You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
Emma is looking for a book that’s like the romance equivalent of an upside-down stamp:
Back when I was a teen and first venturing into the romance genre
(circa mid-1990s), I found a slim little regency novel that I enjoyed
enough to check out of the library several times. :/ I cannot for the
life of me remember the title of this book.It was about a girl and her father, and the father was a trainer of
horses. The girl was a very talented rider and a bit scandalous in
that she road astride. While the father was quite good with horses, he
was less competent in the area of money management and had gotten
himself heavily in debt. The villain of the book was the man who held
the debt, who had decided he wanted two things from the father: his
daughter and his most promising race horse.The father doesn’t believe he can protect either the girl or the
horse, so he quickly makes a bet with a young minor lord with whom he
associates and stipulates the terms of the bet so that if the young
lord wins, he’ll be granted ownership of the horse and the daughter’s
hand in marriage. Then the father drugs his promising horse just
enough before the race that the horse is a bit groggy and loses. The
young lord feels that this rash bet was a bad idea for everybody
involved… besides, he hardly knows the girl… and offers to not claim
the terms. The father is extremely incessant that the young lord take
both the horse and girl away immediately.The beginning of the book is clearest in my memory, but I recall that
the climax involves another horse race, this time between the girl and
the villain, and I think the villain blackmailed the girl into doing
this. (The girl wins, of course.)Other odd details from my memory include: The girl scandalizing her
husband by turning her nose up at the odd gentry sensibility of
husband and wife living in separate bedrooms, which she considers a
waste of both space and warm body heat. The girl’s elder female
relation/chaperone explaining to the husband just why the girl and the
villain were racing by saying that the villain ‘wanted either the race
or…. her. You know. The bride.’ Because the relation couldn’t bring
herself to discuss sex more directly. And the back blurb of the book
was notable for having a printer error in it referred to the bride by
name other than what she was actually given in the book. (The blurb
stated something like “…his darling kissable Kate…” and the girl’s
name was something like Bridget.)HABO! Anyone have any ideas?
Could it be?
Dunraven’s Folly by Dawn Lindsey
Signet Runaway Romance
Lovely Cathleen Dunraven had to keep herself under the tightest control. She could not by word or gesture betray the roguish schemes of her beloved grandfather, Sir James Dunraven, the most charming scoundrel of the horseracing world. She could not give vent to her repugnance for the amorous advances of their neighbor, Daniel Baggett, who held her family’s fortunes in his brutish hands. And above all, she could not yield to the attraction she felt toward the handsome, gallant major, Lord Simon Grey, whom Sir James was planning to fleece and Baggett wished to destroy. But Cathleen soon found that as far as Lord Grey was concerned, love was definitely in the running — and her heart demanded full rein!
You really have to wonder at some of these blurbs. Who in the world do they hire to do them? Full rein. *snort*
I wonder who writes them as well…
But hooray, a heroine named Cathleen! Oddly enough, my sister is named Bridget (as mentioned in the actual HaBO). Well, I guess not that oddly. My sisters and I all have super Irish names…
I’m not sure if Dunraven’s Folly is the right title—it isn’t jumping up and down at me screaming YES—but I’ll lay hands on a copy ASAP to give it a read. I hope it’s the right one!
This sounded like a Joan Wolf to me; some of her trad Regencies featured a horse-loving heroine, including one who disguised herself as a stableboy (as you do!). But none of the books listed under her name at Regency Era matches that plot description.
You might want to check out that site anyway, Emma – it has a ton of cover thumbnails & blurbs so something might jog your memory.
Not the HABO, but I recently read an old Barbara Cartland book to see if they really were as bad as I remembered (they are). It had the hero’s name printed differently on the back cover, the inside blurb and in the main story: Marquis of Wyndonbury, Marquis of Wyndonberry, Marquess of Wyndonberry. There’s some high production values, right there.
Dammit, I have this, somewhere in the many, many, many boxes of books in storage. The misprint is indeed memorable, but I don’t have a freaking clue what it’s called though.
I was re-reading an old (1984) Linda Howard book, “Come Lie with Me,” and couldn’t believe my eyes: the heroine’s name is “Dione” – she even corrects another character who refers to her as “Diane” – but the back cover blurb says, “How Diane Kelley longed to hear those words.” Immediately thought of this post.
I read a book in a series recently that had the plot description for the previous book on the back cover:
is on the back cover but it describes Witch Craft and I was reading Daemon’s Mark.
Seriously, no one could check which book they were publishing?
I checked out the Joan Wolf books, Danielle, but none of those covers looked familiar and I agree with you that their plots don’t seem to match.
@FD—Ha! At least that’s confirmation that the book exists somewhere, and, believe me, that’s a big help!
Found it, y’all! It turns out the book I was hunting for was: His Lordship’s Filly by Nina Porter (also in print as by Nina Coombs Pykare).
Link to original, out-of-print publication with that erroneous backblurb:
http://www.fictiondb.com/author/nina-porter~his-lordships-filly~30501~b.htm
Link to recent ebook publication with revised backblurb and excerpt:
http://www.ebookwise.com/ebooks/b97666/His-Lordships-Filly/Nina-Coombs-Pykare/?si=43
Thank you all again for your help! You put me on the right direction!
Excellent – and that is the book I was thinking of.