REGENCY ROMANCE

Buckinghamshire, England, 1813.  Motherless Ella Sinclair is the gently bred daughter of a country doctor impoverished by his own disordered thinking and aspirations for easy riches through speculation.  Without the steadying influence of his late wife, Mr. Sinclair leads his household to the brink of financial ruin and disgrace. The growing disturbance in her father's mind intrudes on the comfort and familiarity of Ella's quiet country life amongst the first families of her small neighborhood.  Upon attaining her majority, Ella at last discovers that despite her father's repeated denials over the years, their situation is in fact dire and even her modest fortune has been secretly squandered to sustain his monetary ambitions.  Is he deluded or dishonest?  Does it even matter?  With few prospects for making a respectable match, Ella embarks on a risky path of her own to find a husband by replying to a matrimonial advertisement in the newspaper.  In an era when young women married for a variety of reasons, but rarely outside of their own class, Ella responds to an advertisement placed by a successful London merchant seeking a genteel wife.  With differing views on the landed gentry as well as marriage and intimacy, two strangers from separate worlds must find their place in society as husband and wife while learning if they also have a place in one another's heart.  Together they must discover if their combined talents, patience, and trust are enough to sustain a love story that is uniquely their own.