Review: Pretty darn good to be a novella.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 30, 2011
I did the Kindle download of this novella by Eloisa James because I haven't read any novels published by her in a long time.  The information on the copyright page made me very glad this was a free download.  Through my own fault of not paying enough attention I now realize I have the anthology this book originally appeared in back in 2004, The One That Got Away.  I haven't read that book yet but do recognize the title of the anthology and have it stashed away someplace.Yes, it's a short story which means the author doesn't have a great deal of time to fully develop characters, but under the circumstances I think she did a good job with making me understand what had happened in the past between Lady Genevieve Mulcaster and Tobias Darby.  Seven years ago they had met at a party and knew each other for all of three hours before heading out in a carriage to Gretna Green.  Those carriage rides took a loooong time so by the time her father caught up to the coach a hasty marriage was called for.  She married a man practically old enough to be her father and Tobias went off to India to make his fortune.  Genevieve is now a widow and Tobias is back in London.  The problem is, she now wants to marry someone else.If you read historical romances you understand that no situation can ever be as relatively uncomplicated as the one I just described.  James does a really good job of presenting Genevieve with some tough decisions and letting us watch her work her way through them.  There are several moderately explicit romantic scenes in the story which I thought the author presented well, but if you don't like that then now you know.  It was a very entertaining novella and now I'm wondering exactly which closet that box of books is in.  Looks like I need to read the rest of the stories in that anthology.