Friday, October 10

Jude Morgan: Indiscretion

An impoverished gentlewoman takes the only course open to her and becomes a companion to a society matron. She soon finds herself the unwilling confidant to several members of the household and the subject of unwanted amorous advances.
When her father dies she is reunited with her estranged Aunt at his funeral and is relieved to accept her invitation to live with her and leave the fast life behind.
But she is no sooner settled in to her new life when she finds herself surrounded by her former confidants as well as the subject of new ones. Soon she is being unjustly implicated in everybody’s indiscretions.
Eventually she is vindicated, in the process winning the heart of the one man whose opinion mattered to her.
This shouldn’t have been a fascinating, witty and all round delightful story-but it was.
There is nothing new here, in fact, many of the situations are trite and clichéd. I could see exactly where this story was going almost from the start. There were no unexpected twists or surprise turns. The characters could have all walked out of Regency central casting. And the plot has been written to death.
Yet for all that this story shone. It was stylish. It was fun.
I think its main strength lay in the dialogue. Morgan has a gift for witty and believable dialogue that brings the characters to life and makes a tired story compelling.
If you’ve grown weary of historical romances this might just reinvigorate your interest.-Lynn

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