Customer Reviews

Rachel's Passage

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In sections alternating between the main characters' perspectives, this beautifully written historical novel lures readers to take sides, and then doubt the side they've taken, in a lawsuit over the custody of a child. The author's thorough research into archaic legal concepts like "self divorce" and "criminal conversation" gives her fictional early American community a solid structure. Sure, it's a romantic story, but the characters are so well depicted and their controversy so sensibly drawn, that the intrigue of the book goes far beyond the simple categorization of its genre.

Rachel's Passage, by Paula Reid has been nomintated by the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award for Best American Historical Romance for 1998. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Rachel's Passage is a wonderful story of a woman who has been charged with "criminal conversation" aka adultery. I loved the way Reid varied between first person and third person narrative. I hope the author plans on writing more books like this, with similar settings.

Girl falls for lazy lout, who we all know is really a bum, because despite his broad shoulders, slim hips, and handsome face, he has a mouth that turns down at the corners. When he runs off for fame and fortune, the noble, intelligent, and kind owner of the local paper comes to court her. But he's old! (30 to her 19) and scarred! (from a saber cut fighting the dern British at General Washington's side.) and he's not the handsome loutish lad, (who also is overfond of drink and deceitful, too. Can you see where this is going? If you guessed straight into marriage and a Big Misunderstanding, you're spot on. Add in self- divorce and criminal conversation (google it. Go ahead, I'll wait.) and some Federalism era politics you've got the basic story ( though considering all the talk of criminal conversation, which still is the legal term on the subject in North Carolina and some other states, Rachel's passage probably has an unintended double meaning.)

Actually, there were some interesting bits here and there, mostly due to Paula Reid (Schwartz)'s good research. She was a friend of my mother's (known as my friend, the romance writer), who also wrote under the names Paula Jonas, Paula Reibel, Paula Reidalos, and regency stuff under the name of Elizabeth Mansfield. I believe she took my mom to a Romance writer's conference once, which pulled my mother to a different sort of book to read. Until that time Georgette Heyers and Jane Austen were her chick lit. For the last 15 or 20 years of her life, whole new worlds were opened up, thanks to that trip.

This book was a recent selection of my book group. It provoked an interesting discussion of women's rights in regards to divorce and custody and how those rights have changed over the years. A search in my library's card catalog turned up several other books written by the author under the name of Elizabeth Mansfield and Paula Jonas. I especially enjoyed "To Spite the Devil."

I loved every word of this book. When I finished reading it I immediately tried to find something else by Paula Reid. I am very selective in choosing my reading material. This one is a definite winner. It was clean and lively and it touched my heart. The characters were real, not out of touch with reality.