Petronela Ungureanu

Violet had previously had a large house and servants but due to her father's health problems she had to find a job to support them. She applies as a housekeeper in a home that is owned by Lord Wilton and gets the job immediately due to her background. Even though she is a beautiful young lady, she is more proud of her education and is very outspoken for the young women in this time period. Lord Wilton is a handsome young man who is distraught over the death of his wife and rarely leaves his room until he meets Violet. Will she be able to help him heal from his heartache and loss?

This book is very interesting - the clothes and the manners of the day are well done and there is the perfect amount of intrigue and romance in the novel. There is an interesting secondary character, Captain Thunder, a friend of Lord Wilton's from American who adds another romance interest to the story line.

I definitely enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. It's a fun read even if you don't usually read historical fiction.
(Thanks to the author for a copy of this book for a fair and honest opinion.)… (lisätietoja)

This début story from Ungureanu caught my attention from the blurb alone. It sounded like an interesting story line. I’m glad I read this one, but I feel that it was still a bit rough around the edges.

This is a short story of around 6000 words. There are parts of the short story form that I feel worked for the story, but I feel it may have also hindered the story from fully developing. There is a place very unlike Earth in this story, and outside of the Seven Worlds. Of those the characters only visit one of them, and it’s for a brief time. I don’t feel that the title fits with this either, because the main character, if anything, is lost in the world of the Daevas because that’s where she was held. But it’s not part of the seven worlds, (at least not how I read it in the story).

Another thing that irked me a bit was, what I feel is, the overuse of ellipses in the dialogue. I don’t mind when they are used occasionally. There is a place for them in dialogue, and a bit in the regular prose, but in the later half of the book I felt that there came about too frequently and became cumbersome to the reading. There are other ways to create the same effect of the “…” without having to use them each time.

Even though I feel that the ending was a little rushed and left more questions than conclusions, I did enjoy the story. I liked the Daevas and how they were described. The world building wasn’t very extensive, but it worked for the most part for a short piece. I feel that the relationships between the characters could have been fleshed out more to help sympathize with those the reader might be on the fence with, in the who to like/trust way. But there’s a good basis for something much larger and even more enjoyable here.

The ending, while I can’t really get into it due to my avoidance of spoilers, left me wanting to know more about what the author was trying to convey. There’s a great deal more to be known about the Daevas and this mysterious realm where humans are outsiders. I hope that Ungureanu explores it more and shares with her readers.… (lisätietoja)