The Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine

March 26, 2012
E-book author Fresina (Once a Rogue) moves into print with a Regency historical romance featuring lovable leads. When the impulsive Sophie Valentine turns 29, she decides that her obnoxious brother and his whiny wife are impossible to live with, so she scandalizes her family by advertising for a husband. Lazarus Kane caught a glimpse of Sophie on the night of her ruin a decade earlier and has been searching for her ever since, so naturally he answers the ad. He has faced life at its bleakest, knows what he wants, and goes after it with clever persistence that occasionally backfires. After spying Sophie with a naughty book, he proposes she teach him to read in return for love lessons. The hero’s painful, decidedly nongenteel history grounds this otherwise fluffy story. Occasional outlandishness, remarkable coincidences, and reliance on well-rendered but sometimes stock characters are mitigated by Kane’s eminently witty and readable prose.

April 15, 2012
Sophie Valentine escaped one engagement by leaping off a balcony. Now, with a large facial scar from that incident, she is stuck in the countryside, firmly on the shelf at age 30. In a desperate attempt to escape her dull life with her brother and his insipid wife, she takes out an ad in a farm paper, stating that she is looking for a husband. Lazarus Kane comes to the town of Sydney Dovedale in pursuit. He has been thinking about Sophie since he witnessed her leap 10 years ago, while he was working in the gardens. Now wealthy, he is ready to claim what he has long wanted. The farm setting and daring heroine make for a unique historical romance, and readers will sympathize with a woman who feels trapped. Lazarus is appealing and their romance gains momentum in Fresina's pleasingly edgy novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)