Just the Way You Are

Both fans of historical romance and straight historicals will like this seriously researched historical. It also has enough humor to keep it from being bogged down in angst. Here is the 5-star review from Romantic Times for this debut novel: Like most people who work in the hardship of Virginia, John Bradford was forced to leave England when he was kidnapped from the streets of London and brought to the colony. He can't understand why his new society destructively cultivates tobacco. Lady's maid Lacey Cochran follows some years later on a ship bringing well-bred brides for the lonely Colonists. Lacey seeks to escape the consequences of a disastrous romance with a member of the peerage and fears exposure of her true station and her lack of virginity. When John kidnaps her as part of his plan for revenge on the Virginia Company, she decides he offers her an easier explanation to a husband. Neither counts on the intensity their relationship develops while they're alone at John's cabin in the woods. Donna Jordan foreshadows, and explains, the 1622 attack by Pocahontas' tribe on the colony of the Virginia Company, which resulted in 300-plus deaths. The romances between Lacey and John, her friend Clara and a near-starving Colonist are poignant and funny against the stark environment and errors caused by the need to gain wealth from raising tobacco. This is prime historical reading.

Ms. Jordan weaves a wonderful tale. The setting is 1600s Virginia Colony--something I have not read about before. The hero is unique. He once was an orphan on the streets of London but was kidnapped and forced to Virginia Colony to work on the tobacco farms--but he turned the tables on them. The heroine is a woman who was sent to Virginia by the tobacco companies to marry a colonist--and she is not what she appears to be. I really enjoyed stepping back into this early American history, and especially liked Ms. Jordan's different take on what things were like when Englishmen first settled here. I never wanted this book to end!