Infamous

Celia Trent once used her beauty and social position to make Richard Redvers a complete laughingstock of the town. Ten years later, now the widow Celia Pelham, she is working as a companion to Lady Yancy when her past sins come home to roost. While accompanying her employer to a holiday house party and wedding, Celia finds herself among the entire Redvers clan, including Richard, who is now a very wealthy and very sexy entomologist. Can Celia summon the courage to right old wrongs and in the process forge a future with a man she once tormented? Realistically transforming the Regency equivalent of a mean girl into a relatable, all-too-human heroine is no easy feat, but Spencer (Outrageous, 2021) succeeds on every level. Lightly dusted with wintery holiday charm, graced with an absolutely endearing, beetle-obsessed hero and a fully rendered cast of supporting characters and spiked with smoldering sensuality and wry wit, the latest in Spencer's Rebels of the Ton series is sublimely satisfying.

A former bully is reunited with her targets in Spencer's crafty third Rebels of the Ton Regency romance (after Outrageous). Celia Trent's father's debts and mother's death left her a scared child who bullied her schoolmates in fits of jealousy, particularly Richard Redvers and Phyllida "Phil" Singleton, whom she's dubbed Odious and the Squab. As belle of the London season, she hatched a scheme with her cruel friend Sebastian to entrap the pair into marriage--but the plan backfired, instead resulting in Celia's beau and Richard's twin, Lucien, marrying Phil, and Celia being cast out of society. Ten years later, the destitute Celia works as paid companion to an elderly woman and in this role is forced to attend the society wedding of Lucien and Richard's sister to Sebastian, who's been blackmailing Celia to protect his reputation. Richard, unlike his twin, has never cared about his reputation. A world-traveling entomologist, he'd rather capture beetles than hearts--but he can't deny his attraction to Celia. Now she has a chance to prove she's changed and make amends for her past behavior. But can Richard and his family see her for who she's become? Forgiveness forms the heart of this scandalous, sensual tale, and the lively house party setting adds to the thrills. Readers will be delighted. Agent: Jessica Alvarez, BookEnds Literary. (Oct.)