Violet
by Jane Feather

Rated 3.5
Reviewed 3/23/97 by Isolde W.
Copyright 1995

Jane Feather always writes books with unusual heros in unusual places. Violet is a book in the V-series: Virtue, Velvet, Valentine, Vixen, Vanity and Vice.

The beginning plot is situated in Portugal, March 1812, in the middle of the Napoleon wars. Colonel Julian St. Simon is a special adjutant from Wellington. He is to set free the partisan "La Violette" who was captured by the French army. He thinks it will be an easy job, but he learns very fast that nothing that has to do with "Tamsyn or Violette" is easy.

Tamsyn had an English mother and her father was the famous "Le Baron" - a robber. She grew up in their world with her own set of rules.

The sparks fly between Julien and Tamsyn. She demands from Wellington, in order to offset information about the partisan, that Colonel St. Simon accompany her to England. She wants to find her mother's family. Her own parents had died during a raid.

We follow Tamsyn and Julian on their trip to England. In England, the unconventional Tamsyn, who has short blond hair and wears pants rather than dresses, is actually out of place.

Very fast the hero and heroine come together. It is only a question of time till Julian finds out that he loves her.

In the beginning, the story is a little difficult to read. But apart from that the book is a great story for true Jane Feather fans.