The Virtuoso

Burrowes continues her top-notch Regency-era family saga (The Heir; The Soldier) by healing a duke’s youngest son with love. Ellen FitzEngle’s livelihood has depended on her abundant herb gardens, but the young widow faces possible homelessness when the callow and ruthless Baron Roxbury threatens to sell the estate where she lives. After being told he must quit his beloved piano and let his hand heal, Lord Valentine Windham decides that restoring the crumbling estate he recently won from Roxbury in a game of cards is just the distraction he needs. Friendship and romance blossom while Ellen helps Val rehabilitate his hand and psyche, but things begin to go dangerously wrong with the restoration, sabotage tied to Ellen’s greatest secret. Though the chemistry isn’t volcanic and the mystery’s solution is overly foreshadowed, Burrowes’s exceptional writing and originality catch the reader and keep the story moving. (Nov.)