A Winter Scandal

Bestseller Camp (An Affair Without End) launches a Regency trilogy with this sweet smalltown tale. Thea Bainbridge, a plain-faced “old maid” of 27, pines over Lord Gabriel Morecombe, who seems to have entirely forgotten the torrid kiss he and Thea shared 10 years before. Then Thea finds an abandoned baby in the church’s Nativity display, his clothes pinned with a brooch matching the Morecombe signet ring. Gabriel denies fathering the child and sweeps Thea away on a quest to find young Matthew’s parents and get back in time for the squire’s Christmas ball. Readers will enjoy the Austenesque details of village life as Camp piles up a soap opera’s worth of affairs and betrayals. (Nov.)