Book picks similar to
The Secret Bluestocking by Alicia Quigley


historical-romance
regency
romance
regency-romance

His Impetuous Debutante


Jane Charles - 2011
    It isn’t that she is against marriage and if her situation were different, she would welcome the opportunity for love and children. It is just not practical. Unfortunately, her older brother is smothering any chances she has of actually enjoying the season out of fear her impetuous nature will land her in predicaments more ruinous than the physical mishaps she had suffered at home.Taylor Qualls, the Earl of Sandlin, is forced once again to face his own obligations this season. He has a year and a half to find a suitable bride and produce the heir as dictated in his grandfather’s will. Nobody needs to tell him that Lady Phoebe is the last woman on earth he should marry. After all, given his own track record with wives and Lady Phoebe’s penchant for mishaps, she wouldn’t survive a month as his bride.

3 Christmas Regency Romances: The Duke, the Earl, and the Joker


Charlotte Darcy - 2017
     A Christmas to Remember Juliet Whitehall, is the eldest daughter of the Earl of Forbes. Being clumsy and tongue-tied she is in no rush to find a suitor. Who would risk taking on such a jinxed wife? Her clumsiness would only get worse when the Duke of Richfield comes to stay at their family home and of course he was coming for Christmas. Edward Burton, had lost his father, and suddenly found himself with the title of the Duke of Richfield. After being invited to stay with the Earl and Countess of Forbes, for the Christmas period, he found himself being cast in the role of a Duke in a play. He is hesitant in his role but then disaster strikes. Can a Christmas Miracle bring two unlikely and yet perfect people together in this sweet Regency romance? Christmas Masquerade Kate Whitehall, lost her joy for Christmas, when her sister Juliet married and left home. Life seemed duller. Christmas, was going to be even worse, until a friend suggested they attend a few masquerade balls. Dressed up, and behind a full mask, Kate was able to let go of her sadness just a little but could still not find the joy in the season. That was, until the man in the terrifying black mask engaged her in conversation… interesting conversation. His deep voice, strong body, and obvious intelligence became something Kate wanted more of. Yet he disappeared, not returning when he said he would. Left a little distraught she must wonder why he had shunned her? Had she done something to offend him? She cannot get him out of her mind and wants to know who was the man in the frightful mask …and would she get to meet him again?” Find out in Christmas Masquerade. The Best Time of Year Stella Lawson had played an integral part in arranging the courtships, leading to the marriages of her best friends, the sisters Juliet and Kate Whitehall. This year at Christmas, all was not going well. Their brother and a dear friend to her also, Adam Whitehall, was being pushed into courtships by his dear mama, with ladies he didn’t even know. Ladies he didn’t want to know. Stella agrees to aid him in putting off his mother’s future consorts by persuading them that Adam is a buffoon. Yet the more she helps, the more Adam seems like the perfect man, it’s a pity he’s only a friend… or is he? Find out in this collection of sweet Christmas romances.

The Fairy Tale Bride


Kelly McClymer - 2000
    But when her brother's love match is thwarted by the impossibly proper Duke of Kerstone, Miranda sets off to convince the duke to champion her brother's cause for love. Unfortunately, he is too proper to consider love a suitable reason for marriage, and too proper not to marry Miranda when they find themselves compromised. Now, Miranda has a second chance for happily-ever-after, if she can uncover her new husband's darkest secret.

Earl of Darling


Maggie Dallen - 2021
    A beast. All Miss Rathmore knows is he’s the man who saved her while running away from her horrid fiancé. The least she can do is help Darling and his sisters adapt to good society. After all, the earl has gone so far as to offer his own hand in marriage to save her reputation. But that is merely an act of charity. And those stolen kisses? Those are sheer folly. For only a fool would fall for such a sandalous rogue...Society is more dangerous than a battlefield for this soldier who was never meant to be an earl. Luckily for him, his new savior is every bit the lady.Give him a battle any day. Those were rules he understood. But the insipid whisperings of the ton? He hadn’t the faintest idea how to fight them. Until he meets Miss Rathmore. Now he's found himself slaying her dragons when he ought to be fighting for his own good name. And proposing marriage? What was he thinking? His three sisters would say that he’d lost his senses, of course. Or, at the very least...his heart.

Miss Lockharte's Letters


Barbara Metzger - 1998
    Soon all who set her willy-nilly on this path to perdition as a penmanship teacher will learn that in her final hour she forgave them. All except him. But why wait for Judgment Day to tell Viscount Stanford she thinks he is the most heinous of humans? Let her death be a burden to him forever. But the burden, it appears, is on her. For not only has she cheated death, but now the very same man who ruined her life has—albeit, reluctantly—come to her rescue. Certainly, not even the angels above could have predicted the chaos that will ensue—nor the magic of unexpected love...

Her Sudden Groom


Rose Gordon - 2011
    With a loophole that allows him to marry another without consequence before the thirtieth anniversary of his birth, he has only four weeks to find another woman and make her his wife. Being the logical scientist he is, Alex decides to take his friend's advice and treat his quest for a bride just like a science experiment... Caroline Sinclair is still trying to scrape her jaw off the floor after hearing her cousin, Lady Olivia's, latest announcement when the object of their conversation, Alex Banks, Olivia's intended, arrives for what Caroline assumes is a bout of drawing room chitchat with his betrothed. But when an experiment is mentioned, Caroline, who cannot resist a science experiment any more than she can deny her lungs air, volunteers to help before she even knows what his latest experiment is!

The Inconvenient Duchess


Christine Merrill - 2006
    And I'm more tired and hungry than I have ever been in my life. Please let me come home.Compromised and wedded on the same day, Lady Miranda was fast finding married life not to her taste. A decaying manor and a secretive husband were hardly the stuff of girlish dreams. Yet every time she looked at dark, brooding Marcus Radwell, Duke of Haughleigh, she felt inexplicably compelled—and determined—to make their marriage real!

Notorious


Minerva Spencer - 2020
    Drusilla Clare is full of opinions about why a woman shouldn't marry. But that doesn't stop the rush of desire she feels each time her best friend's brother, notorious rake Gabriel Marlington, crosses her path. So imagine her dismay when she finds herself in the clutches of a scoundrel, only to be rescued by Gabriel himself. And when Gabriel's heartless—and heart-pounding—proposal comes, it's enough to make Dru's formidable resolve crumble... ...is a smitten husband. She's sharp-tongued, exasperating—and due to one careless moment—about to become his wife. Still, something about Drusilla has Gabriel intrigued. First there's the delicious flush of her skin every time she delivers a barb—and then the surprisingly sensual feel of her in his arms. Gabriel even finds himself challenged by her unusual philosophies. And when he discovers a clandestine rival for Dru's affection, his temperature flares even hotter. But the real threat to their happiness is one neither of the newlyweds sees coming. If they're to save their future—and their very lives—they'll need to trust in each other and their growing love.

The Governess 3


Ellise C. Weaver - 2013
    But her biggest challenge will be their father; masterful and strong in everything—especially his kiss. Poor and without dowry—and even worse—now orphaned, Miss Carly Blakemore is thrown into the Victorian world without aid. Carly is forced to seek a position as governess in the house of Lord Huntington, the Earl of Dunfordshire—a man alone in his own right—and under suspicion for the tragic murder of his well-known and adulteress wife. His governess’s honesty and forthrightness quickly offend his noble person, and he finds himself reeling from her constant evaluation of his lack of parenting skills. However, in the midst of his resentments, he finds himself strangely drawn in by her very no-nonsense ways that drive him to madness. Carly stands her ground in head-to-head battles of will that take her to the brink of dismissal. Carly and the earl continually fight the feelings growing between them. Both are oblivious to the clouds of deceit and intrigue that are growing around the manor house, some bent upon removing the beautiful, headstrong governess permanently. A final desperate chase leads to an interception of a ship upon the high seas headed for the Mediterranean and a secret society of white-slave traders, opening the way for this book’s sequel.

An Unmarried Lady


Anna Willman - 2011
    “You don’t want a fortune and you don’t want to be married, while I should enjoy both excessively. If Great Aunt Agatha had wished to promote the marriage of a great niece, why didn’t she leave her fortune to me?” At the age of 24, the bookish and beautiful Miss Elaine Howard of Lynnfield Manor has long accepted her status as a spinster. Her life is focused on taking care of her roguish invalid father and his dilapidated estate and on preparing her younger sister Anne for her first Season. An unexpected inheritance which promises her a large fortune if she marries before her 25th birthday soon sets off a train of dramatic and comic events, which include a spate of unwelcome fortune hunters, an exchange of identities, an abduction, and a mystery around a missing family heirloom. An Unmarried Lady is a regency romance written in the style of Georgette Heyer. Its lively characters become embroiled in a plot that makes use of the thick black fog that descended upon London and the surrounding countryside in December of 1813, and also touches on events in the lives of Henry VIII, Catherine Howard and Mary Wollstonecraft.

A Most Eligible Rake of a Duke


Harriet Caves - 2021
    Even if that means literally throwing herself at the Duke and risking her own ruination.No man is arguably more broken and debauched than Timothy Burton, the Duke of Marfront. But, according to his father’s will, he needs to wed and produce an heir. Only, he never sleeps with the same woman twice.When Diana finds herself bound to the same man she wanted to frame, she starts discovering not only his tender, guarded heart, but the big secret surrounding his mother’s death. For, she is about to follow her cold trail...

A Noble Masquerade


Kristi Ann Hunter - 2015
    Entering her fourth Season and approaching spinsterhood in the eyes of society, she pours her innermost feelings out not in a diary but in letters to her brother's old school friend, a duke--with no intention of ever sending these private thoughts to a man she's heard stories about but never met. Meanwhile, she also finds herself intrigued by Marlow, her brother's new valet, and although she may wish to break free of the strictures that bind her, falling in love with a servant is more of a rebellion than she planned.When Marlow accidentally discovers and mails one of the letters to her unwitting confidant, Miranda is beyond mortified. And even more shocked when the duke returns her note with one of his own that initiates a courtship-by-mail. Insecurity about her lack of suitors shifts into confusion at her growing feelings for two men--one she's never met but whose words deeply resonate with her heart, and one she has come to depend on but whose behavior is more and more suspicious. When it becomes apparent state secrets are at risk and Marlow is right in the thick of the conflict, one thing is certain: Miranda's heart is far from all that's at risk for the Hawthornes and those they love.

Lakeshire Park


Megan Walker - 2020
    With their stepfather’s looming death, the two sisters will soon be on their own—without family, a home, or a penny to their names. When an invitation arrives to join a house party at Lakeshire Park, Amelia grasps at the chance. If she can encourage a match between Clara and their host, Sir Ronald, then at least her sister will be taken care of.Little does she know that another guest, the arrogant and overconfident Mr. Peter Wood, is after the same goal for his own sister. Amelia and Peter begin a rivalry that Amelia has no choice but to win. But competing against Peter—and eventually playing by his rules—makes Amelia vulnerable to losing the only thing she has left to claim: her heart.

The Charmer


C.J. Archer - 2013
    Charming. Devastating. He was the last man she needed, but the only one she wanted. Orlando Holt has never assassinated a woman before. The lovely, feisty Lady Lynden will be his first. She's supposed to be a vicious murderess, but when Orlando begins to have doubts, he sets out to discover the identity of the person who hired him. What he learns will turn his world upside down, and propel him headlong into love with a woman who's immune to his charms. Twice widowed by the age of twenty-four, Lady Susanna Lynden has had enough of charming men. Her last husband knew all the right things to say to get her to the marriage bed…then made her life miserable. Money may be scarce and her house falling down around her, but the exotic fruit from her orange trees will keep poverty away. Except someone is thwarting her at every turn. Someone who may even want her dead. The books in the Assassins Guild series are: #1 The Charmer #2 The Rebel #3 The Saint #4 The Sinner

The Spinster and The Earl


Beverly Adam - 2013
    Suddenly, this very arrogant gentleman, who also happens to be charming and attractive, makes himself at home at Brightwood Manor, and proceeds to court her!Beatrice knows one thing for certain. Marriage will complicate her life. But falling in love? That’s an entirely different matter.