True Pretenses by Rose Lerner
This is going to be a short one, as I just finished my NaNoWriMo project and oddly enough, don’t feel much like writing today. But to check the last item off my November to-do list…here goes.
Rose Lerner has been on my TBR list for a long time, as she writes historical romances featuring characters outside the aristocracy.  I burned out on Regency-era titled heroes and the ton a couple of years ago, and for a while, read no historical romances at all. Lerner writes Regency, but isn’t afraid to feature characters that the genre unfortunately shies away from.
In True Pretenses, the hero, Asher Cohen, is a Jewish con artist from the East End of London. Heroine Lydia Reeves is a 30-year-old politically active spinster desperate to marry, not for love, but to get her hands on her sizable dowry in order to fund her numerous civic and philanthropic endeavors.
The two strike a bargain that they will marry so that Lydia can get to her money, and give Ash the 3,000 pounds he needs to help his younger brother purchase a military officer’s commission. Once the transaction is complete, the two will go their separate ways. Plans go awry when Ash and Lydia fall in love.
I’ll keep this brief. I loved this story and these characters, especially Ash. His life as an orphan in London’s seedy East End, his work as a child grave robber was fascinating, if at times, gruesome. Lydia knows all of this, is intrigued by this rough-around-the-edges, yet deeply caring man. Lerner is a wonderful writer who brings her world to life and I definitely look forward to reading more of her work.
FYI, this book sorta-kinda qualifies as a holiday read, in that it takes place in mid-December amid the Christmas festivities in Lydia’s small town of Lively St. Lemeston. Had I known, I might have saved it for my December TBR, as my holiday selections are a bit sparse.  But I didn’t.  So if anyone is looking for a holiday season read that’s a little different, I highly recommend True Pretenses.