Viscount in Love

Bestseller James (the Would-Be Wallflowers series) introduces her Accidental Brides series with this middling Regency romance. Victoria “Torie” Sutton, a dyslexic artist, suspects that her older sister Leonora and Leonora’s handsome fiancé, Viscount Kelbourne, are not truly in love, but she tries to dampen her own attraction to Kelbourne by focusing on his bad temper rather than his impressive physique. For her part, Torie is holding out for a love match, but finding an eligible suitor proves difficult when her inconsiderate father and sister have spread the fact that she’s illiterate throughout London society. After Kelbourne unexpectedly becomes the guardian of his late sister’s young twins, Leonora elopes with someone else, having not signed up to play mother. Kelbourne, whose affection has shifted from Leonora to Torie anyway, decides she’ll make a suitable replacement bride—if he and the meddlesome twins can convince her to say yes. Though plucky social outcast Torie is an admirable heroine, grumpy Kelbourne feels rather one-note and the obstacles keeping them apart are drawn out and repetitive. This is far from James’s best. Agent: Kim Witherspoon, InkWell Management. (July)