Curled Up with an Earl (The Byronic Book Club, 2)
1858. After he helps to push her gig out of a muddy ditch, Miss Lucy Bertram decides
that her father’s new Scottish groom has an attractively muscular physique. Not that she is swayed from her dedication to scientific research, but might a brief affair not qualify as such? Especially since the attraction seems mutual?
In the finest romance tradition, Will is actually no low-born groom but the Earl of Kyle,
working undercover with the authorities to find the murderer who is threatening members of the scientific community. The rather gothic villain is not difficult to spot, but proof is required.
This is second in the Byronic Book Club series and, like Up All Night with a Good Duke
(2022), follows the formula of independent-minded heroines struggling against barriers faced by women in a patriarchal society. The answer is to find a strongly supportive partner, but dare they commit to a marriage which deprives a wife of power? Other interesting 19th-century issues are raised, notably the criminalization of homosexuality and religious opposition to scientific progress; and the research into poisons is
informative. Readers who appreciate spice in a sentimental romance with gothic overtones will not be disappointed.
