Lady Cecelia Stopford has postponed her life for the sake of her family for too long and has sought the help of her aunt, a notorious matchmaker, for help in finding a husband. While her hopes lean toward someone responsible and reserved just like her, the soft-spoken earl she anticipates has a rakish air she wasn't expecting. And she discovers she's pleasantly surprised.

Miss Tamsin Lesley desires above all else to be a bluestocking and lead an intellectual life. The only thing standing in her way is her father’s heir, who wants her along with her father’s estate. To foil him, Tamsin enlists the services of masculine wallflower Simon Cathcart to ruin her. But the road to ruination leads to far more pleasurable places than Tamsin had ever imagined, and her charming wallflower proves to have secrets of his own.

Anna Wilks went straight from her parents’ house to her husband’s. After thirteen years of trying to give him a son, she’s told she’s sterile. Her marriage crumbles and her husband leaves her for a younger woman who’s pregnant with his child. Anna finds her deceased aunt’s journal and discovers her secret. When Anna was little, she wanted to be just like her aunt, but then she grew up and forgot what it was like to be adventurous and fearless. Having no idea who she is now that she can’t be a wife and mother, Anna shocks her family by setting out on a desperate search to find herself. She follows her aunt’s journal to Mystic Valley, Vermont. Something about the place calls to her soul, except she doesn’t have a clue how to make it on her own. She falls into old habits and the welcoming supportive town comes to her rescue, especially Officer Drew Jones who makes a living at helping others and longs to find someone to take care of, even if that’s the last thing Anna needs. He is the perfect man on paper. The complete opposite of cynical, pessimist Editor-in-chief Clay Sullivan.