The Mad Lord’s Daughter

Goodger’s Victorian confection, loosely linked to When a Duke Says I Do, focuses on the breathtakingly lovely Melissa Atwell, who is orphaned at 23 by the death of her obsessively reclusive father and forced to leave the home where she has been cloistered her whole life. The educated but woefully socially inept lass is a handful for her uncle George Atwell, earl of Braddock; his dashing son, John; and her chaperone, Diane Stanhope, as they orchestrate her entry into the ton while hiding the secret that Melissa’s father wasn’t really her father. When Melissa flounders, “cousin” John is always there to cushion her fall while trying to keep her illegitimacy from becoming public and ruining her prospects with a respectable suitor. Goodger satisfies with this tale of a clueless but hunky man saved from perpetual loneliness by the loving intervention of a sweet, stunning woman. Agent: Helen Breitwieser, Cornerstone Literary. (Aug.)