All’s Fair in Love and War

Heath (A Wedding to Stop a Scandal) launches a new Regency series with a paint-by-numbers love story that leans heavily on The Sound of Music, with dog antics substituted for musical interludes. Georgina Rowe, the literal redheaded stepchild of a nasty colonel, is sent away to Miss Prentice’s academy to prepare for working life as a governess. Though lauded as the school’s best-ever graduate, the independent-minded Georgie is incapable of passing a job interview. Enter desperate Captain Henry Kincaid, with two nieces and a nephew in immediate need of care. Miss Prentice foists Georgie on him; Georgie immediately radicalizes his schoolroom; and Henry is “effortlessly beguiled.” Plot and characterization are minimal: the technique is to put stereotypes into a situation, run the simulation, and compile the after-action report. Events disproportionately occur offstage, and their reportage is static, even repetitive. Nor is the humor lively: a major schtick involves Henry misattributing classic military quotations, which requires explanation every time, since readers are tacitly understood not to have memorized Sun Tzu. This is formula with no fresh touch. Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary. (May)