The fiery and outspoken
adopted daughter of one of England's most formidable women, Shemaine O'Hearn
has made powerful enemies. And now her adversaries have found a way to remove
the hot-blooded beauty from her life of privilege: by falsely convicting Shemaine
of thievery, and sending her in shackles to America, where she is to be sold in
indentured servitude to the highest bidder.
In a bustling port city in the colony of
Virginia, she becomes the servant of Gage Thornton --- a shipbuilder with a
young child in need of a nanny. And despite whispered rumors condemning the
handsome widower for the untimely death of his wife, Shemaine cannot ignore her
desire for this caring, generous and enigmatic stranger who silently aches with
his growing need for her --- even as grave peril reaches out from across a vast
ocean to threaten their flowering love.
(Image and Description from Goodreads)
Petals on the River by
Kathleen Woodiwiss went to the top of my favourite romance list as soon as I
finished the first time around. And the terrible thing is that I very nearly
never read it as my first experience with the authors work was The Elusive Flame where the ‘hero’ rapes
the heroine and he sees no problem with this. Of course everyone gets their
happily ever after (well those deserving of one anyway) but I just couldn’t
forgive the hero for his actions and I would have loved it if the heroine had
killed the rapist swine in his sleep – wishful thinking on my part obviously.
BUT something made me give Kathleen Woodiwiss another try and thankfully Petals on the River was the one that I
picked up.
Shemaine (heroine) is framed
for stealing and after not being given a fair hearing she is shipped off to the
colonies as criminal. She survived several attempts on her life and manages to
ward off unwanted attentions to be bought as a bondslave when she reaches
America.
Gage Thornton is a widower
with a young son (because, do widowers in romance novels ever come any other
way?). He isn’t interested in marrying again (yet! *wink wink*) and decides the
best way to get a care for his home and his son is to buy one. So her buys
Shemaine and is, of course, almost immediately taken with her. But there are
some who are dead set against a beautiful young woman living under the same
roof as him, and then there are the accusations that he had something to do
with his wife’s death.
And who is responsible for
framing Shermaine, and what about her family?
Well, you’ll have to read to
find out all that ;)
One of the things that I
loved the most about this book was is Andrew, Gage’s son. He is adorable.
Shemaine is a strong heroine
who tries to make the best of the situation she finds herself in. My favourite
part is when she doesn’t think twice about confronting the man who was a
constant threat to her during the voyage when she sees him abusing someone who
can’t defend themselves. She hits him with a stick! I loved it.
Gage is a strong and honourable
hero- he had plenty of opportunities to take advantage of Shemaine and he
leaves her alone. He tried his best to protect her from everyone who tries to
abuse her, either physically or verbally.
And then there is the colourful
cast of good, bad and indifferent characters.
There are some points that
make me roll my eyes, like the unintended feel up (which made me cringe and
laugh at the embarrassment factor) and then there are points when they talk like
they walked out of the middle of a Shakespeare play.
This is still one of my
favourite favourites after 6 years!
Meg Cabot’s books (at least the ones that I have read) are
great fun…well, the first time around anyway, I have come across very few of
her books that I have been able to read more than once for some reason. I don’t
know why this is as I thoroughly enjoy them the first go around. Any thoughts on why that could be?
And, even if they don’t think they are, each of her heroines
are intelligent and view the world in their own ways. Whether they use big
words that could slaughter by score in a game of Scrabble or just some witty
observation, they know their own minds. 
