COUSIN SUSANNAH

An irrepressible heroine elevates a predictable storyline in this British novelist's American debut. It's 1794 in Abbotsbridge, England, and Susannah Trotter is in trouble of the worst kind. As the governess for the highly respected Bland family but also the granddaughter of a gentleman (her mother is the illegitimate daughter of a baronet and a relation of the esteemed Manningford family), Susannah has been allowed to study with the Bland's eldest daughter Fanny, a real lady. In fact, though her parents work a small farm, beautiful Susannah—who speaks French and quotes Shakespeare—could almost be mistaken for a woman of breeding herself; and when she meets the handsome James Manningford—heir to Abbotsbridge House and one of the most important men in the region—he falls for her immediately and makes love to her by a riverbank. When Susannah is pregnant after this single encounter, desperate measures are required: Since she knows James could never marry a governess, she traps Sedley Stacey, the just-arrived local curate, into marriage by seducing him and pretending her child-to-be is his. Life with the abusive, social-climbing Sedley, though, proves punishment enough for Susannah, who really loves James but must live with her decision for the sake of her own, her child's, and mostly James's status in the village. Despite their best intentions, Susannah and the still- single James begin a passionate, secret love affair that ends when Sedley becomes suspicious. By the close, however, thanks to a little help from James's sister Beatrice, who considers the distantly related Susannah not only her cousin but her friend, James and Susannah will finally get what they deserve: each other. With her charming, energetic portrayal of Susannah, Hucker injects a life-saving shot of adrenaline into what's really an 18th-century version of love thwarted/love regained.