Unsuited

A Gilded Age Romance

1884 Newport, Rhode Island

When landscape artist, Marty Brown, travels to Rhode Island to interview for a position at the opulent mansion of nouveau riche financier, Mr. Baylen Abbott, she never dreams she'll be involved in the moneyed world of debutantes and ballrooms, subjects about which she knows absolutely nothing.

As it turns out…neither does the former cowboy who hires her to rehabilitate his estate's gardens for that season's upcoming social events, all of which will provide the backdrop for the highly competitive Newport society marriage market.

Along with the gardens, Marty finds herself dragged kicking and screaming into the nearly impossible chore of rehabilitating her gauche employer as well, with the end goal of getting him married off to a well-placed lady bride who will then provide him with entrée into the unforgiving world of high society…

First step: Convince Mr. Abbot to avoid using undoubtedly colorful cowboy expressions such as "dang" and "gol'darn it" in every other sentence, particularly in public where tony Newport society would frown on such quaint regional colloquialisms.

Second step: Getting him out on the dance floor, where he swears his two left feet will trod on every delicate slipper in sight during the waltz, which he never did learn how to do, no way, no how.

Considering his penchant for wearing Western-style boots on his size 13s and a dusty Stetson slung low over his eyes, Marty knows leaving dented debutant slippers in his wake on the ballroom dance floor is the very least of this cowpoke's marital challenges.

But Marty has never backed off from a challenge in her life and she won't back down from this one either…even as she finds herself falling hopelessly in love with a man whose marital dreams she can only crush.