Love's Charade [Paperback]

Jane Feather (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1996

Fighting for survival amid the shadowy boulevards of Paris, beautiful runaway Danny hides a dangerous secret and encounters Justin, Earl of Linton, who takes pity on the bedraggled waif, until he learns a surprising truth. Reissue.

Product Details

• Paperback: 478 pages
• Publisher: Zebra (April 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821752855
• ISBN-13: 978-0821752852
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,231,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Setting but the Romance is Just Okay, November 17, 2004

By 

ellejir "ellejir" (Virginia, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love's Charade (Paperback)

Jane Feather is a talented writer, but I just could not get into this book. Perhaps it was because so much of the story seemed familiar from other books. I agree that the first scene of the book was *very* reminiscent of the first scene in Georgette Heyer's masterful "These Old Shades", when the Duke of Avon rescues Leon/Leonie from a beating on the streets of Paris (but without the detail of the Leonie's distinctive hair color to catch Avon's eye and make the rescue more believable.)

The heroine of "Love's Charade", Danielle de St. Varennes, is a 17 year old French aristocrat who has been surviving on the streets of Paris disguised as a boy (her entire family has been killed by a pre-French Revolutionary mob) and the hero is Justin, the Earl of Linton, a 34 year old English peer. I confess that I tend to *hate* books with this kind of age disparity between the hero and heroine, particularly when the hero affects a paternalistic attitude toward the heroine and calls her childish nicknames (this book is guilty on both counts and "Brat" is the appellation of choice.) "These Old Shades" had even a greater age disparity between the hero and heroine, but worked better for me because of the development of the characters and the lack of overt lusting by the hero for the teenage heroine. (Justin actually tells Danielle's grandfather "...the woman in her still sleeps. I look forward to the very pleasant task of awakening her." A bit icky, in my opinion, but some might find it romantic.)

The real problem that I had with this book was that Danielle was *such* an incredible "Mary Sue" of a heroine (i.e. outrageously beautiful, amazingly intelligent, wise beyond her years, and good at absolutely *everything* she does)--and even more irritating than the original Leonie with her (supposedly charmingly) reckless behavior and brash speech. Combine this with a relatively bland Justin (who is like the Duke of Avon "Lite") and over 400 pages makes for a long book.

I liked the French Revolution setting and the story is well-written, but I preferred Jane Feather's "Virtue" (an engaging story of a brother-sister team of gamblers bent on revenge--a bit like Georgette Heyer's "The Masqueraders" but without the cross-dressing!)

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of love, not so much charade, August 8, 2002

By 

Brian Almquist "-baa-" (Iowa City, IA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love's Charade (Paperback)

One of the frequent problems with many romances that I've read is that the author has devotes a great deal of her creative energy in devising magnificent and fantastically complex heroes. In comparison, the young woman to be paired with this perfect specimen of tormented masculinity is usually bland and uninteresting. The author has already spent her creative juices. The interesting thing about Jane Feather's LOVE'S CHARADE is that we have the opposite problem.

Danielle is a stunning creation. At 17, she's beautiful, educated, strong-willed, and a witness to horrors that have brought her maturity beyond her years. The traumas of her past leave her driven to provide succor to the gentry dispossessed by the French Revolution, efforts that she pursues with ingenuity and charisma. And on top of that, she is witty, and oh yes, as we mentioned before, stunningly beautiful. Given such a glowing heroine, the 34-year-old hero, despite being twice her age, and allegedly clever and well-connected, is bland in comparison. He is your basic British Earl/Duke/Whatever of near total economic success, with a secret passion for aiding the Crown and no real interest in marriage until he's found the perfect post-adolescent. Their age difference is more than countered by their comparative weight in personality.

Balance! That's all I want! Just a little balance

The plot is fairly pleasant, offering a slight twist on the usual Pimpernalia. It is a bit drawn out, with a couple of clearly unnecessary episodes, including the usual Jealous Misunderstanding, Resigned to Lonely Marriage, and Kidnapped By An Evil French Rapist bits. These only serve to pad the book. Maybe target audience readers feel like they need these steps and I am simply out of synch, but I'm sure that at least two of these three could have been eliminated.

The basic problem with this book is that most of the suspense in a romance is in trying to figure out how the disparate hero and heroine will ultimately be bound together. Since that is resolved fairly early on, the rest of the novel is devoted to whether Danielle will get herself killed in her recklessness.

Polished prose keeps things moving along, and Feather introduces a couple of interesting bits by tying the plot so closely to the French Revolution. The aristocracy that stayed in France was not all wiped out overnight, and those that escaped often found themselves in more dire circumstances than the urban impoverished that they fled. Feather offers another view of the Revolution, one that fills in some of the gaps left by Les Miserables and The Scarlet Pimpernel. For that, there is no reason to regret reading this book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Of Jane Feather's Best Books Ever, April 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Love's Charade (Paperback)

I adored this book! I read it for the first time two years ago and have since re-read it once every couple of months. The age difference between the characters is handled so well that I felt it enhanced the love story rather than detract from it. So many romance novels portray marriages with large age gaps as horrific ones in which wives suffered abuse, neglect, oppression or worse. It was refreshing to see a novel that positively portrayed what was an inescapable historical reality for the eighteenth century. Brava Ms. Feather! You have created a wonderfully spirited and independant heroine and given her a man mature enough to appreciate and understand her strenghth and drive instead bieng threatened to the point of unreasonable domination, as I believe a younger man of the period would have been. This is a thoughtful and deep novel with many levels. It is not a light read but a wonderfully touching one that reminds me, particularly after reading one of Ms.Feather's more current 'light' novels, why I love the author enough to buy her with no additional endorsment but the name Jane Feather on the cover.