Shadows In Velvet

Well developed characters. This was a real story with romance added. Those are far and few in between the romance genre, friends. No cookie cutter ploting. Good

I rarely read romance novels, but a long flight and a longerlayover forced me to pick one up, and for once I was verypleasently suprised by what I found. "Shadows in Velvet" is a well-written, fascinating historical novel with a wonderful romance as a bonus. Set against the French Revolution of the 1650's, this novel starts out with many of the traditional historical romance plot devices - an orphan living in a convent (our heroine, Annique), an arranged marriage to a man with a shady past (Philippe) and the usual descriptions early on of the passion they share. Yet much of this is set up, used, and moved beyond in the first few chapters. After that, the story takes a much deeper turn, dealing with trust in an age where the Royal family is at war within itself, secrecy is considered fun and intrugue is a national pastime. While the story focuses on these two characters and their relationship, much of their success or failure comes from the experiences they go through seperately and the growth each experiences. The history they are experiencing it in becomes key and, because of the extensive, accurate research of the writer, Haywood Smith, the story comes to life and truely makes the changes they go through meaningful, instead of all too convenient as in most romance novels I've read. In the end, this was the first romance novel I had read which required thought and felt real - it pulled me into it's time and it's characters and made me anxious for another book by this author. Her freshman offering is well worth reading!