Squawk Radio
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Eloisa on a Really Terrific Romance
There was a time in my life when all I read was small Regencies. I had just broken up from a long relationship, and I was miserable. I would take two or three out of the library (as a graduate student, I couldn't afford my romance habit), and read as I cooked. As I ironed. As I corrected papers (5 pages of student writing, 1 chapter). They were life-savers. Then I discovered Judith McNaught and the little Regencies fell by the wayside. But every once in a while, I dive into one again.
I just read one of the most unusual Regencies I've ever had the pleasure to pick up. It's beautifully written, utterly surprising and -- hurrah! -- very sexy. I loved it! It's about a French aristocrat, Fabienne, who comes back to London after escaping the Reign of Terror, only to encounter an old lover, an English lord. We've read that before, right? But she was happily married in the meantime. And guess what, he was too. I loved the fact that their inbetween marriages were not disparaged as being unsensual or unloving.
One of the most delicious parts of the plot is that for rather unexplained reasons, Fabienne gets in a correspondence with a woman whom she believes to be Adam's mistress, and they get very, very intimate. In fact, there's a moment when Fabienne analyzes Adam's performance that made me laugh out loud.
Has anyone else read this? I bought it through Amazon, and I thoroughly recommend it!
Eloisa James, 9:22 PM
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