England - 1844

Coralee Whitmore may be the daughter of a viscount, but she works for a ladies' gazette called Heart to Heart. Lately, however, her life has been consumed with the grief of losing her only sister, Laurel, who drowned along with her newborn baby. It isn't bad enough that Laurel is dead, but officials have deemed it a suicide, and Corrie knows her sister would never have killed herself, let alone her infant. Setting out to prove that her sister was murdered, Corrie finds more than she bargained for.

Heading to the area where her sister lived before she drowned, Corrie, as someone who has written about the upper class in her newspaper articles, is convinced that the roguish Earl of Tremaine is responsible for Laurel's death. She pretends to be a down-on-her-luck, long-lost relative of Tremaine's and manages to talk her way into his house where he lives with his brother and sister-in-law, and, on occasion, his cousin, Jason, and half-brother, Derek. Corrie has discovered that the earl's young wife died by drowning also, making Corrie even more determined to pin Laurel's demise on him. However, when she meets Grayson Forsythe, the earl's charisma and demeanor have Corrie less than convinced that he could have fathered Laurel's baby and then killed her.

Corrie does some sleuthing in the village, as well as snooping around the huge estate, where she discovers that some in town think that any one of the men in the Tremaine household could have fathered Laurel's child. Now what will Corrie do? Will she be able to find the culprit? Will she be able to prove that her sister did not commit suicide? And then there is the electricity that crackles between Corrie and Gray. How will she handle that?

The second book in Ms. Martin's newest series, HEART OF FIRE, sizzles with romance as Corrie uses her head to prove her sister's murder, and loses her heart to the very man she initially suspected. Gray has shut himself off from emotions since his wife's drowning, but the "cousin" who has appeared on his doorstep is slowly wheedling her way into his heart. Great dialogue peppers this enjoyable tale, and while secondary characters are important, it's Corrie and Gray who dominate the story.

Don't miss this worthy successor to HEART OF HONOR.

Jani Brooks