Then her long-absent neighbor, thirty-eight-year-old Lord Jasper Damerel, returns home to Yorkshire. She can not accept to marry the respectable but dull Edward Yardley - she will only marry for love. She lives in comfortable seclusion in rural Yorkshire, she has never been further than Harrogate, nor enjoyed the lackluster attentions of any but her two wearisomely persistent suitors. Lovely Venetia despairs of ever meeting the handsome hero of her romantic dreams but is nearly resigned to spinsterhood, thanks to the enormous amount of responsibility she inherited with a Yorkshire estate and an invalid but precocious brother, Aubrey. Intelligent and independent, her future seems safe and predictable. Escapism of the highest order' DAILY MAIL 'If you haven't read Georgette Heyer yet, what a treat you have in store!' HARRIET EVANS 'Georgette Heyer is unbeatable.Twenty-five-year-old Venetia Lanyon's beauty is rivaled only by her sensibility. Utter, immersive escapism' SOPHIE KINSELLA 'Georgette Heyer's Regency romances brim with elegance, wit and historical accuracy, and this is one of her finest and most entertaining. _ 'Elegant, witty and rapturously romantic' KATIE FFORDE 'Utterly delightful' GUARDIAN 'Absolutely delicious tales of Regency heroes. Before she realises it, Venetia is encouraging a man whose way of life has scandalised the North Riding for years.

Then, in one extraordinary encounter, she meets a neighbour she only knew by reputation - the infamous Jasper Damerel. Nor has she enjoyed the attentions of any man aside from her two wearisomely persistent suitors.

Heyer's books are as incisively witty and quietly subversive as any of Jane Austen's' JOANNE HARRIS _ In all her twenty-five years, Venetia Lanyon has never been further than Harrogate. ties the whole thing together' INDEPENDENT ' My generation's Julia Quinn' ADJOA ANDOH, star of Bridgerton, in RED 'One of my perennial comfort authors. IF YOU LOVE BRIDGERTON, YOU'LL LOVE GEORGETTE HEYER! 'A rollicking good read that will be of particular joy to Bridgerton viewers. A wonderfully witty and entertaining Regency romance by one of the best-known and most beloved historical novelists of all time.

Venetia by Georgette Heyer