Rushed to the altar

Suave and debonair Jasper Sullivan, Earl of Blackwater, has the title, the looks, and the land, but he lacks money. His dying reprobate uncle will leave an enormous amount to Jasper and his brothers if each will marry and reform a prostitute. Jasper has no idea how to fulfill this order until he literally runs into Clarissa. He assumes that she is a prostitute because why else would a woman be roaming alone in Convent Gardens in 1761? But, in fact, orphaned Clarissa is searching for her young brother, worried that her uncle guardian is up to no good. She agrees to the earl's proposition, willing to sacrifice her virtue to save her brother without telling Jasper about her true circumstances. Jasper comes to realize that his preconceived notions about Clarissa are wrong, but he still wants her. Feather launches a new trilogy with a sensuous and wild romp through bawdy London that will leave readers wanting more.--Engelmann, Patty Copyright 2010 Booklist

Learning that he must marry a "woman in need of salvation" in order to inherit a third of his uncle's vast fortune, the debt-ridden Earl of Blackwater has little choice but to find a prostitute and rescue her. But the gently bred Clarissa Astley he encounters in Covent Garden as she searches for her kidnapped young brother is not the soiled dove he mistakes her for-an error that Clarissa desperately turns to her advantage, with results that surprise them both. Verdict Spirited, a trifle bawdy, and occasionally dark, this saucy Georgian escapade puts a new twist on the classic marry-to-inherit plot pattern, highlights a few less savory aspects of the period, and launches Feather's new trilogy with flair. Feather (A Husband's Wicked Ways) lives in Maryland. [Ebook ISBN 978-1-4391-5549-3.] (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.