The Merry Viscount (Widow’s Brew #2)

The poorly plotted second Widow’s Brew Regency (after What Ales the Earl) is saved by its humor as upstairs and downstairs celebrate Christmas together. Successful brewer Caroline Anderson is determined to get her beer sold in London, but the big-city tavern keepers hit on her while snubbing her brew. As she heads home, disappointed, snow strands her stagecoach near the home of the notorious Viscount Oakland, known as Lord Devil for his dissolute ways. However, Caro knew him as a child, so she ignores the orgy going on in Oakland’s home, gets the stagecoach passengers lodging, and even negotiates a deal in which Oakland will pretend to be romantically involved with her to protect her from one of the male passengers. Caro and Oakland, both survivors of trauma, had assumed they were doomed to solitary futures, but their instant chemistry makes them reconsider. There’s less appeal in the side plot about a poor and desperate single mother and the unpleasant nobleman who fathered her baby and abandoned her. The zany cast of characters and the protagonists’ unintentionally funny internal monologues somewhat make up for the glaring anachronisms and plot holes, but fans of holiday Regencies can find much better fare elsewhere. Agent: Jessica Faust, BookEnds Literary. (Oct.)