I just re-read this book and I enjoyed it very much. I remembered a little of it but it felt fresh and for an old book has aged well. I'm keeping it. This is sort of a sequel to the Duke of Candover book. ( )

The Rogue and the Runaway by Mary Jo Putney--a modern Regency romance, part of a series. It is moderately interesting and not quite painfully contrived. Our heroine, Maxie, is a half-Mohawk American girl, visiting her father's English relatives for the first time and mourning his sudden death. But wait, his death is mysterious and she doesn't really feel welcome in her uncle's country estate, so she decides to hoof it to London. Along the way she trips over our hero, Robin, who is napping in the forest on his brother's estate as he rusticates and recuperates from his escapades as a spy on the continent during the Napoleonic Wars and Vienna Congress (see The Controversial Countess). Alas, his spirit is broken, but he is captivated by this strange young woman who falls on him when she doesn't look where she's going. Meanwhile, her relatives figure out that she's wandering around England alone and decide that she must be saved/stopped/brought home. Bow Street Runners, angry and worried relatives, suspicious characters, the dangers of the open road, the dangers of intimacy, the possibly injured pride of the unseduced, the past emotional traumas of so many people in so many past relationships who now find each other. It's a highly predictable, but generally entertaining farce. The charm is in the sideways portrayal of American life not long after the colonial era and unusual glimpses into aspects of British livelihoods and the national food economy, particularly the drovers. This book also touches somewhat on questions of racism and post-traumatic stress syndrome. But Putney's books tend to be very simple, saccharine, and resulting in multiple happy endings in each story. Easy to digest when you want something to pass an hour or two without effort. ( )