Wishes in the Wind

When England's best jockey refuses to throw a race for a murderous gang, his daughter, Nicole Aldridge, knows he has to go into hiding. To make an income, she poses as a young man and takes a job as a jockey for the renowned horse breeder Dustin Kingsley, Marquis of Tyreham--and brother of Echoes in the Mist's Trenton Kingsley. Dustin immediately recognizes her as a woman, nicely avoiding the more cliched aspects of this overused device. Nicole and Dustin love each other immediately, which, while it scotches any romantic tension, does motivate Dustin to investigate the gang threatening his ""miracle."" Kane's stiff and unnatural writing is the biggest distraction: even before a reader can settle into her armchair, Nicole comes out with ""Thus, I know what pressure you've been suffering these past weeks,"" continuing on to ""Exactly who are these horrible men? Are they capable of making that threat a reality?"" All in all, for a Regency romance, this is a pretty good mystery. (Aug.)