Alexandra Vashti’s works are light, breezy and fun to soak up. This one, Earl Crush, is a step up from Ne’re Duke Well and is a fine and enjoyable time.

Wallflower and heiress Lydia Hope-Wallace is prepared to offer up the ultimate sacrifice to her longtime pen pal in anonymous political rabble rousing, Arthur Baird, the Earl of Strathrannoch. Hearing that he’s in financial trouble, she sends a letter suggesting they plight their troths and embark on a marriage of convenience. Before hearing back, she heads over with her dog, Sir Francis Bacon, and her best friend, Lady Georgiana Cleeve, to his moldering Scottish estate to marry him.

There’s just one problem with her plan – she hasn’t actually been corresponding with the Earl at all. Learning this, she promptly faints into his arms, then throws up in a potted plant. Arthur has no damned time for this – he has a zebra, freshly escaped from his menagerie, to catch!

It turns out the guy who’s been eagerly reading Lydia’s political pamphlets and corresponding with her and pretending to be Arthur is Arthur’s seemingly-dissolute brother, Davis. Davis has a history of taking a shine to women this way – and, more recently has become deeply involved in hazy causes and has disappeared in London. Arthur decides to rescue his in-over-his-head, estranged brother. Lydia offers to help. Arthur finds all this a lot- he just wants to spend his life alone in his old castle. But then he starts to spend time with Lydia…

So many parts of Earl Crush worked for me. Lydia is a terrific, vulnerable heroine who combines strong ethics with anxiety in a way that gives her depth. Arthur is grouchy and exasperated – OK, he’s a little blander, but still interesting. I enjoyed watching the mystery of what Davis is up to unfold. And the scenery and greenery of Scotland is well-handled and researched.

I did feel the romance moved too quickly–I’d have like more time to see our lovers simmer. And I didn’t like the lack of closure for two big subplots, which get solved offscreen in implied epilogues. I also wanted a little more meat on the minor characters. Thus, this book is not a DIK.

But overall, I enjoyed this book and feel it is a decided improvement over her last. I’m comfortable recommending it. It really is a charmer of a romance.