Meet the Earl at Midnight

Conkle’s first Georgian romance is an awkward homage to the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast. Miss Lydia Montgomery is taken to a midnight meeting by her stepfather, where she is traded to the mysterious Lord Sanford, Earl of Greenwich, in exchange for the earl relieving her stepfather’s debts. Sanford, outcast due to his facial scars and lurid reputation, feels he has no choice but to marry Lydia, “an honest, barely educated, commoner of some past disrepute,” if he’s going to beget an heir. Lydia, unafraid of Sanford’s appearance or reputation, agrees to the arrangement and becomes intrigued by Sanford’s mysteries, including his oddly familiar relationship with his gorgeous housekeeper and his research in his greenhouse of exotic plants. Though the novel is hauntingly atmospheric, the heroine’s irrepressible and naïve curiosity is rather grating. Sanford’s self-imposed deadline for marriage and conjugation feels artificial, as do the story’s attempts to bring the pair together. (May)