Taming Lady Temperance

Witemeyer (To Love a Beast) kicks off The Secret Society of Spinsters series with a lively late-19th-century romance between a woman spearheading a local temperance movement and an ambitious policeman. Noreen O’Sullivan, 27, grew up with a troubled alcoholic father and is determined to marshal the Secret Society of Spinsters, a group dedicated to protecting single women in their small Texas town, to shut down the local saloon. When a fight breaks out between Noreen and the saloon owner, deputy James Paxton intervenes. He’s struck by his attraction to the feisty woman, but he’s running for sheriff and he worries a relationship with her might cost him the town’s male vote. As Noreen picks James’s brain about persuading people to join her cause, both open up about their pasts, and James can’t help but admire Noreen’s fierce faith. When a fit of rage overtakes her during a temperance march and her actions turn criminal, however, he worries she’s becoming too much of a liability to take a risk with—and that her volatility might also hamper the success of her cause. Witemeyer’s prose is propulsive and the chemistry between her leads is palpable as they struggle to balance their deepest values with the possibility of a relationship. Fans of clean historical romance should snap this up. (Feb.)