Crimson Lace

Crimson Lace is the poignant final installment of Lee's Victorian trilogy (Blue Waltz; Emerald Rain) featuring women of dubious reputation. Scandalous Lily Blakemore, who fled Manhattan ten years before, has returned to the city to care for her dead brother's children. Morgan Elliott, an investigative reporter trying to get the goods on a gubernatorial candidate rumored to be Lily's lover, poses as the hired help. Both the cause of Lily's downfall and the falseness of it are too easily discovered, but the intensity of feeling once the first layer of secrets is stripped off will have readers falling in love right along with Lily and Morgan. (Dec.)