An entertaining, page-turning historical romance that may appeal to fans of Eloisa James.
In Warfield’s (The Renegade Wife, 2016, etc.) latest series installment, an English duke in 1838 finds political intrigue and a second chance at love while investigating the opium trade in China.
Charles Wheatly, the Duke of Murnane, believed that he had everything until his world collapsed under a cloud of tragedy and scandal. Desperate for a distraction, he’s intrigued when his mentor, the Duke of Sudbury, presents him with an offer from Queen Victoria. Rogue traders are selling opium throughout China, and the Chinese are pushing back against the traders. The queen wants Charles to go to Asia and investigate the situation. When he arrives in Macau, he’s startled to encounter Zambak Hayden, the Duke of Sudbury’s daughter. Her brother, John Thornton “Thorn” Hayden, is floundering as a clerk for the East India Company, and she intends to protect him. As Charles’ investigation intensifies, Zambak discovers that Thorn is also addicted to opium. While Charles and Zambak work to identify the key players in the opium trade, they find themselves falling in love. Their connection is soon tested when political tensions in the region threaten to escalate into military conflict, and Charles’ estranged wife, Julia, resurfaces to wreak havoc on his reputation. The third installment of Warfield’s Children of Empire series is a keenly observed historical romance, replete with detailed settings, dynamic characters, and a multilayered plot. It’s set in the months leading up to the First Opium War, and although the story is fictional, Warfield references historical figures throughout, including English superintendent Charles Elliot and Chinese official Lin Zexu. Warfield excels at creating well-drawn main characters; Charles is shown to be an honorable man who’s trying to rebuild his life and career after the death of his son, and Zambak is depicted as intelligent, strong-willed, and determined to live life on her own terms. The author deftly balances the romance with the political intrigue of the opium trade and Charles’ quest to end his disastrous marriage.
An entertaining, page-turning historical romance that may appeal to fans of Eloisa James.Pub Date: July 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68291-766-4
Page Count: 326
Publisher: Soul Mate Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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