My Lady’s Choosing

Curran and Zageris’s cheeky riff on the Choose Your Own Adventure stories puts readers in the shoes of a feisty 28-year-old Regency miss who’s living as a lady’s companion to a sour dowager. The pinched old woman’s beautiful niece offers the reader a choice of futures, including a romance with a traditional haughty hero who covers his desire with angry indifference. Other candidates for love include a Scottish war hero and a do-gooder with a penchant for helping orphans. Then there is the dowager’s son, Lord Craven, a Gothic hero living with his strange servants in the Yorkshire moors, who hires the plucky heroine as his son’s governess. Readers may also pursue an Egyptian adventure that includes a passionate affair with the dowager’s niece. The authors understand romance novel tropes, and those looking for a farcical romp will find plenty of laughs, winks, and nods in how the stories play out. (Apr.)