Customer Reviews

Velvet

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jane Feather is one of my favourite authors and this was by far her best novel, unparalleled even in comparison to her other novels. I loved Gabrielle de Beaucaire, who was the most inspiring and liberated heroine of all Ms. Feather's books. I found Nathaniel Praed a little stuffy, but the romance between them was sizzling and the adventure was heartstopping! Definitely a novel I will treasure always.

This is my favorite Jane Feather book. A very liberated heroine, mature and experienced, is a nice change from the usual innocent virgin found in so many other romance novels, even Ms. Feather's. Enjoy!

There were limited reviews on this but since they were all positive, I gave it a go. I did enjoy the book overall, however I have to say it just didn't seem romantic or connected. The hero is a spymaster for England and the heroine is a spy for France set at the time of Napolean's terror. I loved the strength of Gabby as a character, but wasn't quite convinced of the love she developed for our hero. She had two great loves in her life, but she seemed more like a slave to sex than to love. On the hero's side, quite frankly, outside of being good in bed, Nathaniel seemed like a total loser. Still grieving his wife lost in childbirth six years before, he becomes a terrible friend, a terrible father and an all around not nice person. They both throughout the entire book do not trust or are trying to manipulate each other, but keep throwing caution to the wind because they can't keep their hands off each other...recklessly and indiscreetly so for two trained spies, it just didn't add up. Right from the start, Gabby is intent on seducing Nathaniel to become a double agent as part of her revenge because Nathaniel gave the order to assasinate her lover. She sleeps with him, even though she hates him, and because the chemistry is so great, she's already starting to fall for him. I just couldn't sink my teeth into it. As for the spy element, I'm not even sure why she needed to become a double agent in the first place, it was all wrapped up like they were fighting on the same side the entire time for the good of Europe, but just couldn't put their cards on the table due to their alleged loyalties. She was initially motivated by revenge, but I don't even know what that revenge would have been. It certainly wasn't to kill him or even make him look like a fool... I'm still asking what was the revenge she was plotting that would slake the emotion of having her lover die in her own arms? Having said that, the book was much more focused on sex as the mechanism to bring these two together and outweighed some of the more romantic aspects that go along with learning about one another and seeing the inner self. Right up until the remaining pages, Gabby chases after Nathaniel to try and save his life, when she gets there, he doesn't listen to her explanantion, learns she still has access to government secrets, calls her a whore and slaps her from feelings of betrayal... she has to scream she's pregnant so he won't hurt her further. If actions like this happened towards the beginning of the novel, I think I could have stomached it more, but with 22 pages to go, you'd think a relationship would have progressed a little further than that. So with probably more detail than most, I liked the heroine in principle, didn't care for the hero, and was confused when it was over.

I love this story , it's wonderful , he was so full of things .. he is gentle when he should , angry when he must ,loving too .Her love for him was great and their lifes wasn't important like their love.. Read it and thank Jane for writing such a lovely story

I think at this point anything I say will be redundant. All the other reader comments cover my sentiments exactly. I loved Gabrielle as a strong, determined, intelligent woman and they are both wonderful characters. She also irritated me that she condemned him without knowing or giving thought to it but then there wouldn't have been a story. I agree also that 2 of her Charm Bracelet series were not my type of reading. But she made up for it with the first one "The Emerald Swan" which is my absolute favorite, as I wrote in my comment. I was also thrilled to find another beautiful step-back by Pino Dangelico in this book. He has done so many for her books and I wonder sometimes if I buy them as much for her great writing as his beautiful step-back illustrations. Buy this book, you will love it.

This book is not good as "Vice" and "Violet" but definetly better than "The Diamond Slipper". The nicest part of "Velvet" is Jake, the hero's six-year-old son. That boy looks like a promising character for a sequel book!

I believe this is one of the best books on historical romance that i've ever read, cried upon and marvelled at. Nathaniel Praed is a truly cool guy, a sophisticated and suave secret agent (reminds me of Timothy Dalton's James Bond). And Gabrielle, it has always been that Italian actress, Monica something whose fame is rising in Hollywood, whom i believe should grace her character.

And whilst i applauded Gabrielle's skills (hunting, horseriding, safe cracking) , I just do not agree that she can join the hunting troop without as much as remorse looking at the activities. Anyway, as she's not as squeamish as I am, I think this is one of her strongest feature. If not, she wont have been able to safe Nathaniel (cutting the rope with the piece of glass ) in the last fighting sequence in the boat to France.

The actress I have in mind for the part of Gabrielle is Kate Winslet. What I like about Gabrielle is that she's strong, passionate, adventurous, and very caring. What I don't like about Gabrielle is that she accused Nathaniel of murdering her lover without knowing the truth. My favorite part was when she warned Nathaniel about Talleyrand's letter, despite being pregnant, and then they had to fight those after them aboard the ship along the French coast. This begins on page 411.