The Trouble with Inventing a Viscount

Honoria Hartley, the heroine of Lorret’s diverting second Liar’s Club Regency (after It Had to Be a Duke), uses her childhood betrothal to a viscount she’s never met and whom no one can locate as an excuse never to marry. What would she need a husband for? She’s able to secure her fortune using her luck and skill at the gambling table. While disguised as a man to do just that in Paris’s gambling halls, Honoria meets Oscar Flint, a fellow gambler who desperately needs the funds Honoria wins off him. So when Honoria tells Oscar about her betrothal, he hatches a plan to follow her to her English village and claim to be the Viscount Vandemere himself. He threatens to tell her family about her gambling if she reveals he’s an imposter, forcing Honoria to keep up the pretense of their engagement. But along the way, the feigned attraction becomes all too real for both of them and Oscar abandons his blackmail to instead focus on making Honoria happy for the rest of her life. Throughout, Lorret strikes the right balance of humor and swoony romance. The pages fly as this unlikely couple work for their happy ending. Agent: Stefanie Lieberman, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Sept.)