Lady Christina was still in mourning, though it had been well over a year. And while she hadn't loved her late husband, she had grown accustomed to his money and his Puritan ways. But all this would change at the arrival of the dreaded Sir Gerard Percy, the new master of Thornwood.... The moment Christina saw Gerard, she remembered her disdain for him. True, she had loved him once. But things had changed since then. Now the earl was a here to find a bride. To gather his guests together for a house party at Thornwood. But how dare he suggest a Christmas ball at such short notice! And didn't he know that waltzing was indeed a sin? But at the ball, when Gerard asks Christina for her hand in the last dance, she has no choice but to accept. For she cannot rightfully refuse the master of Thornwood...or her heart....
Author
Mary Jenkins was born in 1944 in Swansea, Wales, UK. After graduating from university, moved to Saskatchewan, Canada, to teach high school English, on a two-year teaching contract in 1967. She married her Canadian husband, Robert Balogh, and had three children, Jacqueline, Christopher and Sian. When she's not writing, she enjoys reading, music and knitting. She also enjoys watching tennis and curling. Mary Balogh started writing in the evenings as a hobby. Her first book, a Regency love story, was published in 1985 as A Masked Deception under her married name. In 1988, she retired from teaching after 20 years to pursue her dream to write full-time. She has written more than seventy novels and almost thirty novellas since then, including the New York Times bestselling 'Slightly' sextet and 'Simply' quartet. She has won numerous awards, including Bestselling Historical of the Year from the Borders Group, and her novel Simply Magic was a finalist in the Quill Awards. She has won seven Waldenbooks Awards and two B. Dalton Awards for her bestselling novels, as well as a Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award.
