With this multifaceted, late-Victorian-era romance between a handsome, haughty, stupendously wealthy earl and a beautiful commoner who possesses a social conscience, Cabot (aka Meg Cabot), author of Educating Caroline
and The Princess Diaries, once again turns romantic stereotype on its ear. When Emma Van Court tells James, the earl of Denham, that she intends to marry his impoverished cousin Stuart and accompany him to the wild Scottish Hebrides to minister to poor fisher-folk, he becomes apoplectic and tries to thwart their plans. Marriage to Stuart isn't what James had planned for Emma, whom he'd long desired. Too late, Emma realizes that life with Stuart on the backwater island of Faires isn't what she had envisaged either. When James arrives after receiving news of Stuart's death in a typhus epidemic, he finds every able-bodied villager, and even the eccentric and determined local lord, in pursuit of Emma, who's been left a fortune by a fellow parishioner. There's a catch, however: Emma must remarry before she can claim the money. James's transformation from a selfish, self-involved aristocrat to the soul mate Emma has always desired is believably and charmingly limned. Less convincing is Emma's sudden realization that she loves James. Still, this witty, well-crafted romance is written with panache and peopled by unique secondary characters—including those of the animal variety. (May)
