Once Dishonored

Putney continues her Regency-era Rogues Redeemed series with this enthralling fifth installment (after Once a Spy), about a pair of outcasts who find comfort with one another. While attending a London ball, Lucas Mandeville, Lord Foxton, overhears insults being aimed at Lady Kendra Denshire, a scandalous divorcée, and mercifully asks her to waltz with him. Lucas reveals that he too is considered a social pariah, as, when he was in the Royal Navy, he was captured by the French and betrayed his honor by escaping. In turn, Kendra reveals the true story behind the dissolution of her marriage: her husband falsely accused her of sleeping with three of his friends in order to win a divorce and is now barring her from seeing her nine-year-old son, Christopher. Lucas offers to help Kendra restore her reputation and reunite with Christopher by introducing her to his cousin’s well-connected wife, Suzanne. Suzanne assembles her titled but open-minded female friends to hear Kendra’s story, and together the women fight to clear her good name. Along the way, the attraction between Lucas and Kendra intensifies until their chemistry becomes impossible to ignore, leading to a believable, sensuous romance built on true friendship. With this emotional romance, Putney again proves why she’s a star of the genre. (Oct.)