- Paperback
- Publisher: Dell Publishing (July 1980)
- ISBN-10: 0440102677
- ISBN-13: 978-0440102670
- Product Dimensions: 17.5 x 10.7 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 159 g
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Storyline ...., Jun 1 2002
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: American Baroness (Paperback)
Since Amazon didn't post the editorial review for this book, here's the description from the back of the book to help you decide if this story is for you: "She was sold like a racehorse to the highest bidder: Julian Herriot, Baron de Verlaine. Regina Pierce, with her beauty and an embarrassment of riches, exchanged a gold miner's dowry for one of the oldest titles in France. Sheltered, spoiled Regina entered a world where marriage was business and love was something else. Something like ravishing Simone de Lamartine, who made it clear that money was Regina's only passport to aristocracy -- that Julian was forever beyond her reach. Theirs might have been a marriage of convenience like many others, but for one thing: Regina had fallen desperately in love with the man she married. And she was determined to win him -- by any means."
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
what you don't know, Sep 24 2005
By Feles31 - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: American Baroness (Paperback)
Here's my big problem with this story. The hero, Julian, is portrayed as an oblivious, ineffective, idiot. He knows how to grow grapes and make wine but anything beyond that seems to be a big blank.
Julian takes Regina from New York to his home in France and, apparently, Julian is surrounded by problems.
There are legitimate money problems due to bad years at the vineyard and price gouging by the French wine and banking industries. These are problems Julian is aware of that Regina and her family solves for him.
Then, there are the more damaging problems that Julian is completely unaware of stemming from his blind trust in his cousin, Claude (that everyone and the whole village hates.) However, Regina (who barely gets by in French) comprehends immediately that Claude is a crook, the villagers are needy, her invalid brother-in-law, Eric, craves more mental challenges, and her idiot brother-in-law, Marcus, is not an idiot. Lastly, Julian doesn't know that everyone knows about his mistress and son.
It was frustrating to read about such an amazingly competent heroine paired with an amazingly incompetent hero.
5.0 out of 5 stars
thoroughly researched historical romance, Mar 31 2011
By Blue Skies - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: American Baroness (Paperback)
Janette Radcliffe is one of several pen names used by Janet Louise Roberts. Her novels though tame by today's standards raised eyebrows, both in subject matters and sensuality, back in the days and so pen names were used to avoid embarrassment to her family. Now this particular novel is one of my favorite precisely because the hero is not her typical or the typical over-used alpha male who leads an attractive but otherwise useless heroine around. Julian, Baron de Verlaine falls between the traditonal alpha male and his beta counterpart...a best of both world. This makes him a very real and believable character whose only fault is having blind trust in his family. And if you are writing about people falling in love in a short amount of time, it is far more realistic to start with characters who love blindly than ones with serious trust issues that magically resolve after a few scenes of hot sex.
Perhaps most impressive is the author's skill in weaving the history of Loire valley and the daily lives of a vigneron. There was even a discussion of phylloxera, consistent with historical dates, but without the politics surrounding the use of american root stock. However vintages prior to using the american roots were highly prized and was noted with a hint of nostalgic reverence, giving readers an idea of not only the vigneron's passion for their wines, but also their pride in their identity as french. Excellent vintages were noted and several subplots are set around those special years. Not surprisingly the exact year of when the novel begins is left out to allow a (unlikely) chance meeting with Monet and Pissarro at a cafe in Montmartre, several years before the latter started painting Boulevard Montmartre.
Wine cooperatives in Loire weren't reconized until the early 20th century, but it is certainly possible for several vignerons to discuss and perhaps reach an understanding similiar to cooperatives a few decades earlier.
Lastly, there are several references to Tennyson's Maud, which became a verbal irony given that this is a romance novel. However Julian most likely first heard the verse as part of a Victorian song and can easily impress our heroine with his poetical prowess. Even farmers are poets too, especially the french ones.
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