The Count's Charade

Grace Dovercourt discovers a seriously wounded man near her home and takes him in to nurse him back to health. Some bablings while he comes in and out of conciousness reveal that he is a Frenchman, and he has been shot. She decides to keep this fact secret so that he may recover. But as he grows stronger Grace finds her feelings for Henri Rousselle grow by the day. She has no illusions about him loving her in return, after all she has been lame since birth, and he is an obvious gentleman who could catch a better fish than Grace. As he recovers Grace finds herself battling her emotions and hiding him from the authorities, as he is a wanted man. *** My thoughts: Grace is a strong and convincing character who has taken her life into her own hands. As she is lame and has little chance of a good marriage, she has taken it upon herself NOT to be a ward of her brothers, but instead has started up her own business writing and editing letters from the surrounding villagers. While being strong in her own way, she also has insecurities that play a role in the story. The way that Henri speaks is well written. His English comes across like one would expect when it is not a person's first language, and is not jaring to read at all. The small snippets of French are generally well known French phases. The ones that I had not heard before, well it was easy enough to tell what was meant by the context. And, well, I've never really though accents as 'sexy' before, but I really felt attracted to Henri's accent that I imagined in this book. Although I felt part of the book was predictable to those who have widely read in this genre like myself, I did not feel that this detracted from the book. Infact, it was a sexy, sweet and satisfying read.