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Publisher's Weekly
An outstanding historical novelist, Belle now adds another volume to her impressively researched and crafted series set during the English Civil Wars. Once again, we meet characters she introduced in Wintercombe . When the handsome rake Sir Alexander St. Barbe and his captivating wife, Louise, lose their first child, Louise retreats into her grief and Alex has a foolish affair. Though the couple reconcile, Alex's vicious aunt reveals Alex's indiscretion to Louise, causing another breach between them; then Alex's actions during a drunken rage force him to flee the country. In the Netherlands, Alex comes to lead the party that is encouraging their Highnesses of Orange to assume the British throne before James II can relight the fires of Smithfield. Meanwhile, Alex's cousin and nemesis Charles, long desirous of his wife and home, usurps Wintercombe. Again, Belle's characters are sympathetic and well drawn, her prose fluid and her plotting adroit, historic figures meshing seamlessly with fictional ones.
BookList - Denise Perry Donavin
Set in seventeenth-century England, Belle's historical romance delves into the family rivalries and political upheaval under the reign of James II. The king's attempts to convert his country to Catholicism are portrayed as disastrous and foolhardy, especially from the vantage point of Alexander St. Barbe, heir to Wintercombe. Seen as a carousing, dastardly lout in previous novels in this series, Alexander appears reformed by his marriage to Louise. This reformation is short-lived, however, and the couple's separation becomes symbolic of the rift within the nation, even though it is based on sex, not religion or politics. Rumored, in truth, to be a traitor to King James, Alexander cannot return to his wife from his exile in Holland or reclaim his estate from his conniving cousin until Prince William of Orange succeeds with his invasion and the traitors become patriots (to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin). Packed with historical detail and rousing clashes, Belle's fiction will captivate her fans and draw new ones.
Genre: Historical
An outstanding historical novelist, Belle now adds another volume to her impressively researched and crafted series set during the English Civil Wars. Once again, we meet characters she introduced in Wintercombe . When the handsome rake Sir Alexander St. Barbe and his captivating wife, Louise, lose their first child, Louise retreats into her grief and Alex has a foolish affair. Though the couple reconcile, Alex's vicious aunt reveals Alex's indiscretion to Louise, causing another breach between them; then Alex's actions during a drunken rage force him to flee the country. In the Netherlands, Alex comes to lead the party that is encouraging their Highnesses of Orange to assume the British throne before James II can relight the fires of Smithfield. Meanwhile, Alex's cousin and nemesis Charles, long desirous of his wife and home, usurps Wintercombe. Again, Belle's characters are sympathetic and well drawn, her prose fluid and her plotting adroit, historic figures meshing seamlessly with fictional ones.
BookList - Denise Perry Donavin
Set in seventeenth-century England, Belle's historical romance delves into the family rivalries and political upheaval under the reign of James II. The king's attempts to convert his country to Catholicism are portrayed as disastrous and foolhardy, especially from the vantage point of Alexander St. Barbe, heir to Wintercombe. Seen as a carousing, dastardly lout in previous novels in this series, Alexander appears reformed by his marriage to Louise. This reformation is short-lived, however, and the couple's separation becomes symbolic of the rift within the nation, even though it is based on sex, not religion or politics. Rumored, in truth, to be a traitor to King James, Alexander cannot return to his wife from his exile in Holland or reclaim his estate from his conniving cousin until Prince William of Orange succeeds with his invasion and the traitors become patriots (to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin). Packed with historical detail and rousing clashes, Belle's fiction will captivate her fans and draw new ones.
Genre: Historical
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