THE DARK AND ALIEN ROSE

By the English author of cheerful period romances like Margaret Normanby (1983)—Margaret of that title appears here—and Bright Young Things (1986), here are the WW I-era adventures of an exotically beautiful, charmingly chirpy Persian/English lass raised in France, who, after a luxurious start in life, later suffers for love. Shareen ``Rose'' Aberderhazy, passed over at birth to the care of a devoted nanny/companion by her mother Baroness Charmian (``the most notorious woman in Nice''), is at first, after her mother's death, placed under the loving guardianship of ancient ``uncle'' Ferdi LÇon, former husband (and partner in their famous dress- design business) of Charmian's sister Margaret. Rose falls deeply in love with Tom, Margaret's son by manufacturer Henry Grimshaw. There are deaths all around, and Tom goes to war, is declared missing and then dead. (The bodies found were ``unrecognizable,'' and readers of romance know what that means.) Grieving Rose, pregnant (of course) after one night of love with Tom, marries unstable Alban, predictably a terrible mistake. It's soon obvious that Alban is into slimy pursuits, and there's violence aplenty before the happy end. Pleasant—with all these elegant surrounds—and forgettable.