THE BAR SINISTER

by Sheila Simonson ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 1986

By the author of Lady Elizabeth's Comet (1985) and A Cousinly Connexion (1985), a first-rate Regency novel, canny in craft and handsomely peopled with full-fledged characters. Here, the undeclared lovers (who see one another a total, of 12 days from 1812 to 1815) are a tart-tongued widow and a nasty-tempered illegitimate son of a duchess, who's the widower father of two children and whose friends and kin--both loyal and murderous--impinge on his strenuous and danger-dogged life. Recently widowed Emily Foster, determined to find nursery playmates for her four-year-old son, agrees to take on, sight unseen, three-year-old Amy and baby Tommy in her handsome Hampshire home. The children's father is the decidedly rude and charmless Captain Richard Falk, soldier in the Peninsular War and, as it turns out, an anonymous writer of satirical novels. Falk had changed his name in order to forever cut himself off from the family of the late Duke of Newsham--the one who had tried to kill Richard when he discovered that Richard was a result of the Duchess' early indiscretion. Now devoted to the children, Emily finds herself unaccountably in love with the ever-absent Falk via his stories written for the children, and is deeply disturbed when Lady Sarah, Richard's half-sister whom he's not seen in 20 years, arrives to view the children. Now that the present unpleasant Duke could know of their existence, the children as well as Falk could be in danger, since the Duke is not convinced that Richard poses no threat to his estate. Sarah's husband, wise and clever Sir Robert, and Richard's dying friend Conway intervene at different times. There are acrimonious confrontations, assaults, plots, Falk's near-fatal wound, honors, a naughty Duchess corning around, and explosive arrivals and departures before Emily, throwing caution to the winds, does her own proposing. A well-tempered tale, with bright and solid folk and an amusingly edgy brace of lovers. A blue-ribbon entry in Walker's generous and appealing list.

Pub Date: June 16, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Walker

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1986

Categories: FICTION