Heart of the Storm

Juliana Pendarvis, was willful, spoiled, and a bit of a hoyden. The pampered youngest daughter of a country baron, brought up on the Cornwall coast in the year 1764 where smuggling was a necessity for survival and common for even the landlords to condone as a way of feeding tenants who would otherwise starve. Adam Tremayne, the son of her father's dear friend and an American had come to England to receive an inheritance from his uncle. On his way to see an old friend it was his misfortune to run into Juliana when she mistakenly thought he was the local viscount she had snuck out to meet. While their first introduction was most memorable and her brothers covered for her in convincing Adam that she was their younger brother Jim, Adam would be stunned to learn later that the young `tadpole' he'd wrestled in the woods was the very beautiful daughter of his friend.Suffering from a heart ailment, Juliana's father would extract a promise from Adam that he would marry his youngest daughter. Juliana was furious, but would concede and pretend to go along with the wedding plans - thinking all the while she would elope with her viscount before the wedding took place. Before that happened though the passion that overtook both Adam and Juliana whenever they were near each other would have her yielding to him the gift of her virginity and subsequent scares of her father's life would leave her no other option than going thru with the marriage.This was an interesting and very passionate novel of two people who were made for one another in passion but both had issues to deal with. Adam his brashness, and inability to forgive himself for guilt over the deaths of his first wife and child, and Juliana who was just too stubborn to realize that here was the love and heart of her life if she would just grow up and realize what she was getting was much more valuable -the love of a lifetime - than what she thought she was losing - the independence of running wild. As a debut novel for this author there was a good amount of sensual passion, and the historic background was lush, with some page-turning suspense. It was a very good read, with lovely descriptions of the period and I can recommend it to those of you who can still locate a good copy of this out of print book.