book like historical trim; they put names to grievances Alice has already felt in her hands. If a married woman’s wages, clothes, books, and household goods can be swallowed by a husband’s legal authority, then marriage is not only a domestic dream. It is an institution with teeth. Alice does not stop loving Charlie when she learns this. She begins to see the terms under which love is allowed to operate.

Waldman is especially sharp on the gap between having convictions and having a free afternoon. Political rooms, pamphlets, lectures, and conversations with women such as Emmeline Goulden widen Alice’s imagination, but the novel does not pretend that a servant can step into freedom as easily as a comfortable radical can invite her there. Alice’s time is not her own. Her respectability is fragile. Her employment depends on obedience. Even sympathetic patrons remain patrons. That difference keeps the suffrage thread from flattening into costume. The question is not only whether Alice believes in votes for women. It is whether freedom may cost her a job, a lover, a safe bed, and the future she has been taught to call happiness.

Charlie becomes the test the novel refuses to rig. He wants to protect Alice, and for much of the book that protectiveness is moving. He has known poverty, the workhouse, grief, and responsibility; his tenderness has history in it. But after Alice attends a suffrage lecture and violence erupts, his fear hardens into prohibition. He cannot bear the thought of her danger, so he tries to forbid the danger. Waldman does not turn him into a villain. Instead, she exposes the more painful fact that he has been taught protection gives him jurisdiction. Alice recognizes that even Charlie’s kindness would leave her dependent on his permission. That discovery is quieter than betrayal and more devastating.


The Bluebell Refusal – In the bluebell meadow, Alice and Charlie remain close enough for tenderness but far enough apart for the life she cannot accept, making the space between them the image’s true subject.

By the time Alice refuses Charlie, the choice feels both startling and prepared. After Lady Jemima marries Sir Nigel, after the matchmaking succeeds, after Charlie proposes in a bluebell meadow with a future that is tender, sensible, and sweetly imagined, Alice refuses him. She chooses Manchester, lectures, organizing, danger, prison, exhaustion, and the harder dignity of being useful to more than one household. The refusal works because the novel has not rigged our sympathies against Charlie. Alice does not reject marriage because she cannot love. She rejects it because she can imagine herself beyond being loved.

The final chapter asks summary to carry more life than it can gracefully bear. Alice’s career as a suffrage speaker, organizer, militant, prisoner, and martyr arrives in a compressed final rush. She is imprisoned, force-fed, weakened, nursed by Lady Jemima at Wynstowe, and mourned after her death in 1910, before the victory for which she has spent herself. The late revelation that Lady Jemima has been the memorial voice gives the ending a fine moral turn: the once-frivolous mistress has become the person placing Alice into history. Better still, she becomes proof that Alice has altered the woman who once employed her. Yet the shift from intimate comedy to historical elegy comes quickly. The early and middle sections dramatize with lavish patience; the last chapter gathers, summarizes, and consecrates.

That speed does not spoil the ending, but it does leave the outline of the missing Manchester chapters. One wants Alice learning to speak in public, Alice among women whose courage and contradictions might have tested her further, Alice paying the daily price of becoming more than the life Charlie offers. Waldman has chosen memory over expansion, and the choice has a rueful logic: memory compresses; memorials select. But the novel is so alive in rooms, fabrics, jokes, gestures, and social friction that one wants more of that grain in Alice’s public life.

Around Alice and Charlie, the others are drawn in firm comic lines: vivid enough to sparkle, rarely loose enough to startle. Lady Jemima is a delightful creature of appetite, vanity, and belated education; Sir Nigel is a comic eccentric made gradually lovable; Thomas is a cad with enough sparkle to explain his appeal and enough rot to justify his exposure. These figures work beautifully inside the social comedy, though they often work by design. Alice and Charlie are the ones who surprise, because the novel allows their virtues to create conflict rather than solve it.

The novel is most persuasive when the washbasin does the arguing. It does not need to be dragged toward the present; its argument is already there in every altered dress and interrupted half-day. Domestic labor remains easiest to undervalue when it is done well. Women’s autonomy remains most precarious where love, money, law, and custom meet. A household can be as political as a platform. A washbasin can sit closer to a ballot box than it first appears.


The Hand Beyond the House – A hand with flowers, paper, and public-memory traces transforms the book’s central motif from domestic service into legacy, resistance, and the unfinished work of freedom.

For all its seriousness, “A Perfect Hand” keeps light on its feet. A duller novel would turn Alice into a walking pamphlet. Waldman makes her awakening costly because she first makes the world alluring: the clothes, the gossip, the stolen hours, the thrill of a letter, the warmth of Charlie’s attention, the ridiculous majesty of Sir Nigel being Sir Nigel. We are allowed to want the romance. That is why the refusal has teeth. A polemic would condemn the marriage plot from the start. “A Perfect Hand” courts it, dresses it beautifully, lets it sit for its portrait, and then quietly declines the match.

My final rating is 84/100, which corresponds to 4/5 stars on Goodreads. That feels right for a novel of considerable charm, wit, and social intelligence, held just below the highest tier by the compressed memorial sweep of its final movement and the occasional over-explanation of its narrator. Its strongest idea is built into its shape: a woman introduced as another woman’s accessory becomes the reason the story exists.

Near the end, after Alice has refused the life that might have made her comfortable, the title’s image returns with altered pressure. A perfect hand is no longer the unworked hand, the ornamental hand, the hand admired because it has been spared. It is the hand that mends, writes, touches, organizes, resists, and finally disappears into history having changed what another woman’s hand could do. Waldman’s loveliest trick is also her sharpest wound: she gives Alice a romance worth wanting, then lets her want more.


Compositional Thumbnail Sheet – Early graphite studies test how the hand, mirror, ribbon, hidden pamphlet, and negative space might hold the review’s central argument before the image settles into its final shape.


Faint Pencil Underdrawing – The nearly bare drawing reveals the image’s hidden architecture: the hand, table edge, mirror oval, pamphlet rectangle, and border motifs still held in fragile graphite before color makes them social.


Pencil-Plus-First-Wash Stage – The first pale washes of powder blue, parchment, dusty rose, and warm brown begin to turn the drawing into atmosphere while leaving the labor of construction visibly intact.


Color Swatch Sheet – The cover-derived palette is tested as a language of rank, fabric, skin, paper, shadow, and restraint, showing how the watercolor’s emotional temperature is built before the final image is painted.


Watercolor Border Study – Loose thread, pin marks, bell-cord curves, ribbon loops, lace, and paper corners become a partial frame, echoing the book’s world of service without enclosing it too neatly.


Hand / Wrist / Gesture Anatomical Study – Studies of Alice’s hand search for the balance between elegance and labor, making the title’s “perfect” hand visibly used, intelligent, and alive to pressure.


Dressing-Table Object Arrangement Study – Ribbon, glove, pamphlet, mirror, key, coin, pins, and bell cord are tested as a symbolic grammar of service, showing how ordinary objects become the structure of the final image.


Finished Detail Crop Study – Enlarged studies of the hand, pamphlet, mirror, pins, thread, and button mark where the watercolor should resolve and where it should remain open, fragile, and visibly in process.


Ayelet Waldman Author Portrait – A literary watercolor caricature portrait of Ayelet Waldman, inspired by “A Perfect Hand,” gathers ribbon, glove, key, mirror, and dressing-table details into a playful author study shaped by the novel’s world.

All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.
Watercolors are done on 140lb vellum and then scanned into the computer using an Epson scanner. From there, they are finalized in Procreate. All art and opinions are my own.

[Kayleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Ayelet Waldman, Knopf, Pantheon, and Vintage for providing this ARC in exchange for a review!


"A Perfect Hand" by Ayelet Waldman is a fun and entertaining approach to a historical romance that leads the reader on a journey through the struggles and experiences of working class women, during an era where they had to fight to be heard.


I loved the real-life references to people and events of the sufferage era, and how Waldman was able to involve them in the story with her own original characters

[Danielle McClellan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an extremely enjoyable refashioning of the 19th century historical fiction novel that comes at the story from the perspective of a ladies maid. It feels a bit Bridgerton-ish in its clever narration, and the read is fresh and fun as the novel opens up all the hidden doors to show how the class and gender assumptions of the time set up massive obstacles to women's independence and opportunity; it takes a very talented character indeed to find a way around such impediments, and Alice Lockey is that character. This author is a smart, interesting writer in whatever genre she touches (I remember enjoying her very funny "mommy-track mysteries" back in the day), and although this particular genre is not my usual fare, I read it with great amusement.

My thanks to NetGalley and the author for an early view of this novel.

[Lepp · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this as an ARC of NetGalley.

This book was very confusing. I felt like it wasn’t a cohesive story. I understand using various characters and a few different plot lines to tell a story…. But what was the story? We were lead to believe the story was a bit of a parent trap situation where two servants -who fall in love - play matchmaker so they can get married and stay together. I expected a bit of a comedy of errors with some romance and historical tidbits mixed in.

That’s not what I got.

I don’t want to go into spoilers, but I felt like the story was a bait and switch. I didn’t like that.

2 stars. I was disappointed because it had a lot of promise. The writing was pretty good, but the storyline fell apart for me.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

They bonded over books.
Alice Locky, abigail to Lady Jemima, had just settled down to finally start Middlemarch. She was unusual in that she was brought up from the downstairs servants to the position of personal ladies' maid due to her initiative and winning personality. But it was a labor intensive job-she attended to all of her lady's needs and whims, rose before her and tucked her into bed at night. She felt that she earned her rest and reading time. But there was a problem in the servant's quarters. The resident bully and blowhard went after a visiting maid and a visiting manservant stuck up for her. Then that man, Charlie Wells, asked Alice if she enjoyed books by Charles Dickens. And he was cute...heart flutter. Turned out he was the personal servant to Lord Wynstone who was visiting Lord and Lady Alderwick, Jemima's parents.. Wynstone was very handsome and very wealthy but also very eccentric, not exactly Lady Jemima's cup of tea. She was glad he was leaving tomorrow.
Charlie and Alice met again in London when their master and mistress returned from their country estates. By this time, they knew that sparks were flying. The problem was that they would only get to see each other every so often and that does not a romance make-what to do? And so was hatched the perfect plan-all they had to do was marry off her lady and his gentleman, even though she despised him and he was at best, indifferent to her. To complicate matters, Lady Jemima had fallen for a cad and a bounder, but wouldn't believe anyone that told her that he was evil
Meanwhile, Alice was starting to read some interesting, yet radical, pamphlets on the rights of women, which made her reevaluate all of her life decisions, especially those of love and romance. Can this love story be saved?
Waldman turns the Regency romance novel on its head-instead of a tale of the gentry, she writes about a romance between their underlings, she brings in the budding ideas of women's rights and human equality, and she gives her main character choices. The narrative is written in the second person, with several asides to the reader, so you know she is addressing you but you don't know who the narrator is-you will be surprised to find out. A Perfect Hand was a refreshing take on the many Jane Austen read-alikes that channel her writing but don't add anything of their own. Tea and crumpets for all!

[Laura Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take a cup of the Bridgerton series, then stir in a half pound of Downton Abbey and sprinkle with a heavy hand of the Women's Suffragette movement as it began in the United Kingdom and you will have a nice recipe for a charming book written by Ayelet Waldman, titled A Perfect Hand.

The novel begins with our Heroine, Miss Alice Lockey, the daughter of a tenant farmer who has taken employment as an abigail, a fine lady's personal maid for Lady Jemima Alderwick. We, as the readers, follow Miss Alice as she cunningly tends her lady's many needs, often with pluck and ingenuity. Some tasks being more malodorous than others. In her employ she meets a man servant from another noble's household who is visiting her lady's family estate. She finds she has an interest in this gentleman. Intrigue and many exploits are hatched to help the two servants matchmake their employers so that the two of them might find a way to build a life together.

While in London with their employers, Miss Alice is introduced to new thinking and various individuals within the Women's Suffrage Movement. She catches a desire to become involved, but must find a way to do so while dealing with her employer's marriage prospects and her own love.

I thoroughly enjoyed the way Waldman created her characters, wove an interesting plotline and used various asides of a narrator to cue the reader into the lives of the characters. The asides reminded me of the Bridgerton series which I also have enjoyed. This tactic along with the victorian time period and the upstairs, downstairs relationships of lords and ladies being served by their staff created a fun, enjoyable read.

The twist at the end I did not see coming, but thoroughly enjoyed the emotions it evoked in me. Waldman is skilled at using humor as well as serious drama to keep her readers involved in the story as it develops throughout the book. A Perfect Hand is set to be published May 19, 2026. If you are a fan of the worlds of lords and ladies of the late 1800's, early 1900's, I would recommend this story to you. It definitely should be included in next spring's reading lists!

I received a uncorrected proof copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Perfect Hand by Ayelet Waldman
Rating: ★★★★★
In A Perfect Hand, Ayelet Waldman delivers a sparkling historical romp set in the 1880s that manages to be both hilariously witty and deeply earnest. The story follows Alice Lockley, a lady’s maid who has climbed the social ladder of service to a comfortable height, yet harbors a quiet, forbidden hunger for the education and literature usually reserved for the elite.
The heart of the story lies in the accidental meeting between Alice and Charlie Wells, a valet to Lord Nigel Wynstowe. Both Alice and Charlie are "well-sorted" in their careers, proud of how far they’ve come from their origins, yet their immediate attraction presents a heartbreaking professional dilemma: in their world, marriage usually means the end of service.
Their solution? A high-stakes matchmaking scheme. Watching Alice attempt to orchestrate a romance between her headstrong, self-absorbed, yet oddly well-meaning mistress, Jemima Alderwick, and Lord Nigel is pure comedy. Jemima is a fantastic foil to Alice; her lack of interest in her own education highlights Alice’s secret intellectual ambitions perfectly.
The reason this book really worked for me was threefold:
The unnamed narrator’s tone is a standout feature, frequently addressing the "gentle reader" in a way that feels immersive and nostalgic.
The humorous pacing: The book is filled with "plans within plans" and hilarious background maneuvers that keep the energy high from start to finish.
The "Twist": Just when you think you have the trajectory of a historical romance figured out, Waldman throws a curve ball. The ending is a brilliant subversion that is as surprising as it is satisfying and thought provoking.
A Perfect Hand is a joy to read for anyone who loves immersive world-building and complex character dynamics. It’s a refreshing take on the "upstairs-downstairs" trope, proving that the most interesting stories often happen in the shadows of the ballroom. I was genuinely surprised by the conclusion, and in the best way possible!

[April Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

"My word, Alice Lockey, you are a cynic. I hope you marry for love. I know I intend to."

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for this ARC!

The very definition of an upstairs-downstairs novel turned on its head. A wonderful look into the power imbalances within nineteenth century estates, the power of women with plans, and the ability of people with a goal to see that goal happen. I will say--that Waldman is a fan of Austen is clear. This is not a modern novel with modern phrasing conveniently set within the world of the nineteenth century. It's more authentically set--lack of modern plumbing and hygiene included--and as a result it might be a challenging read for someone exclusively used to contemporary literature or historical fiction that focuses only on setting for the historical aspects.

Alice and Charlie's attempts to manipulate their respective nobles to provide them an opportunity to marry was clever and funny, and I legitimately laughed out loud fairly often while reading. These wild, self-absorbed, and frankly ridiculous nobles deserved every bit of meddling and shenanigans that befell them.

I loved that Alice was good at her job and not-necessarily dissatisfied, despite how clearly intelligent, well-read, and curious she is as a character. She wasn't perfectly content with her lot in life until someone illuminated her circumstances. If Alice is anything, she's aware. Like the rest of us, she's complicated, and the way that her needs and wants change the more she sees, learns, and experiences was commendable. It took me a few hours to fall all the way in, but it was a quick read and smooth sailing once I was caught--much like Alice in many things she does within these pages.

[Christine Sturman · Rating 3 out of 5]

We all want to determine our own destiny. In Ayelet Waldman’s book, “A Perfect Hand”, we follow the life of Miss Alice Lockey. She is a daughter of a tenant farmer who finds work in a manor house on an English estate in the late 1800’s. Alice works her way from an under-housemaid to a senior position as a lady’s maid to the daughter of the family. In this time period in England women basically have no rights. Their fathers and then husbands make all the decisions for them with little to no input from the women. At least this is the case until the women’s suffrage movement begins to spread It’s philosophies.

I was disappointed with this book. The storyline was rough and the style of writing made it awkward to read. I assume this style was used to put the reader in the mood of Victorian England. I’ve read many Regency and Victorian based stories, but most were much easier to read than this book. The attitude and conditions that the author depicted seem accurate. The English Suffragette movement was much more militant than the U.S. movement. The conclusion of this book was true to the English movement. I just wish the book ending could have been a bit more positive. Readers who like historical fiction that isn’t glorified should read this book.

I want to thank Alfred A. Knopf of Penguin Random House for the complementary eARC of this book and for selecting me to review it on NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

#APerfectHand
#AlfredAKnopf/PenguinRandomHouse
#NetGalley
#EnglishSuffragette
#BritishSociety
#HistoricalFiction

[Ayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Perfect Hand by Ayelet Waldman

Rating: 4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to Penguin Random House, Knopf, Netgalley, and the author for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

A Perfect Hand is a humorous, engaging, and entertaining read that is equal parts witty and fun. Ayelet Waldman has crafted an utterly charming historical fiction read set in 19th century England. A clever and amusing story that is full of authenticity and Jane Austen-era storytelling.

Alice Lockey, a daughter of a tenant farmer, is a lady’s maid at Alderwick Park for Lady Jemima Alderwick. While her mother has advised her to work only until marriage, Alice is happier when working. When Charlie Wells, a valet, gets her attention, Alice develops a plan in order to spend more time with him. Alice tries to arrange a romance between Lady Jemima Alderwick and Charlie’s employer, Baronet Sir Nigel Wynstowe. Lady Jemima is in love with someone else though and Sir Wynstowe is rather peculiar. Alice must give it all she has in order to create a romance between the two of them, while also navigating her attraction to Charlie.

A Perfect Hand is wonderfully witty, has excellent character growth, and provides a great blend of romance, history, and comedy. Alice and Charlie’s attempts to establish a romance between their employers are utterly hilarious and so entertaining. Alice is a great heroine, with her determination, capability, and perceptive nature.

Overall, A Perfect Hand is a well-written novel that is perfect for readers who enjoy historical fiction with a unique twist!

[Mindee Bacon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a light hearted whimsical 18th Century story about a lady’s maid who has always worked hard in her limited schooling and now in her job working for a spoiled English Lady. Jemima Alderwick. Alice has a love of books and for the new movement of women’s suffrage. When she falls madly in love with Charlie Wells, a fellow servant from a different manor house, the two ban together to find a way to be together. The only choice the two servants have is to be matchmakers to their employers. If their employers marry, Alice and Charlie, can also be together. The only problem is, their employers hate each other.

This was an enjoyable story with protagonists that I found myself cheering for as they try to unite their spoiled mistress and wealthy, hypochondriac baronet.. I was surprised when the narrator would break the fourth wall and speak directly to the reader, but it became clear later the significance of these interruptions. Being such a fun, whimsical story, I was shocked when the end took a serious turn, but I feel it really added importance to the story.

Thank you Net Galley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for the Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review. #NetGalley #APerfectHand
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[Anne Wolfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kudos to Ayelet Waldman for writing a most delightful and unexpected historical (Regency Romance?) novel that despite its unusual style will bring a smile to your face and keep your finger turning pages. I used to enjoy her Mommy Track mysteries and have also read several of her non-fiction. She hasn't lost her talent for fiction, but his one is different. Prepare yourself for surprises if you liked Downton Abbey.

Alice Lockey is an abigail, a lady's maid, to Lady Jemima, the spoiled pretty daughter in the last quarter of the 19th century. Alice has it better than the scullery or kitchen maids, but her work is hard and requires tact and multiple talents. Unusual for the time, Alice is a reader and an independent thinker. At a house party she meets the valet of one of the guests and, as you'd expect, they fall in love. The "plot" is indeed a plot to interest Jemima in a match with Charlie's Lord", a phsyiogamist. (someone who studies proportion of faces and hands to determine high birth -don't' ask.)

The other plot line is the women's suffrage movement in England and America. Both plots are immersive and interesting. Expect to be addressed directly by the author and insights into cleaning, sewing, styles, odors and toileting. (I know, but you won't object.) Different, but Waldman hasn't lost it.

Thanks to Net Galley and Knopf publishing for the Arc of this upcoming novel.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

19th century England. "Miss Alice Lockey, daughter of a tenant farmer, has by dint of hard work, innate intelligence, and a cunning ability to predict the moods of her betters, raised herself to the lofty status of lady’s maid at Alderwick Park." Alice attends to the whims of Lady Jemima Alderwick who is besotted with Mr. Thomas Smythe-Roberts--a whole 'nother story."...when a visiting servant, a valet named Charlie Wells, catches her eye, Alice begins to understand the constraints of her position. In a ploy to spend time with the object of her affection, Alice attempts to arrange a romance between Lady Jemima Alderwick and Charlie’s employer, one Baronet Sir Nigel Wynstowe."

Much later on the travails of suffragettes and working class [factory workers] women enter the narrative.

An easy enough read, mindful of Bridgerton especially as there are times when "gentle reader" is introduced. Yes, somewhat interesting, but also boring--much back and forth and scheming between Charlie and Alice who are conspiring to get their two employers together and end Jemima's affection for Smythe=Roberts [a scoundrel/revealed].

No spoiler, but I never predicted how the book might end [so kudos for that, but not enough].

An outlier in the praise for this novel.

[Janine · Rating 5 out of 5]

What delightful historical fiction! If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought the book was written by Jane Austin or a novelist of that perfect. The tone and story itself is consummate 19th C!

As the book blurb says, this book is about two 19th C servants plotting to get their employers married to each other so the two can marry and be together. Alice Lockey is maid to Lady Jemima Alderwick while Charlie Wells is valet to Viscount Nigel Wynstowe, one of Jemima’s suitors. Alicia can read (not many servants in those days could), so the books Jemima’s aunt gives her like those of John Stuart Mill, hold no interest for Jemima they do for Alice. Alice is intrigued. Then during one of Alice’s errands to London, she meets Emmeline, an administrator for the Society for the Promotion of Employment for Women or as its unfortunate acronym is known: SPEW (I found that so funny). Captivated by Emmeline and SPEW’s literature, Alice realizes she and Charlie may be mismatched. Alice has greater visions for herself. The ending to this book is so incredibly clever, I do not want to spoil it for future readers. Suffice it to say, it’s worth reading this book to find out.

This may seem a romance at face value but it’s deeper than that. We are treated to the lives of English servants not the peers and see what they face in their day to day existence. Alice views her life as potentially equal to a man (shocking!) and why not. This is a story about balancing love and ambition. Highly recommend.

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for allowing me access to this ARC.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Matchmaking is a perilous endeavor. from A Perfect Hand by Ayelet Waldman

I do love novels written in the style of 19th c British literature. A Perfect Hand is a delight, with a strong authorial voice (from the fictional author of the tale), period details, an upstairs/downstairs double love story, and, to ice the proverbial cake, a young woman discovering her voice and claiming her power.

Our heroine Alice is bright, bookish, and knows she is lucky to work for a generous, if vapid, mistress, Lady Jemima. Jemima is drawn to a handsome suitor who she is unaware is a cad and pecunious scoundrel.

A visiting gentleman’s valet shows Alice special attention and they fall in love. The only way they can be together if is they can get his master and her mistress married. They begin planning a long game to expose Lady Jemima’s love interest’s ungentlemanly behavior. And somehow get together two people with nothing in common.

Alice comes under the influence of Lady Jemima’s suffragette aunt, reading radical books from her library and attending lectures.

Votes for women? Alice though. It seemed as unlikely as votes for goats or horses. from A Perfect Hand

There is a delicious twist that wraps the story up with a surprise.

I totally enjoyed it.

Thanks to Knopf for a free book through NetGalley

[Hope Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alice Lockey was lucky enough to rise above her station to the position of lady's maid to the spoiled yet surprisingly at times compassionate and gentle Lady Jemima. Her tenant farmer family expects her to marry and become mistress and mother in her own home, but Alice is not convinced that is the life for her even though she does not yet know what else is available. During one house party for the elite, Charlie Wells, valet, shows up and Alice begins thinking perhaps marriage and a family life aren't so bad. When it became apparent that a marriage between the two is completely out of the question, they begin to conspire to matchmake their employers in order to also be together. With Alice's plans underway, she follows her Lady to the City where she encounters women who have chosen other, more independent life paths.

I loved this book - it reminded me of a book I devoured over and over as a teen: "Mayfair" by Nancy Fitzgerald. I love the Regency time period, the voice of the author narrating and conversing directly with the reader at different times in this book, and the characters. I love the ending that wasn't perfect, but right. Finally, I love that Alice Lockey was a real person!

[Jenny K (on partial break) · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love a Jane Austen book, and let's be real, who doesn't? You'll enjoy this look at the servants' view of things.

It's smart and sophisticated, well-plotted, flows easily, and has strong character development. It's easy to get lost in this well-paced story about Alice, abigail to Lady Jemima Alderwick, and Charlie, valet to Lord Winstowe. The two meet when Lord Winstowe visits the Alderwick home as a potential suitor to Lady Jemima, and they scheme fast for a way to be together.

I have often thought it would be interesting to get a servant class romance, and this delivers. The details are sharp, with a well-defined period, and the writing is excellent.

As others have noted, this breaks the fourth wall, and it was slightly overdone.

I was also underwhelmed by the ending. While the author definitely sets it up to happen that way, I still felt it was abrupt and jarring, like the author was waiting the whole time to say, "gotcha!" Like it didn't quite fit. It was interesting to see Alice reading Middlemarch and, without spoiling, wondering how the message of that book is at odds with this one's.

Thank you to NetGalley, Knopf, and Ayelet Waldman for the opportunity to review an advanced copy.

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

Poorly written on the level of a Victorian pastiche — may work for some but if you really know the period this falls apart immediately. (Lots of historical details are wrong too, like one moment where a woman “shrugs off” a dress in a moment… girl…) But my real ire is reserved for the introduction of women’s suffrage etc into the book: she uses real historical figures in an overly cutesy way, raises questions about work and equality in a way that’s overly obvious, and then ends the book focusing on this aspect in a way that is frankly risible and overly sentimental. I don’t want to get into details since the book isn’t out yet but as an exercise I think this is utterly pointless. It has nothing to say about history and it’s not fun or cheeky enough to make up for that.

Waldman and her husband Michael Chabon were very equivocal in reacting to the allegations against Neil Gaiman, Chabon subscribes to a paid substack that claims Gaiman is innocent, and they’ve both supported their son who has been accused of rape and strangulation. So I’m also not exactly charmed by this superficial depiction of historical feminism coming from someone whose real world engagement with feminist causes is… fraught to put it mildly.

[Barbara Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Eyelet Waldman's "A Perfect Hand" a narrator, who remains unidentified until the end, tells the story of Alice Lockey, an ambitious, bright lady's maid in late 19th century England who falls for a valet of one of the lady's suitors. The two work to match their lady and lord so that they may be together and work in the same household. Along the way, Alice is exposed to the suffragette movement, which opens her eyes to a different potential future for women, herself included. Waldman portrays the best and worst of the "upstairs downstairs" life with main and minor characters that are true, complete, and at times surprising. The history seems accurate and the time period offered an interesting backdrop and foil to a story that could have otherwise been a simple romance.

While some reviewers didn't like the writing style, I found the period-style prose well done and charming—and I imagine it was fun to write. The language allowed me to sink into a different era for a few hours. "A Perfect Hand" is a delightful book that will speak to fans of Downton Abbey, Upstairs Downstairs, or The Remains of the Day.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for sharing an ARC in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are my own.

#netgalley #aperfecthand