An Island Princess Starts a Scandal (Las Leonas, 2)
1889. To save her family from financial and social ruin, Manuela Caceres Galvan agrees to a loveless marriage to a rich social climber on one condition: she gets to spend her summer in Paris while her paintings are on display at the 1889 Exposition Universelle. Manuela falls quite by accident into the arms of an alluring violet-eyed woman who turns out to be the successful, supremely self-possessed Cora Kempf Bristol, Duchess of Sundridge, who wants to buy a parcel of Manuela’s Venezuelan land for her railroad plans. Manuela proposes a bargain: she will sell if Cora guides her through the sapphic delights of Belle Époque Paris.
Cora, who is determined to guard her stepson the duke from scandal, resolves to avoid temptation from lush, eager Manuela by taking her to boring lectures. But when headstrong Manuela finally breaks Cora’s iron self-control, the two women fall into a passionate affair that can only end in hopeless despair—unless both are willing to step outside the bounds they’ve drawn for themselves and imagine a life on their own terms.
Herrara keeps the emotion high and the sensuality smoldering. Her leads are endearing and convincing. Crafty Cora is determined to outfox the men even if it makes her miserable, while compliant Manuela realizes she no longer wants comfort and ease. Manuela’s friends, who call themselves the Leonas, offer staunch support, though Aurora is distracted by the handsome Apollo, and Luz Alana is falling for her own Scottish earl, the events of A Caribbean Heiress in Paris, book one of the series. The prose is layered into paragraphs like oil paints, thickly textured and loaded with gloss, but the emotional arc is moving as both women discover themselves, change, and grow together. Humor, sizzle, and a cast of happy, ambitious women make this a refreshing read.
