An Improper Arrangement

Michaels’s new series starts chaotically as she tries to combine the background of her Little Season books with the history of a new set of families. Gabriel Sinclair has returned to London, scarred from the Napoleonic Wars, to find the latest surprise from his aunt: she’s taken in Dorothea Neville, the hitherto-unknown daughter of his greatest enemy, the bullying Henry Neville. Thea has been raised in Virginia, and her foremost goal is to confront the father who abandoned her as an infant. After Gabriel instructs Thea in the protocols of London’s Little Season, the pair take the town by storm, where Gabe learns that Thea’s parentage is more threatening to his enemy than Gabe had realized. There is little new in the plot; Michaels’s attempts to create antagonism between Thea and Gabe are unbelievable, and Henry is little more than a sputtering cartoon. However, the sparkling conversations between Thea and Gabe make the story something more than its predictable plot, and Gabe’s aunt and Thea’s maid provide additional humor as lusty chaperones. (Jan.)