A Little Night Mischief

Greenwood’s serviceable historical debut has the setting, style, and pacing of a Jane Austen novel with only some of the wit. After gambling with Felicity Wilcox’s uncle Jonathan, James Collington now owns her ancestral home, Tethering Hall. When Felicity’s naïve request to James to prove his gentlemanliness by renouncing his claim is rejected, she commences on a juvenile campaign to masquerade as a ghost to try to drive him from the estate. Preposterously, James decides to seduce his haunter. When the two are caught in a compromising position, James saves Felicity’s reputation by declaring her his fiancée, despite her attempts to remind him of her antimarriage vow. James’s erotic devotion to Felicity all too quickly reconciles her to marriage. More lugubrious angst is in store when Felicity learns that James is selling Tethering Hall to a third party, until plot-led James realizes that Felicity’s happiness means everything to him. Even fans of leisurely stories may find this one too slow and its characters too thin. (June)