Customer Reviews

As Shadows Haunting

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This is one terrific book, not exactly romance, but most definitely historical, about Sarah Lennox and her romance with the young George III, mostly while he was still just prince. It's not a quick read (425 pages) but well worth the effort. Although there are love stories in the book, it is not a romance as that term is used in today's book categorization. (Indeed, the spine says simply FICTION.) The emphasis is instead more on overall story and history - which is very well researched. Sarah Lennox was a woman well before her time, who suffered greatly because of who she was; not good enough for a King, but too good for a commoner, according to her family.

In the book, Sidonie Brooks, a divorced, modern-day female musician specializing in harpsichords and other older instruments, moves into a flat on the street that backs up to where Holland House once was.

She acquires a harpsichord - a gift from George III to Sarah - without knowing any of the history of it! or them, until she falls through a time fault. These journeys take four hours of today's time, but show her only minutes of the then time, and the trips move the past forward in an non-proportionate way. The first is when Sarah is barely fourteen, and they end when she is an elderly lady, whereas the contemporary story occupies only a bit more than a year of today's time. These trips may happen anytime and anywhere - providing Sarah was, at least once in her own lifetime, in the same place the musician is, in today's world.

The two stories are set against each other; Sarah and her loves in the mid 1700s, and Sidonie battling her pompous ex-husband while enjoying her burgeoning career and the travels it brings, plus the new men in her life.

I found this to be a totally engrossing story, one not easily forgotten.

Sarah Lennox is the Lady Sarah Lennox of the PBS series "Aristocrats" fame. One of the daughters of the Duke of Richmond and Lennox who was the son of one of Charles II's [illegitimate child] by his French mistress Louise de Querouaille (as its spelled in the book). Sarah and her sisters were well known figures of Georgian society. "As
Shadows Haunting" shows a more of her life in detail than the series had time to
do. She is a woman who was within a hairs breath of being George III's Queen, who then married unhappily, went through a series of lovers, had a [illegitimate child] child then ran away with the child's father only to be abandoned by him to face the disgrace of her actions and suffer society's sanction. After being divorced by her husband and
publicly branded an adulteress, she finally, years later, found the love of her life. As the wife of Captain George Napier, Sarah lived out her life as a beloved wife and mother.

The fictional character of Sidonie Brooks and the real life person of Sarah Lennox never actually meet in the book, but merely glimpse each other through time. But each becomes important to the other in many ways: Sidonie offers friendship and
compassion to Sarah when it is needed most and in return gets an amazing chance to view a vanished time and gain musical insights which skyrocket her career. Each woman deals with love and loss as the book shows that while fashions may change, people and the problems of life really don't.

Lampitt wrote the book in 1995 but it has an older, 80s style of writing. Not so much bodice ripping as a more slow paced, descriptive style like that of Sheila Bishop. Lampitt is also an Englishwoman and one who has clearly done her research. The Georgian age comes alive without turning into a history dump and Sidonie's career as a modern musician is interesting to read. It's not a book for everyone but I found it an enjoying and engrossing read.