When a Lady Misbehaves
Michelle Marcos
St. Martin's, Nov 2007, $6.99
ISBN: 0312948492
In London April Jardine works as the “Dustbin Duchess” maid at the infamous Pleasure Emporium. While doing her duties that range from cleaning vomit from rugs to cleaning used sheets, she finds an interesting diary belonging to Madame. Included inside are the names of her powerful lovers and the fascinating fact that one sired a child with Madame.
April sees a chance to extort money by claiming to be the offspring of Madame and each of her bed mates. The men are like cattle willing to pay almost anything to keep their indiscretion from going scandalously public. That is until she meets Lord Blackheath, whose father is on her hit list. He plans to expose her blackmailing ploy before his father believes she is his offspring from the wrong side of the sheets. However, he keeps delaying his uncovering her deed because he is falling in love with the feisty thief.
The opening Regency gamut of the Pleasure Emporium brothel series stars a charming "bad girl" whose wickedness is to blackmail the Ton. Her antithesis is an outraged aristocrat who is confused between wanting to kiss her vs. jail her. Sub-genre readers will appreciate this entertaining first tale due to the gender war.
Harriet Klausner
No comments:
Post a Comment