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4.0 out of 5 stars
One of her better earlier Regencies..., Sep 5 2001
Most of Wolf's early Regencies rate at least 3 stars from me. This book is a cut above them, with more believable interactions between the couple (even if they meet in a fantastic setting), and no long separations. The heroine Joanna Crewe is the niece of a duke (her father is *not* the duke, although the blurb on the back of my copy claims this to be the case). She is realistic about her life, in which her remarkably selfish father sacrifices his wife (almost literally) to his religious zeal as a missionary in what we now call sub-Saharan Africa. Joanna grows up disillusioned about her father, and determined to preserve her own individuality and her interests. Her father's death leads almost improbably to the slave markets in Cairo, from where she is rescued by an adventurer/explorer John Champernoun, himself the relative of an earl. This is the first third of the book. In the second third, the heroine becomes engaged to a man, because she craves a normal life and she insists in denying to herself her real needs and interests. She is also marrying the man for his father and his house, as John Champernoun puts it. Enter the hero, now as earl, after his cousins all die heirless. Unfortunately for Joanna, the new earl is a close neighbor of her fiance's father. The last third of the book is delightful, in which Joanna is forced to confront her hasty decisions and recognize that she has made a wrong choice based on her fears about John's lifestyle and her own ambivalent feelings about her late father. Her fiance acts honorably and agrees to break off the engagement. Joanna will marry her true love, the man who will allow her to be herself. This was a pleasant read, far more compelling than two other early Wolfs I read at the same time (FOOL'S MASQUERADE and A DIFFICULT TRUCE). In intensity of feeling and tightness of plot, it does not quite match A LONDON SEASON but it is a well-knit and fast-moving plot. The only thing I did not like was the part where Joanna ends up on the slave market - a plot device that has been used by so many writers of purple prose. Fortunately, that part was quickly done.
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