Love's Charade

Rating:
Summary: YOU HAVE TO READ THIS!!!
Review: First of all, I'm a die-hard Feather fan. This book really satisfies every criteria that I usually look 4 in a romance classic, fabulous title, small font & margin, and 478 pages ? Just can't ask 4 more ! oh did I mention Justin is my favorite hero name ? If U wanna read something that has adventures, actions, lots of love & lust, intelligent plot, marvelous setting, charming banter between the characters, cheeky heroine & mature hero, this is the ONE. I love the fact that Ms Feather always depicts the girl as the one who keeps her man on a merry chase from 1st to the last page. It makes U wish the story would never end. Huge gap in age doesn't matter much 2 me, as long as he's head over heels in love with the opposite sex & still keeps a straight head. Danny is stubborn & learns "love & obedience don't come hand in hand" in a hard way. She often gets herself in trouble because of her impulsiveness, then get a good verbal trashing from her husband, Justin, later on. Even when she has a baby, she still follows what her heart tells her to do, which drives Justin absolutely crazy wanting to tie her up & lock the door. Anyway, treat yourself to a fantastic, sparkling gem of a book & U won't regret it !

Rating:
Summary: I'd rather read the original Heyer.
Review: If I wanted to read Georgette Heyer's wonderful These Old Shades, I'd go and read the original, not this pale imitation. In These Old Shades, Justin, the Duke of Avon, is in Paris and rescues a waif called Leon. He subsequently discovers that Leon is in fact Leonie, a girl in disguise, and there is a mystery as to Leonie's identity. There is, of course - knowing Heyer - a very sweet romance as well as a well-plotted mystery story.

Sound familiar at all? Have other reviewers not read Heyer's book? My recommendation: forget about Love's Charade and go and read These Old Shades. You won't regret it!

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Setting but the Romance is Just Okay
Review: Jane Feather is a talented writer, but I just could not get into this book. Perhaps it was because so much of the story seemed familiar from other books. I agree that the first scene of the book was *very* reminiscent of the first scene in Georgette Heyer's masterful "These Old Shades", when the Duke of Avon rescues Leon/Leonie from a beating on the streets of Paris (but without the detail of the Leonie's distinctive hair color to catch Avon's eye and make the rescue more believable.)

The heroine of "Love's Charade", Danielle de St. Varennes, is a 17 year old French aristocrat who has been surviving on the streets of Paris disguised as a boy (her entire family has been killed by a pre-French Revolutionary mob) and the hero is Justin, the Earl of Linton, a 34 year old English peer. I confess that I tend to *hate* books with this kind of age disparity between the hero and heroine, particularly when the hero affects a paternalistic attitude toward the heroine and calls her childish nicknames (this book is guilty on both counts and "Brat" is the appellation of choice.) "These Old Shades" had even a greater age disparity between the hero and heroine, but worked better for me because of the development of the characters and the lack of overt lusting by the hero for the teenage heroine. (Justin actually tells Danielle's grandfather "...the woman in her still sleeps. I look forward to the very pleasant task of awakening her." A bit icky, in my opinion, but some might find it romantic.)

The real problem that I had with this book was that Danielle was *such* an incredible "Mary Sue" of a heroine (i.e. outrageously beautiful, amazingly intelligent, wise beyond her years, and good at absolutely *everything* she does)--and even more irritating than the original Leonie with her (supposedly charmingly) reckless behavior and brash speech. Combine this with a relatively bland Justin (who is like the Duke of Avon "Lite") and over 400 pages makes for a long book.

I liked the French Revolution setting and the story is well-written, but I preferred Jane Feather's "Virtue" (an engaging story of a brother-sister team of gamblers bent on revenge--a bit like Georgette Heyer's "The Masqueraders" but without the cross-dressing!)

Rating:
Summary: Lots of love, not so much charade
Review: One of the frequent problems with many romances that I've read is that the author has devotes a great deal of her creative energy in devising magnificent and fantastically complex heroes. In comparison, the young woman to be paired with this perfect specimen of tormented masculinity is usually bland and uninteresting. The author has already spent her creative juices. The interesting thing about Jane Feather's LOVE'S CHARADE is that we have the opposite problem.

Danielle is a stunning creation. At 17, she's beautiful, educated, strong-willed, and a witness to horrors that have brought her maturity beyond her years. The traumas of her past leave her driven to provide succor to the gentry dispossessed by the French Revolution, efforts that she pursues with ingenuity and charisma. And on top of that, she is witty, and oh yes, as we mentioned before, stunningly beautiful. Given such a glowing heroine, the 34-year-old hero, despite being twice her age, and allegedly clever and well-connected, is bland in comparison. He is your basic British Earl/Duke/Whatever of near total economic success, with a secret passion for aiding the Crown and no real interest in marriage until he's found the perfect post-adolescent. Their age difference is more than countered by their comparative weight in personality.

Balance! That's all I want! Just a little balance

The plot is fairly pleasant, offering a slight twist on the usual Pimpernalia. It is a bit drawn out, with a couple of clearly unnecessary episodes, including the usual Jealous Misunderstanding, Resigned to Lonely Marriage, and Kidnapped By An Evil French Rapist bits. These only serve to pad the book. Maybe target audience readers feel like they need these steps and I am simply out of synch, but I'm sure that at least two of these three could have been eliminated.

The basic problem with this book is that most of the suspense in a romance is in trying to figure out how the disparate hero and heroine will ultimately be bound together. Since that is resolved fairly early on, the rest of the novel is devoted to whether Danielle will get herself killed in her recklessness.

Polished prose keeps things moving along, and Feather introduces a couple of interesting bits by tying the plot so closely to the French Revolution. The aristocracy that stayed in France was not all wiped out overnight, and those that escaped often found themselves in more dire circumstances than the urban impoverished that they fled. Feather offers another view of the Revolution, one that fills in some of the gaps left by Les Miserables and The Scarlet Pimpernel. For that, there is no reason to regret reading this book.

Rating:
Summary: Good story, poor research
Review: The writing here is good, but the research is nonexistent. The author has the Prince and Princess of Wales estranged four years before their wedding, the hero visiting the court of Czar Alexander four years before he took the throne, and the villain using chloroform, which was some fifty years in the future. Ten minutes' worth of research could have solved this.

Rating:
Summary: YOU HAVE TO READ THIS!!!
Review: This book was absolutely my favorite of Jane Feather's. It was so captivating and once I started it I felt torn every time I had to put it down. It is a nice length of 478 pages and by the end you feel as if you have shared so much with Danny and Justin. She holds her own and is a very strong heroine while she loves Justin with everything she has. He feels the same for her and it is just an all around amazing book that you will NEVER regret reading. The story never grows boring and when it is finished you feel sad that it is over. I highly recommend this book to any romance reader who likes to be transported into a whole new world....