Catch a Falling Heiress

Guhrke’s third American Heiress in London historical (after How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days) attempts to critique the familiar formula of “he has a title, she has a fortune.” In the late 1800s, Linnet Holland returns to Rhode Island after a discouraging search for a titled husband in Europe. Linnet agrees to meet her former crush, Frederick, in a darkened pagoda, where he intends to propose. Jack, the impoverished Lord Featherstone, follows Linnet to the pagoda to keep her from making a mistake with Frederick. But when Linnet and Jack are discovered there alone, he tries to save her reputation by kissing her and proposing marriage himself. Linnet sees Jack as just another fortune-hunting lord with a crumbling English estate, and at first she refuses to marry him. But when Jack and Linnet meet again in England, he works hard to win her heart, having decided that she is the only woman for him. While the precipitous engagement is somewhat contrived, the clever banter of courtship makes excellent foreplay for sensuous love scenes. (Jan.)