Geek Girls Don’t Date Dukes

An enchanted Chippendale mirror returns in this grating follow-up to Lamm’s first time-travel farce, The Geek Girl and the Scandalous Earl. When Ren-Faire fan and drama teacher Leah Ramsey’s beloved grandfather tells her she needs to find her soul mate, Leah gets Regency housekeeper and witch Mrs. Knightsbridge to whisk her through the mirror to the household of the Duke of Granville. Leah thinks she has her sights set on the duke, but the man she’s actually fixated on is his valet, Avery Russell, a boxer with a heart of gold who is being threatened by blackmailers. What was silly but fun in the previous novel becomes tedious here: again we have a heroine whose modernity is expressed by her swearing a blue streak; who’s been dumped by a douche bag and longs for old-fashioned chivalry; and whose American accent and odd ways endear her to others instead of guaranteeing her a stint in a 19th-century asylum. Readers will have trouble suspending their disbelief a second time. Agents: Fran Black and Jennifer Mishler, Literary Counsel. (Sept.)