Shores of Desire

Shores of Desire (1997) Tracy Grant

This is a boinking book, but it is also a marvelous historical mystery.

Set in 1815.

Robert Melton and his son are traveling to Scotland to try to discover why his wife was murdered. Because he is a French spy, he is traveling under a false name and not telling the truth about why he is searching for information on Lucie.

Emma Blair is a widow with a young daughter who is managing her family’s household and trying to keep the feud between her family and her neighbors from blowing up into a war.

I really enjoyed the mystery here, as well as the background of the war between England and France. I especially like the look at how the French about the war and about Napoleon. The French revolution was conflicting for who wanted a revolution like the United States had, but instead got the guillotine and blood in the streets.

I quite liked Robert, who (despite being a spy) is quite honorable.

while I’m not a paragon of virtue, that’s one place I draw the line.”
“Seducing governesses?”
“Seducing any woman whose livelihood is dependent upon her respectability.”

He also believes deeply in what the French Revolution was supposed be, which is problematic.

I also very much liked Emma, who is attempting to deal with the death of her husband, and the issues they had that were never resolved by his death.

She had never been able to believe that God had a plan for allocating loss and pain. It was easier to blame men’s penchant for making war. How else to account for the randomness of death?

Another thing I particularly liked about this story was that the main characters were a widow and widower who had children–they were both grownups who knew what they wanted. And it made the romance far more realistic.

But as I said, I especially liked the mystery, and the difficulty it caused between the hero and heroine.
Rating: 9/10

Published by NYLA

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