Review: A Visit to Vauxhall, or Foxhall if you will, in a way that is refreshing as it is unexpected
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 19, 2014
This tale by Ms. Elliott combines the tropes of a Romance Novel with villains in abundance, with the mid Georgian period to give us a historical novel as well. The setting where most of the story takes place is the south side of the Thames on a site called FoxHall Gardens. One is quick to think that the tale is that of Vauxhall gardens, and one where a later Becky Sharp is going to be at home at.That we have a plot of the gardens needing to be renovated gives us those extra scenes that help us to see and appreciate them as they are built. But they are not the central pillars of our story. We have a heroine who finds she has skills beyond what she ever had known and grows into a role she was meant for.We have a hero with a past that causes his thoughts to be overshadowed by that past and cause events in the present to play out in ways all would rather be different were the hero able to realize the difference between truth and fiction all the more quickly. That these two individuals go beyond mere attraction to love and caring shows the skill which Ms. Elliott is able to weave. To bring trouble to their path so that all is not easy makes the drama and conflict cause the reader to need to turn the page and find out what resolutions may be lurking after a tense or intense tete a tete.Those who are enamored of romance and would like a visit to the later half of the 1700s and a side of London not usually seen, should pick up this work and delve through it for the treasures that lie within.