Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Illusion by Jean R. Ewing, Jean Ross Ewing ISBN: 0-425-16447-0 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.45 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A wonderful tale of romantic espionage
Comment: In 1815 England, the Marquess of Rivaulx, Nigel Arundham, is one of the best spies and code breakers his majesty has in the seemingly never ending wars with Napoleon. Nigel decides that he wants Indian-trained Frances Woodward to be his mistress and challenges her keeper to a duel of dice. However, Frances, who was forced into a harem, despairs her return to England because the best she can hope for is to be someone's high priced mistress. To her, it does not matter if it is Rivaulx or Donningham as long as they feed her.
To Nigel's shock, he finds himself falling in love with his recent gambling winning. Frances bitterly returns his feelings becaus she knows she can only be hurt by them. Soon, Frances is also embroiled in a deadly game of treason and double crosses that could either expose an English traitor or lead to Nigel's death. With all that swirling around the duo, love and a lifetime relationship seems impossible-- or does it?
There is no ILLUSION as to! who is the star of this incredibly, exciting Regency romance. Frances is warm character, but she and the support cast are completely overwhelmed by the dynamic, ultra-hunk Nigel, who is one of the best protagonists of the year. Jean Ross Ewing provides a classy historical romance that will leave readers salivating for more stories from this talented newcomer. Hopefully, she will grace her fans with other male pulse-jumpers that will leave female readers reaching for blood pressure medicine.
Harriet Klausner
Rating: 5
Summary: A masterpiece of romance, intrigue, and spiritual healing.
Comment: A young girl whose innocence was robbed in a maharaja's harem, Frances escapes and returns to England, to find her aunt dead, and her only option to exist as some rich man's mistress. Spy extraordinare, Nigel carries within himself a bitter spirit of long lost love and betrayal. He doesn't want to love again, and Frances doesn't want to fall in love either, because of the hurt she would feel at the inevitable end of the relationship. Nevertheless, as their relationship progresses, they each discover that appearances are deceiving and neither is what they appear to be on the surface. ("Illusion" is an apt title for this story.) And they discover that enduring love can cleanse and heal their souls. This is a book that I will not forget soon.
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderfully complex story - took my breath away
Comment: This is one of the most spellbinding, complex, deeply layered historical romances I've ever read. It's a combination of spy thriller and romance, and Ross Ewing manages to keep the reader guessing until a considerable way into the story exactly who the villains are. The hero, Nigel Arundham, Marquess of Rivaulx, is suave, sophisticated, dangerous... and tortured. Just my kind of hero!
Okay, the story. Frances Woodward, orphaned in the Far East and held captive in a harem, is a very great prize since she has been trained as a concubine, with no thought in mind but how best to serve a man. On her return to England, she became the property of Lord Donnington - a man believed by Rivaulx to be a traitor. Rivaulx intends to expose Donnington's treachery, and as part of an elaborate ruse he wins Frances from him in a card game.
But, as Frances discovers, Nigel doesn't want her for himself. Again, she is to be used as a pawn in the greater game Nigel is playing: to expose all of the traitors working against the Crown and in support of Napoleon. In any case, she quickly learns that Nigel would have no interest in her anyway; the woman he loved, the woman who had been his companion while they had both been working as spies in France, was brutally murdered and he blames himself for her death.
And then Frances has to accompany Nigel to Paris, again as part of an elaborate ruse to enable him and his associates to spy. Once there, however, Frances finds herself continually questioning what is real about Nigel and the life they're leading, and what is illusion.
What is most fascinating about the book is the way Nigel himself, truly a master of illusions, gradually becomes revealed both to Frances and the readers. And equally, how Frances herself, the virgin concubine, learns that love and lovemaking need not be activities in which women are always subordinate to men and in which women's needs are unimportant.
As well as being a terrific, spellbinding story, Ross Ewing's writing compels and made this reader gasp in admiration. Unlike some reviewers, I *liked* Nigel's love of poetry and liked the way he frequently spoke elliptically. Her style of writing is a breath of fresh air for a reader bored to tears with mediocre historical writers. I can't wait to read Flowers Under Ice, the sequel - and her newer books under the name Julia Ross. Ross/Ross Ewing is now on my must-buy list!
wmr-uk
 |
Title: Flowers Under Ice by Jean R. Ewing, Jean Ross Ewing ISBN: 0425170365 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
 |
Title: My Dark Prince by Julia Ross ISBN: 051512883X Publisher: Jove Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
 |
Title: Rogue's Reward by Jean R. Ewing ISBN: 0821751468 Publisher: Zebra Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1995 List Price(USD): $4.50 |
 |
Title: The Wicked Lover by Julia Ross ISBN: 042519406X Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 03 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: Love's Reward by Jean R. Ewing ISBN: 0821758128 Publisher: Zebra Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1997 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
