West End Earl

A woman assumes her twin brother’s identity in Bennett’s charming second Misfits of Mayfair Regency romance (Any Rogue Will Do). Lord Cal Carlyle is so desperate to protect his beloved 18-year-old sister, Emma, from being married off to a scoundrel during her first season that he offers to pay Adam Hardwick, his friend and faithful land steward, to marry her himself. But Cal soon discovers that scrawny, effeminate Adam is really beautiful Ophelia, “Phee” to her friends. Phee is living as her brother, who died 10 years earlier, until she can claim his inheritance from her villainous uncle, who will stop at nothing to keep the money himself. Cal falls for the fiercely self-sufficient Phee—but he finds his own freedom jeopardized when his father offers Cal’s hand in marriage to satisfy a wager. Bennett’s spirited plot adds Shakespearean twists to the typical Regency fare, complete with humor, sensual love scenes, and pithy observations on gender roles and the social mores of the 1820s. Packed with disguises, debts, and debutantes, this delightful Regency does not disappoint. Agent: Rebecca Straus, DeFiore and Co. (June)