His Wicked Wish

Candelabra and horse-drawn carriages stylishly adorn Drake’s fifth Cinderella Sisterhood Regency romance (after Bella and the Beast), a spirited but sometimes predictable romance between two tainted blue bloods with separate revenge agendas. Actress Maddy Swann makes her living on the stage, just like her parents did. Her dream is to own a women’s clothing shop. To get the money, she organizes a private auction to sell her virgin self to the highest bidder as his mistress for one year. Nate Atwood, the rakish Viscount Rowley, offers a bid too good to be true: for marriage, not a mistress. He intends to scandalize his snobbish, tyrannical father. The unconventional business arrangement gets complicated when Maddy and Nate fall deeply in love, and then the shocking secrets of their pedigrees come to light. Readers may struggle to enjoy the tale of two very unhappy individuals in a contrived situation amid a long-winded plot of familial vengeance. Drake concludes with a message of love and forgiveness as an antidote to the leads’ bitterness. Agent: Stephanie Kip Rostan, Levine Greenberg Literary. (May)