Stealing The Bride
By Elizabeth Boyler 

     Ms. Boyle has ensnared me into the lives of her characters and has assured her place on my books to be read list.

     His London peers have dubbed the Marquis of Templeton an idiot. He is always two steps ahead of bill collectors and has no prospects of a wealthy marriage to set his circumstances right. All he can rely on are his wits and his job working for the foreign affairs office. He needs the employment to feed himself and the one manservant he is responsible for after the duke (his grandfather) cuts off his spending money.

     When ordered to find a missing bride, he is livid. The coveted job as ambassador to another country is dangled before him only to be snatched away once more--until he fulfills another irksome duty. Against his better judgment, he finds himself scouring the countryside of England and Scotland. He hopes to complete the job dutifully and expediently but one problem gets in the way; the runaway heiress is none other than Lady Diana, the daughter of a duke and a persistent thorn in Temples' side for over a decade.

     Diana has loved only one man in her spinsterish twenty-nine years: Temple, a man who holds the undeserving title of fop. Her discovery that the fawning and almost effeminate Marquis is living a lie turns her life upside down. Whereas before she was willing to marry just to spite him, now she is determined to wear him down, make him regret his public sleighting of her and finally to marry the man himself.

     However, her plans go awry when Temple discovers her whereabouts. To make matters worse, the man she eloped with in the first place is slain. Now a trio of kidnappers is following their trail making it harder than ever to get Temple to admit he loves her and to the altar.

     Ms. Boyle's delightful Regency is a romp in the hay, an interlude in firelight and a love worth dying for, all rolled into one. Her characters are unique and the plot a mastermind of ingenuity.