Sherry Thomas "Private Arrangements"

Lady and Lord Tremaine have the perfect English aristocratic marriage, he lives in New York and she lives in London. But for some reason after ten years of perfect harmony, she wishes to divorce and marry another. He returns to London to respond to her divorce petition and to extract an heir before he lets her go. Yes, well.

Ms. Thomas has a wonderfully ironic writing voice which is amusing and appropriate to our intelligent, ironic heroine and to a hero that appreciates this aspect of her personality. I especially appreciated how her writing voice shifted when we moved to our heroine's mother's story. There were things I could quibble with; our heroine's mother's shift from scheming to strangely honest is abrupt and feels disjointed; but overall the characters are witty and interesting and believably tortured. The plot turns are not typical historical romance fodder which is refreshing and the sex is engaging and believable. Even the historical context of the novel, although not entirely central to the story, works.

I will be looking for more Sherry Thomas books soon.

Historical Romance 2008: 4.5 of 5 contraceptive caps.