The second installment in Poppen's frothy and very conventional historical romance series (after Newport Summer
) begins in 1890 with San Francisco sourdough heiress Marianne Addison visiting New York to try to enter Manhattan society. But her appearance at a scandalous Champagne Sunday torpedoes her chances of being accepted by the Four Hundred Club, so off she goes to England to catch a titled man who will impress New York's high society. Alasdair Braden, the fourth Viscount Pennington, makes for a convenient match, and the two fall madly in love, though the happy couple nearly falters from the schemes of the jealous Lord Brantley, a consummate gambler and troublemaker who covets Marianne's money. Poppen's peek into vintage fortune hunting is intermittently diverting, but what it really needs is more of the mischief the title suggests. (Dec.)
