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Death in Exile |
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 Death in Exile byLaurel Schunk St Kitts Press 310 pages, 1998 ISBN 096618792X Reviewed by Nancy Mehl Read our author interview It is 1816, and England is rife with injustice. Husbands control the very lives of their wives, using and abusing them as they see fit. Diana Atwood has endured many beatings from her faithless and cruel husband, Henry Rutledge. Diana’s plight concerns her friend, Anna Kate Forsythe. Anna Kate enlists the help of Quillen Rossiter, a man who had once proposed to her but whom she rebuffed. Or did she? Quillen thinks she did, and his anger at her rejection poorly masks the love he still has for her. Anna Kate, not understanding why he snubs and criticizes her constantly, is trying to deal with her own feelings of love for Quillen and her fear for Diana’s fate at the hands of her evil husband. The murder of Diana’s housekeeper only increases the danger that Diana is in. Anna Kate and Quillen step in to protect her as she fights to keep the last of her wealth, a bag of jewels, from being stolen by Rutledge, who has already stolen everything else she had, including her self-confidence and dignity. Her husband has plans to have Diana deported as a thief – claiming that the jewels were his – and Diana’s friends spirit her away to hide in the house of friends. Rutledge’s search for his wife brings them under the ire of the powerful man, and they sense his presence at every turn. Are their lives in danger? Has Rutledge already killed for the sake of the jewels? And who is the man who seems to be following Anna Kate? Death in Exile examines the inhumanity of a system that divides people in classes and stations, and treats women as possessions to be disposed of at will. It also chronicles the maturing of a young girl in the midst of a system that fights to keep her "in her place" while she strives to step above the limits imposed by the traditions of the time. This beautifully written Regency novel has elements of romance, mystery and self-discovery visited by well-drawn characters - and the inclusion of the Prince Regent and the well-loved author, Jane Austen. This novel will throw you into another time, and you won’t want to leave. |
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