Miracles and contrivances!

-

Taming the Savage Duke (Victorian Outcasts #1) by Barbara Russell   

⭐️⭐️⭐️


All Madeline Debenham dreamed of and worked towards was being accepted by the Royal Women’s Academy of the Arts. To be able to paint! An eminent painter Mrs Blanchard was willing to look at her work!

All Hector Wentworth (brother to the Duke of Blackburn), wanted was to become a member of the Royal Botanic Society and join a scientific expedition to South America.

When Maddie’s dream is shattered through an injury caused by Hector she’s left weak and hardly able to hold a brush. That’s a tall tale indeed. Plausible in a strangely earnest way.

By this time I was ropable. Maddie’s dream is dead in the water but she bravely deigns to forgive Hector and send him off to follow his dream! What!! Of course he fails to return. Meanwhile tragedy strikes the Wentworth family and a new heir is waiting in the wings.

Many years later on the way back from a trip to the Bahamas, Maddie sights a raft and sounds the alarm 

That’s right, Hector is the rafts occupant!

What are the odds? Well the situation is being revealed from the pen of the author so all bets are off!

However this is a stretch too far for me.

What with Hector being now shunned by society, and Maddie helping to try to reclaim Hector’s rightful place and inheritance, I found it way too contrived.

There’s so much going on I was dizzy.

And let’s not even talk about Maddie’s mother!!

Still, contrivances aside, suspend all cynicism and this is a pleasing read to while away a couple of hours.


An Oliver-Herber ARC via NetGalley.                                              

Many thanks to the author and publisher.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Things aren’t as they seem!

-
Image
A Murderous Tryst  (Beatrice Hyde-Care Mystery #11) by Lynn Messina    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Oh my! Bea certainly has a lot to contend with. Bea’s rattled! The Duke has been missing from their bed for a night. When a distraught Bea come downstairs the next morning she finds her beloved husband Damien clasped in the arms of a glamorous female. A female who turns out to be Kesgrave’s first mistress, Mrs. Penelope Taylor! What?! Of course Bea’s heart sinks and she falls back on her painful memories of Aunt Vera’s responses to such a situation. Bea is both shaken and traumatised, but determined not to show it.  It seems Penny has been accused of murder. Actually  Penny’s desperately trying to avoid Newgate.    As a former mistress Penny does the unthinkable thing in society’s eyes. She asks for help from Bea. Bea’s response is just as shocking. She says yes. Kesgrave is as usual inscrutable. Of course this is the beginning of a harebrained chase, complications between Bea  and Amien,  and an investiga
Read more

Women in war—Internment by the Japanese 1942-45.

-
Image
Sisters Under the Rising Sun  by Heather Morris    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A fitting tribute to the women interred by the Japanese in Indonesia and Malaya during 1942 until liberation in 1945. Amongst the internees are a group of Australian Army nurses who were not given recognition by the Japanese as members of the armed forces and therefore not prisoners of war according to the Conventions of war.  Sister Vivian Bullwinkle is the only survivor of the massacre of a group of soldiers and nurses on Radji Beach, Bangka Island near Sumatra  in 1942, after the sinking of  HMS Vyner Brooke. There are a number of civilian prisoners in the camps like Norah Chambers and her sister Ena.  Combined, the story of these women interred under terrible conditions, their struggles and achievements are monumental.  Their gifts to their fellows beyond speech. Music plays an important part in uplifting the prisoners’ spirits. It’s truly a privilege to read about their plight, their vows to each other, and their braver
Read more

A sparkling ride!

-
Image
An Inconvenient Earl  (A Royal Match #4) by Julia London      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ What an untidy, meandering, convoluted, and strangely joyous tale! Emma Clark’s abusive husband Albert, the Earl of Dearborn had decamped to Africa, leaving Emma to wander Butterhill Hall and manage the estate alone. Months later a man turns up to give Emma the news Albert has died in Cairo from yellow fever. Said gentleman then promptly has some sort of attack and dies on Emma’s receiving room floor. Emma’s stunned. What to do? She knows her sister-in-law Adele, will toss Emma out of Butterhill Hall when she learns of Albert’s death, so Emma says nothing. Almost a year is gone when Luke Olivien, the Weslorian Comte ve Marlaine, son of the Duke of Astasia, turns up to deliver Albert’s pocket watch to Emma. Luka is an anthropologist. He’s been travelling with Bedouin tribes studying their migratory habits and trade routes. Emma does all she can to avoid having Luka tell her that Albert is dead. She ignores him, fl
Read more