Tea Leaves and Tarot Cards

Maeve, a half-gypsy, is interested in exploring the mysterious world of the ton, but finds herself overwhelmed when she meets handsome aristocrat Adam, the Marquess of Huntingdon. The Marquess asks, then bribes Maeve for help in influencing her friend Caroline to marry his much older cousin, but Maeve refuses. Her inability to be bought intrigues him and soon Adam finds himself falling deeply in love with her. However, before either of them can be happy, they must learn to trust each other and accept each other's worst traits. In this extremely convoluted Regency romance, Seewald handily wraps up the romance two-thirds of the way in only to begin a completely new plot about the half-sister of the Marquess that she doesn't finish. It's unclear if she's attempting to start a series or if she just didn't plan effectively. Either way, the plot is the problem; characters are half-sketched (Adam is one of the most disagreeable Regency heroes in the genre); and even conflicts are unclear. Readers could do much better than this within the genre. (Aug.)