Eloisa James (A Duke of Her Own) continues her ravishing Desperate Duchesses series in this sexy romp between a decidedly ungentlemanly hero and a heroine who's as self-sufficient as her peers are dependent. Lady Xenobia's unconventional parents left her with little more than a title and her bizarre first name when they apparently abandoned her and then died in a carriage accident. Now a grown woman who goes by her middle name, India, she wants to marry on her own terms, which means earning her dowry by whipping out-of-date households into shape with new furnishings and better staff. Someday her prince will come and find her amply prepared, but he's certainly not Thorn Dautry, her brash and disturbingly sensual new employer.
The bastard son of a duke, Thorn rose from his boyhood occupation as a riverside scavenger to acquire a fortune. His plans to snatch up a docile, nurturing nobly born bride require a veneer of class, so India's services are required. As they move from flirtation to friendship to more, Thorn begins to realize his Lady X isn't the lady wife he imagined for himself, but she is the one he has to have.
James achieves a lovely balance between the provocative and the endearing. The spicy, teasing relationship between Thorn and India gets entertainingly caustic, but readers who crave sweetness can still get their fix from a charming secondary romance. This compassionate examination of two walled-off hearts breaking through to each other sparkles like diamonds in the Thames. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads