More…” She paused, as if searching for a word.Įlegant, supplied Gideon silently.

“…you look rather different from our last meeting also. Gracie’s humor is as engaging as ever and Prudence and Gideon spar most charmingly. These scenes of mistaken identity and fake betrothals made and broken and made again are convolutedly farcical and hysterical to read. Gideon thinks Prudence is adorable and beautiful and doesn’t even notice her sisters when they meet, while his cousin, the duke, becomes instantly smitten with the beautiful Charity Merridew. When Uncle Oswald arrives, we learn that Gideon is not the duke, but the duke’s rakish cousin, Lord Carridice. Gideon is quite amused and stimulated by her forthrightness and bossy ways – especially so after he kisses her. Prudence manages to pay a visit in advance of her uncle to warn the duke and to enlist his help. Well, of course, he has just arrived in London, and Uncle Oswald makes plans to visit him and bring him up to scratch. Since she promised Phillip to keep their betrothal a secret, she tells her uncle that she is secretly engaged, not to Phillip, but to the Duke of Dinstable, a well known recluse who hasn’t left his estate in northern Scotland for ten years.

But he hasn’t answered any of her letters in a very long time. Prudence has been secretly engaged to Phillip, who is in India making his fortune, for four years. Prudence is plain and plump with a prominent nose, and Oswald fears that her astoundingly beautiful sisters will keep Prudence from having a chance to catch a husband. While Uncle Oswald is a much kinder man, he is strict in his own way, refusing to let the younger girls out in society until Prudence is settled.

The plan is to find a safe place to live for two months until Prudence turns 21 and becomes guardian to her younger sisters, and to find a rich husband for one of them, as their Grandfather has promised to withhold their dowries. She arrives at the home of their great-uncle Oswald, bearing a forged letter from her grandfather asking Oswald to sponsor their Season. He regularly beats them until, after one particularly violent episode, Prudence fears for their lives and takes the girls to London. It has been three long years since she has had a new novel published, but she is back with The Perfect Rake, the first book in a new series about the Merridew sisters.Īfter their parents died abroad, Prudence Merridew and her four younger sisters became the wards of their deranged and violent grandfather. Anne Gracie burst upon the romance scene in 2001 with two stellar books, Tallie’s Knight and The Gallant Waif.

The merridew sisters series