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UK Authors - Romance-

Review
A Woman Beyond Price
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A Woman Beyond Price by
Freda Lightfoot
Robert Hale
250 pages, 2000
ISBN 0727854704
Reviewed by our UK Editor Rachel A. Hyde


The year is 1785. Sir James Caraddon is a rising star in Pitt’s government but there is something missing in his life, not supplied by the glamorous widow Lady Susannah Brimley. Spending Christmas with his elderly aunt in Truro, he is invited to the 18th birthday party of Charlotte Forbes. Charlotte is about to discover that she is an heiress and that there is a secret about her birth. But Sir James initially only sees a simple child barely out of the schoolroom, used to farm life and romping with her cousin. Soon they find that their lives have taken a change for the more adventurous, for Charlotte runs away with a theatrical troupe and Sir James runs after her. They are both to discover that there is more to life than pursuing their respective careers.

This is a well-paced and lively romance, a little far-fetched in some places. Charlotte is not a simpering miss and Sir James only tries – rather ineffectually – to master her, which pleased me. I love a good romance but not if it contains a hero who is silly, and a fluttering, fainting and fluffy heroine. I liked the descriptions of life with a travelling theatrical troupe and wish that there had been more. Light and entertaining fare.


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