Say Yes to the Marquess: Castles Ever After

Dare’s second Castles Ever After Regency (after Romancing the Duke) puts a love-triangle twist on a familiar story of pressures surrounding marriage. Clio Whitmore has been engaged to Lord Piers Brandon, heir to the Marquess of Granville, for eight years. The ostensible reason for nuptial delay is Piers’s work for the Foreign Service, and though he is due to return home soon, she is tired of waiting for a man who appears reluctant to marry her. Clio approaches Piers’s brother, Rafe, asking him to act on his brother’s behalf to end their betrothal. But Rafe doesn’t want to disappoint his brother and instead strikes a bargain with Clio: he will plan the wedding and make sure that she and his brother are married within a month. Rafe, a boxer and the black sheep of the family, is startled when his attraction to smart, tenacious Clio blossoms from mere lust to real admiration. Dare excels at storytelling, creating a powerful, believable romance that evokes a plethora of emotions. Agent: Helen Breitweiser, Cornerstone Literary. (Jan.)