This plot is rich from the start and thickens rapidly as newcomers stir the situation. I found myself eager to keep up with events in WHAT THE GROOM WANTS. The tale is set during Regency times and tensions and twists are rife.

Londoner Wendy Drew works in a private gambling hell to pay off her brother's debt, but the owner piles on interest. By day Wendy is a seamstress, and lives virtuously with her mother, needing to be of good character to attract wealthy customers. Another brother was taken to sea by an older lad, and this has been the making of him. Now both Tom and their friend Radley Lyncott arrive home from sea, unaware of the fine line Wendy has been walking. Radley has been dreaming of the day when he can start courting Wendy and he lets her know his intentions with a kiss.

Radley is a distant cousin to a ducal family and at the gaming table that night Wendy overhears that smallpox has run through that ducal seat, carrying off all the men. Can Radley inherit? And if he is now a duke, what would he want with a common seamstress? The gambling boss becomes very interested, claiming to have more money and influence than the Prince of Wales - these treasonous words reveal his true intentions when he offers Wendy and her mother rent-free accommodations. Radley prefers to be a ship's captain, but he'd be a target for every pirate and kidnapper - instead he'll have to learn to manage pox- devilled tenants, sheep and crops. He's also urged by his solicitors to marry a cousin to secure the ducal line. Radley feels that his life has been wrecked.

Seeing the competent seaman adjust to his new status and profess his ignorance of protocol is highly entertaining. Cousin Eleanor resents having no claim to the title, while Radley's own mother and sister are predictably overcome. The new lord has to keep explaining that assets don't equal cash. I kept chuckling as I read. By contrast the gambling boss proves a black-hearted villain, threatening women and scarring them in a really unpleasant piece of characterisation. The denouement is quite startling, unusual for a romance, but author Jade Lee has had plenty of practice with thirty previous novels and knows how to write an explosive scene. This sexy saga WHAT THE GROOM WANTS will hold your interest no matter how many Regency romances you've read.