No Proper Lady

July 4, 2011
A woman from a dystopian future crashes into the lavish past in a compelling debut that smartly mixes history, action, romance, and magic. Joan comes from a future where humanity is losing the war against demonic forces unleashed by a 200-year-old evil wizard, Alex Reynell. To destroy Reynell, Joan goes back to England in 1888, where magician Simon Grenville becomes her guide to a completely different way of life. When she practices proper Victorian flirtation on Simon, their heady attraction flares. Cooper deftly welds together secret magical practice, the society games of Victorian England, and the threat of a hellish future with the heat of Joan and Simon's frustrated passions. It's easy to forgive the occasionally clunky prose, given how well Cooper combines such disparate tropes into a cohesive and very fun story.

Starred review from August 1, 2011

Simon Grenville is shocked when a leather-clad warrior maiden steps out of a blue fire-tinged ring of stones and saves his civilized Victorian life by zapping a group of vicious, airborn cerberi. Naturally, he does the only thing a proper gentleman can do: he offers her shelter and takes her home with him. Joan, an assassin from the future, is on a deadly mission to destroy a book of spells and kill the mage who unleashed the demons that would devastate her world. Simon is out for revenge against this same man, and Joan may well be his means--if only he can turn the fiercely determined, rough-edged time traveler into a proper society miss. VERDICT Sexy, edgy, and stunningly inventive, this high-speed debut novel brilliantly contrasts dark, demon-laced magic with bright, delicious humor, adds an undercurrent of danger, and results in a winner that will have readers begging for more. Cooper lives in Boston.

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