Temptation
In 1909 New York City, Temperance O'Neil is an upper class intellectual  exploring the few public forums allowed her: the campaign against the tenements  and the emancipation of women. When her stepfather, Angus McCairn, demands that  Temperance move to Scotland to begin a more proper life, she is stuck. Dependent  on his control of her money, Temperance moves to Scotland but makes his life a  circus of women's committees and good works. To distract her, Angus makes an  irresistible offer--once she has found a wife for his reclusive nephew, James,  she may return to New York with a modest stipend. Temperance agrees, and heads  for the remote laird.Once Temperance arrives, however, she realizes that the challenge of finding  James a wife is equally as intimidating as the prospect of cleaning up a  tenement. The house is in shambles, the local town depressed, and his welcome  perfectly horrible. Faced with this task or the return to her stepfather,  Temperance digs in and focuses all her energies on making James presentable and  finding a willing bride. Impressed by her tenacity, James begins to care for  her, and it looks like the search for a wife may be over, if Temperance  agrees.Temperance is the heroine we've been waiting for. The descendent of Jane  Austen's women, she is smart, passionate, liberated, and true to her own ideals.  While at the denouement of most stories the heroine melts into a slushy pile of  self-contradictions, Deveraux's character stands strong in her convictions and  wins the respect of the readers, if not her fellow characters. Just like the  readers, romance heroines are securing the man, the fortune, and the good ending  through the quality of their characters, and not by the leverage of their  charms. Temperance is the hero that we all want to be, and Jude Deveraux's work  is an entertaining medium for inspiration.--Nancy R.E. O'Brien