THE MARRIAGE SPELL, BY MARY JO PUTNEY

PUTNEY marries fantasy and romance in a near-perfect way. In an England where magical skills exist, the wizards are accepted everywhere except in the high aristocracy, where they are despised as "wyrdlings." The ton, however,will use wizard healers sub-rosa.

Jack Langdon, Lord Frayne, is a dashing army captain on leave from the Napoleonic wars. He showed some magical promise as a child, and so was enrolled in Stonebridge,a reverse Hogwarts where students have their magic beaten out them. Twenty years later he is nearly killed in a gruesome fox-hunting accident. He's taken to a local wizard, Abigail Barton, who's secretly admired him for years. He's disgusted with her and wishes to die, but his friends prevail upon him to reconsider and give his permission for the healing. As the price for her healing, she asks him to marry her. During the healing,Jack's magical talents begin to emerge.

She expects him to renege on his promise of marriage, and is willing to release him. But to her surprise he quickly marries her. When he takes her to London society,she's able to defy their scorn. Jack's sister quietly reveals that she is a wizard too, and Jack slowly accepts his own magical powers. By the time they leave London for his blighted manor home, he is ready to use all his power to heal the land. I'm not normally a romance fan, but MARY JO PUTNEY may convert me.