Bombshell

Bombshell opens Sarah MacLean's Hell's Belles series, set in Regency-era London. Lady Sesily Talbot has built a reputation as the city's most notorious flirt, letting no one look twice when she disappears into dark gardens with a gentleman — because those "trysts" are actually a cover for her real work with a group of skilled, dangerous women bringing down predatory aristocrats.

Her current target is Viscount Coleford, whose crimes she's determined to expose no matter the risk. That risk becomes personal when Caleb Calhoun — her brother's best friend, and a man who's spent two years trying not to want her despite one ill-advised kiss neither of them has forgotten — decides someone needs to keep Sesily from getting hurt during her increasingly dangerous escapades.

MacLean's historical romance blends a fast-paced, adventure-driven heist plot with a slow-burn, long-pining central relationship, continuing her run of subverting typical Regency romance conventions with morally active heroines.