Sunday, April 16, 2006

Rediscovering old favourites

There have been a number of authors I’ve dropped over the years. For most of them I can pinpoint the reason, too many books I didn’t enjoy or they switched genres or stopped writing romance altogether and I didn’t follow them. Then there are a few who slip through the cracks for no apparent reason. I continued to enjoy their books but I just *lost* them. Candace Camp is one of those authors. She wrote one of my favourite medievals – Evensong (which I highly recommend) and she wrote two wonderful books under the name Lisa Gregory, The Rainbow Promise and The Rainbow Season. Yet for some reason, I kind of stopped reading her. When I saw her latest release An Independent Woman, I bought it and idly wondered why I hadn’t bought any of her other recent releases. I just finished and now I’m wondering even more. I really enjoyed this one!
Juliana Holcott is the companion to a spoiled young woman. Nicolas Barre is recently returned to town to take up his title after leaving for America many years before. These two grew up together many years before. They were both unwanted were they were and leaned on each other. When Nicolas comes back to town, he searches for his childhood friend and finds her, and wants to renew their friendship only to end up costing Juliana her position. He then proposes they marry to correct this wrong.
This is a wonderful historical story of two young friends falling in love years later. Both are intelligent and very likeable. There is also a mystery that plays a part in the story. I am so glad I decided to read her again and now I’ll be searching for all the books that I missed.


I also want to comment on the cover and inside step cover. Fiona had a recent blog about how often the characters on the covers are completely wrong when you read the book. I agree with her. But this is one book that gets it right. I could easily picture Nicolas and Juliana looking like the couple inside – and look!! They are both fully clothed. How refreshing.



(I also wanted to prove to myself that even though I'm stumped when it comes to figuring out how to go about getting an avatar - I can still scan pictures with the best of 'em)


Grade 4 out of 5


'til later


3 comments:

romancelover said...

Wow, Kristie. The book sounds really good. I saw this one at Walmart the other day and was very close to buying it but had never read a CAMP book and was a little iffy on trying her (I don't know why...perhaps because she doesn't get as much publicity at other writers). I think I'm going to have to go back to Walmart and get this one now. The cover actors are really attractive and I could easily see myself actually picturing them, instead of Gerard Butler and a random brunette. Thanks for the suggestion!

Marg said...

I haven't ever read a Candace Camp either. Is this a good one to start with Kristie? Not in the middle of a series or anything like that?

Kristie (J) said...

Romancelover: are you brunette by any chance ;-)
I thought they were both good looking too.

Marg:if you're going to give her a try, then this is a good one to start. It's not the middle of a series, although it does look like her next one (which I will be getting *g*) is about one of the minor secondary characters from this one, but this one has no previous books that I could tell.