Whoever marries last will inherit a cursed castle.

Lord Alden Godwin has the perfect plan for finding a wife so that he can avoid The Curse of Godwin Castle. He'll host a ball at his country estate, invite every eligible lady in Wessex, and before the clock strikes midnight, he'll choose one of his guests to be his bride the same way he once selected the perfect reptile specimens to bring back from his herpetological excursions to South America.

The plan is simple, so what could possibly go wrong?

From the moment Lady Bernadette Attleborough sets foot on Alden's property, she can see the problem. Alden has hired her to plan and execute the ball…but how does one host a ball when the ballroom has been converted into a giant terrarium for hundreds of reptiles and amphibians? The entire estate is in desperate need of renovations, and Bernadette takes on the task of overseeing those renovations as well as the ball.

The last thing Alden expected from his simple, ingenious plan was to fall in love with the party planner. Absolutely the last thing Bernadette expected was to make friends with a lizard and conclude that snakes aren't so bad. And what neither of them expected was for Alden's neighbor, the widowed Lady Gladys, to turn out to be the biggest snake of them all as she sets her sights on marrying Alden's money. Will true love triumph, or will The Curse of Godwin Castle strike again?