Falling Stars (Topaz Historical Romances) [Paperback]

Anita Mills (Author)

Book Description

Series: Topaz Historical Romances | Publication Date: September 1, 1993

Married to foreign count Alexei Volsky, Kate Winstead journeys to her new husband's estate in Russia and discovers that the family is harboring a deep, dark secret.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This intriguing but sadly chauvinistic sequel to Autumn Rain revolves around a young woman and a dastardly plot to secure an heir. Accompanying Alexander I to London in 1814, Count Alexei Volsky and his sister Galena overwhelm the plucky but not particularly attractive Katherine Winstead with their attentions. For this daughter of a gaming baron who took his own life, Volsky's proposal of marriage seems too good to be true, and of course, it is. Pregnant and isolated in the Volsky's Russian estate, Kate discovers the true nature of her role--and of Galena's. For her difficult flight home, Kate turns to her brother's friend, the rake Bellamy, Viscount Townsend, who appeared in Autumn Rain and is now laying low in Russia following another messy affair and having second thoughts about his shallow life. Mills is to be commended for creating a heroine who is truly more character than looks, nor does Mills flinch at including the more quotidian fleshy realities. The real weakness is her portrayal of Russians as sadistic and perverted. The era that gave birth to Pushkin, Gogol and Lermontov deserves a more evenhanded treatment.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Topaz (September 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451403657
• ISBN-13: 978-0451403650
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 3.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,960,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Love Anita Millls stlye of writing., June 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Falling Stars (Topaz Historical Romances) (Paperback)

This is my third book I have read from Anita Mills. I've read Autumn Rain, Bittersweet and Falling Stars. I plan to read all of her books. Falling Stars was a really exciting book to read because of its adventure, dark betrayal, passion, sensuality and romance. I also love the time in the 1800's I feel like I'm taken back in times when I'm reading her books. Please Thank Anita Mills for me. I love her style of writing and I hope she is still writing new books because I want to read them all. Sincerly, Rita De Leon

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Just Not Enough Romance. 2.5 Stars, February 8, 2004

By 

MaryGrace Meloche (Ontario, Canada.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Falling Stars (Topaz Historical Romances) (Paperback)

You know there is trouble, in a romance book, when by page 250 the two leading players have not had a meaningful scene!

Anita Mills wanted desperately to establish Katherine Winstead as "a coming into her own" type heroine -- Katherine was growing stronger with each dreary episode in her dismal life! Mills' strategy? By the end of the book, the reader would look upon this fragile heroine as "Katherine the Great!"

However, this scheme failed! Katherine's "doormat" attitude grew tiring -- an attitude that allowed everyone and their dog to run over her - even the Russian servants were impertinent! Good heavens, Katherine may be a stranger to Russia, but she is a daughter of the upper English class! This English lady is NOT a stranger to the aristocratic viewpoint! Katherine should have screamed from the roof tops at such impertinent behavior! Her predetermined attitude: "Guess what, I'm the almighty countess around here and it's my way, or the highway!" Language barriers stand aside!

And what happened to Katherine's only friend -- the little Russian maid, Maria? After all, Maria aided Katherine's great escape from the Volsky estate, then disappeared completely from the story -- banished forever in the writer's inkwell! Is this known as a loose end?

Anita Mills is a truly gifted writer, and she can carry her reader on a journey. In FALLING STARS, the author presents the magnitude of nineteenth century Russia. Mills depicts the severity of existence and thrusts it at her reader. Sadly, this was not enough, for Mills' story is choppy, farfetched, and CERTAINLY not romantic!

Grace Atkinson, Ontario - Canada.

5.0 out of 5 stars An Old Chestnut from my Mis-Spent Youth, February 17, 2008

By 

Kelly Diamond - See all my reviews

This review is from: Falling Stars (Topaz Historical Romances) (Paperback)

What is this? A book I read 1,000 year ago, and yet I still remember fondly? What I remember liking about this book is precisely what other reviewers hate it for - its pacing. I like that the arc of Katherine Winstead's life only intersects the life of her eventual husband's in the last third of the book. I like that Katherine was her own person, first and foremost, making her own choices, and her own mistakes, out of her own personal insecurities and limited options... this is HER story, not Townsend's. If you want a book in which the protagonist and male lead fall into the sack in the first chapter, might I suggest Stephanie Laurens? But if you appreciate that two obviously unsuitable people, evolve on their own terms, responding to the individual stimuli in their own lives, and then meet again at precisely the point when they need and can SEE each other as they have become, then this might be one for you. I for one am glad that they didn't recognize each other in the first 2 chapters - when the vain, shallow, empty Bellamy Townsend was not worthy of her! His transformation into a man who can see past his own genitals into her "pluck-to-the-backbone" character is what redeems him as hero material. I found this an unusually safisfying, long-lingering romance that many years later I still remember fondly.