Karen H. (warbler43) - reviewed on 11/21/2007 + 83 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

Suzanne Enoch did an excellent job of taking a theme and weaving two stories set in different time periods around it. She tells the story of a family heirloom diamond necklace that supposedly is cursed.

In the first story âA Diamond or Forever', the necklace is given to Evangeline Munroe by her aunt in 1814. Aunt Rachel tells her the family legend of the curse and the ever practical Evangeline scoffs at the idea. Rachel tells Evangeline that she has selected her to be the keeper of the diamond because âYou possess an astounding measure of practicality, and absolutely no imagination. If you have no capacity for believing in fanciful happenings, you may be immune to their occurrence.â Now, that sounds like a put-down but Evangeline, now in her first season, is ever so practical in looking for a husband. She is closely following the advice of her disillusioned mother by looking at prospective suitors whose habits and characters are controllable, alterable or dismissible. In other words, a husband who will do as she says, when she says and not argue. Some life, right? Well, enter Connoll Addison, the Marquess of Rawley. A man exhibiting character traits completely opposite of what Evangeline is looking for. Connoll makes it his mission to change Evangeline's mind about what she is looking for and about him in particular. He makes her think in terms of surprise, amusing and romance. Just the ticket for a happy marriage. It is comedic reading the âtossing' around of the diamond between Evangeline's mother, herself, Connoll and Evangeline's father at a musicale just to avoid or defer any bad luck. Worth the read just for that scene. In the end, Connoll and Evangeline after being married six weeks, place the necklace in a box along with a note of warning about the curse and hide the box in an old stable on the Rawley family country estate. And they lived happily ever after.

The next story âDiamonds Are Not a Girl's Best Friend', begins in 2007 and tells us the story of Samantha Jellicoe and Richard Addison, also the Marquess of Rawley, and how they found the cursed diamond. Let me preface my comments by saying I am not an avid reader of contemporary stories and the only reason I was not totally confused by the story line of the hero and heroine in this segment is that I am somewhat familiar with Suzanne Enoch's series of books about Sam and Rick. I believe there are four books out now and this is just a short interlude of their time together. A lot of the story alludes to things that happened between the couple in years past. It brings in characters from the previous books as well. The action of the book dealt more with a traveling museum exhibit of precious gems that Rick had agreed to host at his country home. It was during the preparation of the old stone stable for the exhibit that the diamond hidden in the wall is found. While the story did tell of a few problems that were probably a result of the cursed diamond, it didn't seem to be the main force of the story, at least IMO.

Both stories were good and well worth the time to read. I rated the book 3 out of 4 stars and I do recommend this book to all Enoch readers as well as to those who have not yet read her work.

Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details