Lynn Messina

Verity Lark knows everything.As the London Daily Gazette's popular gossip columnist, she is extremely adept at sneaking into houses, assuming disguises and overseeing a vast network of spies to ensure she stays abreast of the beau monde's comings and goings. If it sometimes seems as though she was hiding behind the settee during a particularly fierce quarrel between a husband and his wife, it's most likely because she was hiding behind the settee during their fierce quarrel.But nobody knows her.Writing under a pen name, Verity safeguards her anonymity via an elaborately constructed alter ego. Seemingly everywhere, Mr. Twaddle-Thum is in fact nowhere. He has never met with an informant or skulked in a dark alley. He simply does not exist. That is why she is so startled to discover he has recently been spotted at a variety of locations. A Twaddle-Sham is knocking about London and in such a ham-handed manner he is inciting people to murder.At least that's what Verity thinks is happening when she stumbles across a plot to kill him.Or her.Who is the real target?Well, see, that's just the problem because Verity can't actually say.For the first time in years, she isn't sure of anything.

A PATENT FOR PASSIONNo, no, no It doesn't matter how many times the Duchess of Trent (The Harlow Hoyden) requests her help with a delicate matter regarding a patent for her sister's invention, Tuppence Templeton will not lend a hand. She has a habit, yes, of coming up with ingenious plans to solve other people's problems, and it is true that she's clever and daring enough to pull off the proposed scheme.But there's no way she's going to confront the arrogant and dismissive Earl of Gage again. She is still shaken-or is it stirred?-from their last encounter when, rather than thank her for saving his sister from ruin, he railed against her for having the temerity to interfere in his family's business. And yet somehow when the opportunity arises, she finds herself unable to resist issuing the challenge.Nicholas Perceval, Earl of Gage, cannot believe it when the impertinent upstart who exposed his sister to disaster maneuvers him into escorting her to the Bill Patent Office. What a perfectly ridiculous request And then to discover that she manipulated him while they were there so that she could "find" a missing application-he has never been so angry in his entire life. And it's not because he'd unexpectedly enjoyed her charming and irreverent company. No, that has nothing to do with it at all.Although perhaps maybe a little...

Earning the nickname Lady Agony was no minor achievement for Lady Agatha Bolingbroke.It required a great deal of effort to make herself so disagreeable, but she did it for a good cause: The fewer invitations she receives, the more time she has to paint. Her mother, refusing to accept an unpopular daughter-or, worse, a talented one-insists on dragging her to every event of the season.To thwart her parents and to vent her frustration, Agatha creates a wicked alter ego: a caricaturist whose mocking illustrations take ruthless aim at the ridiculousness of the ton. Her most recent target is Viscount Addleson, whom she dubs Viscount Addlewit for his handsome but empty head. Then one of Agatha's drawings goes too far and a villain threatens to reveal her true identity if she doesn't comply with his demands.Now she has an impossible choice-ruin herself or an innocent young lady-and to her utter amazement the only person who can help her is Lord Addlewit, whose handsome head, upon closer inspection, isn't empty at all and whose eyes are full of mischief.Suddenly, she finds it very difficult to be disagreeable to him.

Twenty-four-year-old Catherine Fellingham keeps a low profile-in society and in her family. A practical young woman, she leaves the spotlight to her beautiful younger sister and prefers quiet pursuits such as reading. But all that changes the moment she learns of her mother's very excellent scheme to keep the family out of debtors' prison. The scatter-brained Lady Fellingham has been selling commissions in the king's army, and Catherine must shake off her indifference in order to save her family from a potentially ruinous scandal. Lady Courtland, her mother's partner-in-crime, readily agrees to abandon the plan but only because she finds a more absorbing project: nabbing a husband for Catherine. Catherine pays no head to her ladyship's lavish claim that she'll have her engaged by the end of the season, but that's before she overhears Arabella instructing the handsome nonpareil, the Marquess of Deverill, to flirt outrageously with her and bring her into fashion. Mortified, Catherine resolves not to be taken in by the charming marquess's cruel game-and even implements a very excellent scheme of her own. This sensible young lady seems to have everything well in hand. Or is she about to learn that her heart is a great deal less practical than her head?

A woman in the British Horticultural Society The very idea horrifies everyone, including ardent horticulturalist Lavinia Harlow, whose own name has been put forth for membership by the provoking Marquess of Huntly. He does it as a joke, of course, to get back at her for an imagined slight-well, to be fair, she had insulted his writing-and Vinnie, older sister to the infamous Harlow Hoyden, is far too sensible to rise to his ridiculous challenge.Determined to head off further scandal (her name has already been recorded in the betting book at Brooks's ), Vinnie dashes off a polite note refusing the honor-which she has every intention of sending. Really. Only she can't help but chafe at the way everyone keeps demanding that she decline at once, even the marquess. Oh, especially the marquess, whose perfection she finds intolerable. Who ever heard of a gentleman being so handsome and so intelligent and so well informed about foreign flora? Clearly, the man needs to be taken down a peg, and somehow, despite all twenty-four years of faultless propriety, Vinnie is just the hoyden to do it.

Miss Emma Harlow hasn't earned the reputation as a hoyden for nothing. So when the Duke of Trent discovers her in his conservatory stealing one of his orchids, he's isn't surprised-charmed, delighted and puzzled, yes, but not surprised. It is Emma who is amazed. She has naturally concluded that the man reading in the conservatory must be the country cousin (who else in London would actually read?) and is quite vexed to discover that he is the Duke of Trent himself-imagine, stealing the duke's prize Rhyncholaelia digbyana under his very nose But her vexation doesn't last long. For Emma is a practical young lady with a mission: to end her dear sister Lavinia's engagement to the villainous (and dreadfully dull ) Sir Waldo Windbourne, and she thinks that the famous libertine is just the man for the job.If he would only seduce her sister away from Sir Waldo... Well, not seduce exactly, but flirt mercilessly and engage her interest. Perhaps then Lavinia would jilt the baron. The Duke of Trent is resistant, of course. Despite his reputation, he does not toy with the affections of innocents.And besides, it's not her sister he longs to seduce.

Lights Cameras Inaction New York writer Ricki Carstone knows it's extremely unlikely a movie of her debut novel, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, will actually get made-the odds are like one in a hundred or something-but Moxie Bernard (hello most famous teen on the planet ) has signed on to star. Plus, the producer is throwing her a super fabulous party in Hollywood (with Moxie ) to celebrate the relaunch of her book with a younger, sexier cover. Clearly, this is one movie option that's going to make it all the way to the movie theater.Ricky is so confident, she quits her dead-end paralegaling job and moves out to Los Angeles to keep an eye on the project. There, with the encouragement of Harry Skimpole, a handsome out-of-work actor who knows all the ins, outs, overs and arounds of moviemaking, she decides to try her hand at screenwriting. Churning out a script seems so much easier than a full-length novel. Thankfully, experienced screenwriter John Vholes is willing to teach her the ropes-for a small fee, of course. (Well, the fee starts small.)A fish out of water, Ricki quickly adapts to the strange and puzzling ways of the entertainment industry. Or does she? Her cute neighbor Simon seems to think her new friends are taking advantage of her. But what does he know? He's a bitter ex-screenwriter who never got a single movie produced, and she's about to see her name in lights any day now. Or month. Or year.Bleak-a smart and funny update of Charles Dickens's classic Bleak House-is for anyone who's ever held on to a dream just a little too long.

Hattie Cross knows what you're thinking: Zombie sex? Ewwwww. But she also knows that since a virus turned 99.9999 percent of human males into zombies, it's statistically impossible to meet--let alone date--the remaining 0.00001 percent. So she writes "The Girls' Guide to Dating Zombies" to help her fellow single women navigate the zombie-relationship waters.Her practical how-to impresses the CEO of the largest drug company in the world, and before she knows it, Hattie, a reporter for a downmarket tabloid that specializes in conspiracy theories, is sitting down with the woman who single-handedly invented the zombie-behavioral-modification market. Granted access to the inner sanctum of zombaceuticals, she meets an actual, living, breathing M-A-N.Now Hattie, the consummate professional, is acting like a single girl at the end of the twentieth century: self-conscious, klutzy and unable to form a coherent sentence without babbling. Worst of all, the human male appears to have impaired her ability to think clearly. Because all of a sudden she's convinced a conspiracy is afoot at the drug company and it seems to go all the way to the top

The classic novel of love and family in the nineteenth century has grown some fangs! An uproarious retelling of Little Women that will leave readers craving the bloodthirsty drama on every page.