Are you a Charity Hill person?

Well, that depends on a much bigger question: what does escape mean for you?

If you're like me, you've always had a secret weakness for the Cinderella fantasy. I mean, there you are, nineteen years old and in a foreign country, backpacking along in scuffed boots and a ragged pair of Levi's, and just then -- whoosh!

You see, if you're a single girl in London, luck doesn't always come in the form of a glass slipper. Sometimes luck is a splash of mud from a passing bus.

For Charity Hill -- eager, impulsive, outspoken, crazy about having fun adventures -- getting splashed with mud leads right to being picked up by the ultimate Fairy Godmother. Lady Edith Edgewell-Beddington, who's not only gorgeous but fabulously wealthy and well-connected, and who immediately takes the bedgraggled little runaway under her wing.

Wonderful things like that don't often happen in the real world. But in my books, that's how life is!

So if you're Charity, the heroine of my new book, you're probably thinking you've got it made, right? Sleeping at Lady Beddington's, meeting all sorts of classy people, learning to be a proper lady? Well, sure, but there's a catch.

That would be Harry, Lady Beddington's darkly gorgeous nephew. Who's a billionaire, by the way. Harry is the catch because he doesn't quite approve of his beloved auntie's new reclamation project. Harry is also the catch because . . . well, he's the catch! The ultimate, mouth-watering catch of the day. Charity takes one look and just knows she's got to have him!

But Harry is a bit old-fashioned. As in, he expects his wild American runaway to talk and act like a proper lady at all times. To exercise discipline and self-control and be a real grownup. So even though he adores his new redheaded girlfriend, every time Charity forgets her table manners, or ignores the alarm clock and turns up late for a date, or just acts up like the fresh, impulsive nineteen year old she is, well . . . Harry simply gives her a very stern bit of old-fashion British discipline. Right on the seat of her trousers!

BURNING INNOCENCE is just the first book in a three book series that will chart the ongoing adventures of Miss Charity Hill. Can a rumpled-looking redhead from America really fit in to posh London society? Can a girl who always follows her heart learn to use her head as well? Can a heroine who loves breakfast in bed and sleeping past noon ever learn to be an early bird?

Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment of THE CHARITY CHRONICLES!