a gamble at sunset

Award-winning author Vanessa Riley turns all convention on its head for the first in an enchanting, dazzlingly diverse new Regency romance trilogy featuring a duke, three sisters, and a tantalizing bet with a most desirable reward...

＂A triumphant return to romance....Riley renders the Regency in living color, with impressive historical detail and an admirably diverse cast. Historical romance readers will be entranced.＂ -Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

When a duke discovers the woman he loves was tricked into marrying another, the master chess player makes the now-widowed Viscountess the highest-stakes wager of his life in a last-ditch effort to win her affection: he will find husbands for her two sisters--or depart forever...

Georgina Wilcox, a wallflower with hidden musical talents, is furious when her reclusive older sister--the recently widowed Viscountess--refuses sorely needed help from the Duke of Torrance, the only gentleman who has shown kindness to the bereft Wilcox sisters. Georgina decides to get back at her sister and shock the Viscountess by kissing the first willing stranger she meets in the enchanting gardens of Anya House. Unfortunately, her sister is not the sole witness. A group of reporters and the ton’s leading gossips catch Georgina in a passionate embrace with a reticent composer, Lord Mark Sebastian.

The third son of an influential marquis, the tongue-tied Mark is determined to keep the scandal from ruining Georgina’s reputation and his own prospects of winning the celebrated Harlbert’s Prize for music. Under the guise of private voice lessons, the two embark on a daring gamble to fool the ton into believing that their feigned courtship is honorable while bolstering Georgina’s singing genius to captivate potential suitors. Sexist cartoons, family rivalries, and an upcoming ball test the fake couple’s resolve. Will their sudden fiery collaboration--and growing attraction--prove there’s nothing false about a first kiss and scandalously irresistible temptation?

Vanessa Riley is an award-winning author of historical romance, mystery, and fiction novels featuring realistic multicultural communities and powerful persons of color. To fuel her interest in the Regency and early-Victorian eras, she made time for attending renaissance fairs and consuming period novels and films while obtaining her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and a master’s in industrial engineering and engineering management from Stanford University, as well as a BS and MS in mechanical engineering from Penn State University. A frequent speaker at literary, women’s, and STEM events, she lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her military husband and teenage kid. Visit her online at VanessaRiley.com.