Miss Jacobson's Journey [Large Print]

This book is one of Carola Dunn's best. Unfortunately it is also out of print. Fortunately, Belgrave House has issued an electronic version (available only in the Rocket format here). If you don't want to read electronic books, try your local library.If you are looking for slightly off-beat romances set in the Regency period, I would recommend this, along with her THE FORTUNE HUNTERS. This book is unusual and off-beat because the heroine is Jewish, and as someone else put it, there are two heroes. [Obviously, only one of them will get the girl, though]. The story is also a road trip through Napoleonic France, even through the three - the heroine and the two men accompanying her - are all British subjects. If that were not unusual enough, there is a real adventure based on military necessity thrown into the plot. You might argue that it is impossible for British subjects to be traipsing through France at this time, and that it is impossible for a book to have two heroes. To the first, I can only suggest that you read this book which makes the case believably that a well-educated and multilingual Jewish heroine can pass as Swiss French. [I won't tell you what identities are adopted by her two companions]. As for the second, well, if the heroine and the reader herself are undecided between two men who are equally charming, what should we call it?A more conventional synopsis of the start of this book follows.Miss Miriam Jacobson, the heroine, is Jewish and the daughter of a wealthy merchant. She is about to become betrothed to a rabbi-in-training, whom she has never met. She ends up rejecting him as physically unappealing, and goes off to Europe with her uncle, a physician of some note and much skill. We meet Miss Jacobson and her devoted maid Hannah some nine years later, when she is shabbily dressed, in want of money, and desperate to get back home. The problem is that war has been going on for some ime, and she is now trapped by the turn of events in a continent overrun by French troops from the Baltic to the Adriatic. How is Miriam to get home? She turns to young co-religionist Jakob Rothschild to help her. In return for his aid, he demands that she travel to Spain on a dangerous but necessary mission to save her country. Her companions are two men, neither of whom wants her along, and who despise and distrust each other. Will the journey succeed, and how? Will Miriam get along with the two men? One of the two men is Jewish, the other is an English aristocrat who despises Jews and who is rather too proud of his country's heritage. Miriam finds herself attracted to the English aristocrat, despite all his flaws and the fact that a marriage between them would be impossible.The story is deftly told, with respect for the Jewish religion, a smooth interweaving of actual historical events (including therise of the Rothschilds), and with a convincing ending. I have read many Regency romances, but this is only the secondromance that has

If you like road trip romances, love triangles (one heroine facing two suitors), a bit of adventure, and an unusual theme, try this book. Heroine Miriam Jacobson is Jewish but a British subject. She is asked by a Rothschild in Paris to help two fellow Britons out with a dangerous but patriotic attempt to get gold to Wellington's armies in Spain. During the trip, Miriam learns more about herself and the two men who soon begin vying for her attention. This is a rare Regency with a Jewish heroine. Others in this genre are Star Sapphire by Rebecca Danton (Fawcett 1979), although the heroine of that book marries a Gentile (a marquess) at the beginning, and the recently published A Question of Honor by Nita Abrams. Carola Dunn treats the situation of Jews in British society and on the continent with sensitivity, and her heroine (and one of the suitors who is Jewish) act in consistency with their upbringing.Miss Jacobsen's Journey, long out-of-print, is now available as an e-book (published from Belgrave House). Get it here or look for it at your public library. If you liked this book, you might want to try Bk 2 (His Lordship's Reward) or Bk 3 (The Captain's Inheritance) to learn more about Miriam's future life.