Morland Dynasty 11: The Emperor

Napoleon is on the rise, yes, but the Emperor in this case could easily be the Emperor butterfly which briefly makes an appearance. Jemima Morland's children are all grown up, and making their own decisions--and mistakes. Both Lucy and James carry on affairs and create scandals, and Mary joins her husband on board his ship, where she gives birth during the battle of the Nile. The more I read this series, the more character development I find is occurring. Jemima's not one of my favorite Morland heroines, and her children makes some questionable judgment sometimes, but the characters in this part of the series feel a lot more fleshed out and real to me, more believable, probably because of their flaws. After all, everybody makes mistakes, and everybody (I would hope) learns from those mistakes. In the previous installment of the series, I believe I mentioned how sometimes in the Morland Dynasty series a character will come in and declaim about the current political/religious/etc. situation. Because some of the characters are literally at the forefront of what's going on, the reader literally gets a front-row seat to those events. This is another reason why I prefer this installment to the series to some of the others.

In 1795, Napoleon Bonaparte is making his presence felt all across Europe and this is affecting all the members of the Morland family. James has reluctantly agreed to an arranged marriage with the daughter of a wealthy businessman, feeling that, since he and Heloise are unable to marry, he may as well do his duty by the family and provide an heir to inherit the Morland property. This is book 11 in the series and is just as fascinating as the others. It's a very easy way to absorb history and I've learned more about English and American history from this series of books than from any text book. Now onwards to number 12.