Sherry F. (sherryfair) reviewed on 9/23/2005 + 55 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 5

One of my favorite romance novels, by one of my favorite romance writers. Judith Ivory is a subtle, highly sophisticated observer, with an elegant, clear writing style, who ought to be taught in college-level English courses. This book is set in the 1860s, in England. The plot's a twist on the old saw of a will with a bequest that brings two unlikely people together: Submit Channing-Downes, an intelligent, dry-witted widow, who's very secretly engaged in writing a scandalous, serialized novel, and Graham Wessit, a flamboyant earl with a taste for setting off fireworks and embarking on midnight boating parties fueled by champagne and strawberries. Poor Graham's fighting a major paternity suit, brought by a woman he's never met, but his reputation is so wrecked that everyone thinks he did it. Graham's also coping with a demanding, American mistress, Rosalind, who's really enamored with the idea of bedding an English lord. The machinations of these three people and others are carefully thought-out and subtly rendered. Much as I adore this book, I've learned from lending this book to friends that it doesn't work equally well for everyone. What it's offering is a close-up, psychological study of all the characters. If you were once an English major, and you adored Victorian novels, and wish current romance writers wrote stuff that is of the quality of Edith Wharton and early Henry James, you may like this book.

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