![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Winter Fire by Jo Beverley
Sep. 10th, 2009 02:09 amUnable to get along with her stepmother (who is not an Evil Stepmother, they just don’t get along) Genova Smith becomes the companion of two elderly sisters. On the way to a family gathering, they come across a stranded carriage and agree to take the passenger’s baby and nursemaid along with them to the inn. The woman never arrives, though, and when the man Genova was told was the father arrives, he claims it isn’t his. Soon, she learns that he’s Ashart, the ladies’ nephew, and they end up being forced to pretend to be engaged.
This is the umpteenth or so of Beverley’s Mallorean series, with Ashart being Rothgar’s enemy and cousin. I wasn’t sure for most of the book if I was supposed to remember Ashart from other books, but it seems I wasn’t from Beverley’s afterword. Probably for the best. When villains from previous books become heroes of sequels, I tend to be expected to forgive things like attempted murder, blackmail, slander, abduction, unreasonable levels of deceit, and attempted rape. Wait, the last may just be Christina Dodd. Anyway.
Genova and Ashart are fun, both individually and together, especially when they bicker, even if Ashart ends up being one of Beverley’s heroes who makes a huge blunder late in the game and never quite manages to recover from it. Unfortunately, it’s the umpteenth book in the Mallorean series, so they almost end up secondary to everything else in their own book as we catch up with everyone’s babies and family secrets and Men Working Out Issues. (Which I didn’t sleep through only because Rothgar and Ashart are actually interesting.)
This is the umpteenth or so of Beverley’s Mallorean series, with Ashart being Rothgar’s enemy and cousin. I wasn’t sure for most of the book if I was supposed to remember Ashart from other books, but it seems I wasn’t from Beverley’s afterword. Probably for the best. When villains from previous books become heroes of sequels, I tend to be expected to forgive things like attempted murder, blackmail, slander, abduction, unreasonable levels of deceit, and attempted rape. Wait, the last may just be Christina Dodd. Anyway.
Genova and Ashart are fun, both individually and together, especially when they bicker, even if Ashart ends up being one of Beverley’s heroes who makes a huge blunder late in the game and never quite manages to recover from it. Unfortunately, it’s the umpteenth book in the Mallorean series, so they almost end up secondary to everything else in their own book as we catch up with everyone’s babies and family secrets and Men Working Out Issues. (Which I didn’t sleep through only because Rothgar and Ashart are actually interesting.)