The Rake & the Pearl-Clutcher

Miss Prudence Fairweather has always believed in virtue, restraint, and the healing power of alphabetical order. But when three hellion sisters, a scandalous rake, and one wildly misused settee lead to a very public, very accidental engagement, she finds herself betrothed to the one man guaranteed to send her spiraling into sin: Lord Phineas Markham.

Phineas is a rake. Or he was. Or he’s trying not to be. It’s unclear—he’s working through it in a series of confusing, impassioned monologues. Each more dramatic than the last. And each featuring a tragic backstory with entirely new details. Again.

Now Prudence must preserve her reputation, deny her increasingly indecent thoughts, and survive a fake engagement with a man who keeps taking his shirt off in emotionally symbolic ways.

He’s chaos. She’s clinging to decorum by her petticoats. And somewhere in the hedges, a goose is watching. Judging.

Featuring:

• An engagement founded on panic and pastry
• No fewer than eight contradictory tragic pasts
• A scandalous under-table incident at tea
• Literary fondling
• A heroine who keeps saying “this cannot happen again”
• And a hero who keeps proving that it absolutely can

If you enjoy historical romance with heaving bosoms, unrepentant ridiculousness, and jokes that get funnier every time they’re repeated, this one’s for you.