Review: A Charming Historical Romance
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 9, 2014
Wicked is a thoroughly charming little historical romance – the first of a trilogy about three young teachers from a girls’ school.  As a final, parting gift, the head mistress of the school bequeaths them their dowries  and arranges for their marriages to men they’ve never met.Rose, Wicked’s heroine has been matched to an aging gentleman who is willing to go to extraordinary ends to have an heir to whom he can leave his estate when he dies.  All Rose needs to do to ensure herself a place as mistress of his estate for the rest of her life is to go along with his plan, but can a sweet, sheltered young woman go along with such “wicked” doings?It’s  story with an interesting set of characters – the maid, the wastrel, the sidekick, the lecher, the coquette and the straight-laced vicar are all characters who would have done Charlotte Bronte or Thomas Hardy proud.  They could easily have become the cardboard templates of the morality play but all of them, with the possible exception of the Vicar, show traits and emotions that save them from becoming merely symbols.Wicked spins a sweet romantic tale that leaves us wanting more, and after a few surprises in the closing pages, this reader suspects we may see more of many of our favourites before the trilogy ends.