Now that’s some high-octane UST. (Unresolved sexual tension)

The Stranger I Wed has a piping hot central couple, a great romance, and sets up the series in a solid, interesting way. I liked everything about this one, and had a lot of fun reading it.

The three Dove sisters were born into scandal – quite literally. The illegitimate children of the mega rich Charles Hathaway, the sisters live in shame on the fringes of society, never officially claimed by their image-conscious father and a burden on his upper-crust family. Cora, the eldest, confronts him with material evidence that she and her sisters are his biological daughters, stepping out of the shadows to claim the money their guilt-laden grandmother has left them. Hathaway, deciding to avoid scandal, promises each of the girls their financial due – as long as they all marry and go to live far away from New York. But if they don’t score a wedding ring, they don’t score the cash.

Cora takes the family to England to hunt up a husband. She wants one in name only; her goal is to get the money, not to find true love. Leopold Brendon, Earl of Devonworth is in search of a wealthy wife whose money will grease the wheels to fund a bill he’s trying to get through parliament which will provide clean water to the working class.

Cora and Leo look at one another and immediately see a way to make their dreams come true. They strike up an on-paper marriage and become friends. Surely desire and love won’t intervene in their marriage, oh no!

You know the song but the tune is quite different, and in the case of The Stranger I Wed, the difference is the chemistry between Leo and Cora. It’s electric, fantastic, sensual, and brilliant. This is a fun ride and St. George knows how to stretch out that longing and make you feel like you’re balanced atop a ninepin waiting for the final shoe to drop.

I liked both of them. Cora and Leo are good people who deserve the love story they end up with. The author, as always, does a good job with her research, properly portraying London and New York and the social whirls there in all their complexity, and manages to make the other two Dove sisters appealing as well.

In the end, there’s a lot of fun stuff happening, but the name of the game in The Stranger I Wed is chemistry. And that, in the end, is what we get here in spades – and what every single page of the book promotes. And that makes it one of the best romances of the year.