This Rake of Mine

Starred review from September 15, 2005
With just one kiss, "Mad Jack" Tremont, the ton's most infamous rake, ruined Miranda Mabberly's life forever. Being caught kissing Jack not only terminated Miranda's engagement with the odious Lord Oxley, it also prompted Miranda's title-mad parents to send their now socially disgraced daughter into exile with distant relatives. Now nine years later, Miranda has reinvented herself as "Jane Porter," a decorum teacher for Miss Emery's Establishment for the Education of Genteel Ladies. While escorting the Misses Felicity, Tally, and Pippin home from school, Miranda reluctantly gives into the girls' wishes that they stop at Thistleton Park, where she discovers that the owner of the estate is none other than sinfully sexy Mad Jack. Boyle deftly balances the darker plot elements of her story with some deliciously comic moments involving the matchmaking machinations of Miranda's charges. And the exquisitely sensual chemistry she creates between her sharp-witted, sharp-tongued heroine and her dangerously sexy hero is simply sublime. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)