It Takes Two to Tangle

Romain’s latest Regency romance is a slow, unimaginative tale about quietly suffering characters. Widowed Frances Whittier is companion to her cousin, Caroline Graves, the countess of Stratton, who has recently come out of mourning for her husband and is now the most sought after woman in high society. Handsome, disabled war veteran Henry Middlebrook is one of many seeking Caroline’s hand. When Frances writes a sympathetic letter to Henry that he thinks came from Caroline, Henry begs Frances’s assistance with a reply. Sympathetic to his desperation, she keeps him in the dark. Though Henry is enchanted by his growing epistolary relationship with Caroline, seeing her as his social salvation, it is patient Frances who understands him. Henry anticlimactically realizes that Frances makes him happy, but when he suspects that Frances is ashamed of his disability, he embarks on a life-threatening duel to redeem his honor. The story is flat and suspenseless, appropriate to two uninteresting characters resigned to being forever alone. Agent: Paige Wheeler, Folio Literary Management. (Sept.)