Palace Circle: A Novel [Paperback]

Rebecca Dean (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 24, 2009

Palace intrigue, romance, and illicit affairs—Rebecca Dean has written a glorious novel that will sweep Philippa Gregory fans off their feet.

Delia Chandler, an eighteen-year-old Southern girl, marries Viscount Ivor Conisborough just before World War II, becoming part of the Windsor court. It’s every girl’s dream come true. But Delia is jolted from her pleasant life when she realizes, after the birth of her two daughters, that Ivor chose her only to bear an heir to his estate. Shortly thereafter, she begins an affair with her husband’s handsome, titled, and frequently scandalous best friend.

When Conisborough is appointed as an adviser to King Fuad of Egypt, Delia exchanges one palace circle for another, far different one. While she sees Egypt as a place of exile, her two daughters regard Egypt as their home. Only when war comes to Cairo—and Delia finally reveals the secret she has kept for so long—can she begin to heal the divisions separating her from those she loves.

Rebecca Dean’s irresistible combination of real events and masterful storytelling will keep readers fascinated until the very last page.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Barbara Delinsky Reviews Palace Circle

Barbara Delinsky is the author of more than seventeen bestselling novels with over twenty million copies in print. Her books include The Secret Between Us, Suddenly, and More Than Friends. Her most recent novel, While My Sister Sleeps, was published in February 2009. Learn more about Barbara Delinsky in the Barbara Delinsky Store, and read her guest review of Rebecca Dean's Palace Circle:

Always intrigued by the family unit--what brings families together, or in turn, what tears them apart--I was immediately drawn to Rebecca Dean’s masterful storytelling in Palace Circle, set in early 20th century England. In many of my novels I examine how families are affected by crisis, change, or death, and it’s the development of how characters react to such situations that I often find most interesting.

In Palace Circle, Delia, strong and confident ahead of her time, is at the center of a swirling maelstrom of family passions. A Virginian belle, she is swept off her feet by Ivor Conisborough, an English aristocrat twenty years her senior. Delia marries Ivor and sets off for glamour and adventure in England–only to learn that life with Ivor is far from what she had expected.

Soon it becomes oh-so obvious that Ivor has married Delia to bear him a son and that his true heart belongs to his long-time lover. Rather than return in shame to Virginia, Delia learns to ignore Ivor’s affair and becomes a favorite at the Royal Court. She charms all the men around her and soon lose her own heart to one of Ivor’s long-time friends. With her beauty, social grace and way with men, she’s both admired and hated by the other women at Court.

Family and what it represents are important to both Delia and Ivor. He never gets his male heir as Delia instead bears two daughters--Petra and Davina--both with their mother’s strong will. Petra’s determination to marry a long-time family friend adds yet another layer of intrigue, while Davina creates turmoil on her own by rejecting the high society life which her parents had planned for her.

Dean’s writing is enveloping. Events and emotions spread across time and space. From Virginia to England, Cairo and back. From the enlightened British society of 1911, to a darkened court during World War II. Love blooms, but not where it’s supposed to... and things are frequently not what they seem. Deep secrets lurk behind the family doors. Mix in some larger-than-life historical figures and the drama of war, and you’ll find yourself flipping the last page before you know it... hating to have reached the end of a truly delectable read.--Barbara Delinsky

From Publishers Weekly

From London to Cairo, in the glittery world of high society before WWII, Dean taps into an exotic and distant world in her page-turning debut. After 18-year-old Virginia belle Delia marries older British aristocrat Ivor Conisborough, they decamp to London and get to work on producing an heir for the aging viscount. Delia is agog at her new friends in high places, but her idyll is trampled when she learns a painful secret about Ivor. Even so, Delia is endlessly infatuated with London, and she eventually has two girls, Petronella and Davina. The family, to Delia's chagrin, is relocated to Cairo on a long diplomatic mission, and here the novel really sings, as Hitler's campaign hits closer to home and everyone seems to have ulterior motives. Davina and Petronella, meanwhile, grow into young women who think of Cairo as home and fall in love with men they meet there. Dean beautifully captures the mood and color of the era—her descriptive passages are marvelous and complement the layered intrigue, romance and deception. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 425 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; Original edition (March 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076793055X
• ISBN-13: 978-0767930550
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,300,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly satisfying easy read, April 4, 2009

By 

Penmouse - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Palace Circle: A Novel (Paperback)

(What's this?)

Palace Circle: A Novel details the life of Delia Chandler Conisborough, a Virgina native, who marries Viscount Igor Conisborough and moves to England. While living in England, Delia discovers her marriage isn't all that it is meant to be, deals with high society and the romantic entanglements that go along with it, and learns the meaning of true love.

As a Viscountess, Delia also learns to deal with the political and diplomatic aspects of the job. She is as important to her husband's career, although she never worked outside of the home, and through her connections her husband succeeds.

Palace Circle: A Novel gives glimpses of the some of the most important historical figures as Delia meets various royal family members and other political figures from numerous countries including England and Egypt.

The author writes her characters with such care they almost seem alive. Each character seems as if they actually walked across this Earth and were truly part of history. Each character from Delia who shows her true southern roots throughout the book to the reserved, and sometimes haughty Sylvia Bazeljette, who provides the counterpoint to Delia's warm southern charm, each brings life to this outstanding novel.

I'd highly recommend this book as a good summer read when you are on vacation or just want to hunker down with a glass of iced tea.

This is an excellent book well worth spending time reading.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not my favorite but not bad., May 23, 2009

By 

Toni Ann Loiacono "Grace" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Palace Circle: A Novel (Paperback)

From the beginning, I was really intrigued with this book. I had no idea what to expect but I did expect a really interesting read...which I got. The time period the story takes place in was a huge draw for me. I love books that take place in the World War I era. Especially when it is a book that cannot be classified as a "war book". I was disappointed, however, that this seemed to be more of a backdrop. I really liked the story of Davina and Darius. They were the most deep characters and had the most personality. I found myself waiting for their story to take over when I was reading. The writing was also really good. It kept me engaged when my interest would perhaps have dwindled with the shifts in point of view.

Palace Circle was not perfect. I had trouble becoming attached to some of the characters. Especially Delia which is especially troubling because the majority of the book is about her. She just wasn't a type of character that I like. She seemed kind of vapid. I was never able to make a connection to her and by the time I was able to kind of like her, the story shifted to Petra. The generational format of this novel could also contribute to this. Once you really start to become interested in a character, the story shifts to another. I find that in novels with formats like this, it is hard to really get into any character's story and become involved in the novel itself. I also found the ending to be a bit disappointing. Without giving it away, it seems like the story broke up in the middle of the novel and no real conclusions were made. I understand that this is the first book in a series but need there to be some loose ends tied up at the end of a book regardless if it is in a series or not.

Overall, I liked Palace Circle. Perhaps not enough to continue with the series but if you like Philippa Gregory or Rosalind Miles, you should definitely pick this up.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars **Spoilers** Appallingly slow and not very accurate., April 16, 2009

By 

K. Varraso (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Palace Circle: A Novel (Paperback)

(What's this?)

Where do I begin? Well, the book begins just before the dawn of the twentieth century, with Delia, a young girl of "Virginia Royalty." She is swept off her feet by Ivor Conisborough, a much older British Count, and married in only two weeks. Ivor is blunt about the whirlwind wedding: he wants an heir, and the sooner the better. He also needs to leave for England at once.

Delia is okay with this and bravely attempt to get Ivor's heir, despite the fact that she discovers some rather ugly things that her husband is hiding -- a beautiful and nasty mistress chief among them. She bravely takes the mistress' brother as her own lover and the two fall in love with the historical backdrop of the early twentieth century silhouetted behind them. The merry band (minus one) head from London to Cairo, along with Delia and Ivor's "heirs:" Petra and Davina, two lovely girls who spend their childhood growing up in protectorate Egypt. As the girls grow, the story develops them into the main characters, leaving their mother behind.

And there the story plonks to a stop. The early pages, which were devoured, turn into a chore to read. The historical aspect of the book, which was never really careful about accuracy, gets even worse: a casual friend mentions that she has a crush (?!?) on the emerging dictator of Germany. Time appears to go back and forth, from the end of World War I to the depression to World War II, all of which are surprisingly shielded from these pampered women. (Which may be true for women of their position)

Lastly, I found the book surprisingly passionless. I'm not expecting a bodice ripper when I read a historical romance, but I expect accurate history and at least some small item of romance. There wasn't a page you couldn't read to your grandmother's nun friend, and she might even be bored. Although the cover notes said this was a real page turner, I didn't find it like that at all. The more I read, the more the book seemed to drag. The writer is clearly talented, but the subject just wasn't her thing. Give her a more modern period to write about, and I'm sure that her next effort will be wonderful. (A continuity checker would be even more helpful to correct the time travel thing that appears throughout the book)