Lauren Maitland is a Boston heiress, still in mourning for her fiancé who was lost at sea six years earlier, during the war with the British. In order to claim her inheritance she has had to come to Britain, but visiting her cousins in London for the Season has been enjoyable. While there she meets with attractive Scot Rory Ardmore, the Earl of Glenvane, and secures an invitation to his sister’s eighteenth birthday ball. Trouble is, she is not keen on the British and he hates Americans, having recently been married to one!

This is an enjoyable tale of mismatched couples at a house party in a castle, written by that modern doyenne of Regency romance Sandra Heath. You can therefore expect a polished performance filled with the requisite frothy romance, and a good period feel. This author’s fortes are her underpinning of research into the year in which she has set her book and all those lovely images conjured up by her evocative descriptions. There are some scenes towards the end where certain cliché situations might have been better avoided, but overall if you enjoy this type of fiction this is a good example of it and entertaining fare.