Publication Date: January 12, 2021
About the Author: Julie Wright wrote her first book when she was fifteen and has written over twenty novels since then. She is a Whitney Awards winner for best romance with her books Cross My Heart and Lies Jane Austen Told Me, and she is a Crown Heart recipient for the novel The Fortune Café.
She has one husband, three kids, one dog, and a varying amount of fish, frogs, and salamanders (depending on attrition). She loves writing, reading, hiking, playing with her kids, and watching her husband make dinner.
She hates mayonnaise.
“A ship traveling from England to India becomes a microcosm of Regency society in Wright’s touching novel. Thomas and Caroline discuss women’s rights and fair trade…their exchanges lead to sparks. They speak their minds and stoke their mutual intellectual attraction. Romance on the high seas may be a high-risk proposition for Caroline, but her discovery of new freedoms makes those risks worth taking. A charming historical romance in which smarts and sass are vindicated.” –“Foreword Reviews”
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MY REVIEW
Too headstrong and opinionated to “take” during her seasons in London, Caroline is doomed to a life of penury. When a gauche couple suggests that they help pay her passage to India so she can be introduced to their son, a military captain, as a potential bride, Caroline agrees out of desperation. While on board the ship, Caroline continues to make enemies among the gentler sex with her forthright conversation.
The ship’s captain, Thomas Scott, despises the fishing fleet of ladies bound for India in search of scoundrels of husbands. Miss Caroline Gray seems…different, however, and he can’t help defending her to the others when she gets into hot water with her bold opinions. As the attraction grows between them, they both must face the question of whether their relationship will continue beyond this one sea voyage.
This unusual Regency had strong and memorable main characters. Caroline’s feminism does get a little grating at times, but her plight is something to sympathize with. The plot does suffer from a misunderstanding that could have been solved by an honest conversation. Instead, the hero is left to languish in mistrust of Caroline until the over-the-top villain plotting a mutiny/revenge serves his purpose by throwing the sundered couple together at the end.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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Rosanne E. Lortz 