THE LADY ROGUE

In 1938, 17-year-old explorer and occult aficionado Theodora Fox goes on the hunt for an ancient relic and her missing father.

Theo’s father, Richard, is a wealthy American antiquities collector and adventurer, but when it comes to fathering Theo, he falls short, perhaps consumed by grief since the death of Theo’s Romanian mother, archaeologist Elena Vaduva. But when he leaves her high and dry in Istanbul, Theo suspects trouble. When her former best friend and “more-than-a-friend” Huxley “Huck” Gallagher, whose warm hazel eyes and sexy Northern Irish accent conjure up plenty of memories, shows up in her hotel room after breaking her heart more than a year ago, she’s shocked. Huck, a jack of many trades, has been traveling with Richard and claims he went missing while searching for a powerful ring of bone rumored to have belonged to Vlad Ţepeş, aka Vlad the Impaler. Pursued by shadowy figures and armed with Richard’s journal, Huck and Theo venture deep into Romania in search of her father and the ring before it falls into the wrong hands. Theo and Huck’s witty banter and scorching chemistry are delights, and the independent Theo sparkles with verve and feminist flair. Bennett’s breathless cat-and-mouse tale brings a Europe teeming with magic and verdant history to vivid life. Main characters are white.

A captivating caper.