Regency Romance
1800s
England
Reviewed for Discovering Diamonds
© Nicky Galliers
e-version reviewed
"When a stranger knocks her off her feet, Rose Brewster is dazzled and curious…handsome flirt Archie has already stolen her cousin's heart along with jewellery from their neighbours, and he has an uncanny knack of disappearing…can she trust such a man when no one knows who he is or where he comes from?
Her parents want her to marry a rich, elderly peer with a grown family. Faced with such a horror, Rose’s fine principles vanish like smoke in the wind across the moors of Northumberland as she rejects the idea and looks at every young man she meets with new eyes.
Harry Stewart shocks Rose with his likeness to Archie…thrilled by him, she discovers even he has secrets. Nothing is perfect or straightforward, but she must do something. Does she have the courage to take a risk that will affect the rest of her life?"
Jen Black's Regency romances combine all that's good about the genre and yet shakes it up a bit with a supernatural twist that never interferes too mischievously with the main plot.
Rose travels from Tunbridge Wells in Kent to Elsdon in Northumberland to spend time with her cousins and to get away from her parents who are intent on marrying her off to a rich but rather elderly gentleman who has enough money to restore their fortunes. There is a thief on the loose in Elsdon and when Rose discovers his identity, he is not at all what he appears, and for reasons she could not possibly imagine.
I find Jen Black's romances fresh and sparkling with plots that haven't been done before. She has taken the essence of the genre and re-written the rules and created a world that feels familiar but is new at the same time: the same balls and obsession with men and marriage, the mainstay of the genre, but more relaxed, and with fewer marquesses and earls, and more normal people in normal communities. And because she is a little different, the endings are not as obvious.
This one is written with a combination of first person and third and, although I have read this style before, I'm not entirely convinced by it, but that is a personal view and I'm sure other readers would hardly notice.
If you like Regency and all the romance of the genre but are jaded by the same old stuff and can't face another restless duke or shy, downtrodden young lady in need of rescuing, Jen Black is a good antidote.
Reviewed for Discovering Diamonds
© Nicky Galliers
e-version reviewed
Just discovered this, Nicky! Thank you! Glad you liked it.
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