The duke gets desperate

Quincy (The Marquess Makes His Move) launches her Sirens in Silk series with an overstuffed Victorian romance. In 1886 Yorkshire, Anthony "Strick" Carey, Duke of Strickland, has been disinherited. The entail having lapsed, Castle Tremayne, the Strickland family seat for 400 years, has been bequeathed to Strick's stepmother's cousin, Raya Darwish, an Arab-American businesswoman from New York. Ducal finances, already under stress, threaten to disintegrate unless Strick, who still owns the land around the castle, can come to terms with the interloper ("neither of us can exist without the other"), whose eye for "crass" profit is trumped only by her luscious curves and virago's mouth. Quincy surrounds their Taming of the Shrew dynamic with stock bits of suspense--was the stepmother murdered? Is Raya next?--but these plot points are strewn erratically, quashing potential tension. Meanwhile, romance is too often reduced to lust: Strick, contemplating marriage with Raya, thinks, "The prospect of lots of good sex overcame the numerous obstacles." It's hard to swoon at such an observation. The Arab-American heroine, meanwhile, is a welcome face in a still overwhelmingly white genre, but she's underserved by cookie-cutter characterization. The prospect of a series based on this setup is not encouraging. Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary. (Sept.)

An Arab American businesswoman inherits a castle in Victorian England and has to share the property with the estate's disgruntled duke in this series-launcher from Quincy (The Marquess Makes His Move). Reeling from her brother's betrayal, which ousted her from the family company, Raya Darwish travels to England to attend her cousin's funeral. Upon her arrival, Raya learns that she has inherited the castle where her cousin resided--along with its dire financial situation and the curmudgeonly Duke of Strickland. The duke is aghast to learn that a brash American has inherited the castle that's been in his family for generations. Despite their differences, they'll have to work together to secure their financial futures--if they can resist the growing desire between them. Tension builds as the pair's opposing wills tumble with their passionate trysts. VERDICT Set against the backdrop of a centuries-old castle and a mystery of stolen artifacts, Qunicy's intrigue and banter will keep readers flipping pages to solve the mystery and discover how this couple can claim their happily-ever-after.--Shanel Slater

An unusual inheritance sparks love between a businesswoman and a duke. After a long journey from America, Miss Raya Darwish and her aunt Majida are immediately shocked once they make it to the English countryside. And not just because they're from a Palestinian merchant family in Brooklyn, now across the ocean from the family business to which Raya devoted herself before being cut out of it entirely. She is expecting to finally meet her cousin Deena, who married a widower duke and then was widowed herself. Instead, she's greeted by the livid Duke of Strickland, Anthony Carey. Deena has died unexpectedly, and even more unexpectedly, she's left Castle Tremayne to Raya even though it's been home to Anthony's family for centuries. Having no option but to accept, Raya swiftly turns her entrepreneurial mind to revitalizing the crumbling and impoverished castle she now owns, shocking everyone she talks to with ideas like inviting visitors to pay for tours (and building a proto--gift shop to boot). Because her ideas involve Anthony's part of the estate, she keeps pushing, and his early distaste for her experiments is soon outweighed by his desperation to save his beloved home and some grudging admiration. The more time they spend together, the harder it is for them to resist the heat that thrums under each interaction, and before long they begin to explore their chemistry despite being well aware of the dangers. It's only when they are compromised that they start to admit that a marriage between them could be for more than convenience--but it's also when they realize someone unknown might have sinister plans for them as well. The tension between Raya and Anthony is so well drawn that even though the two become intimate rather early in the book, the story still feels like a strong slow burn along the enemies-to-lovers path, and Quincy's fans will enjoy another clever heroine set against and then paired with a man actually worth her time and attention. A solid start to a new historical series from one of romance's most dependable writers. A winning Victorian romance. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.