Mist of Midnight (Daughters of Hampshire) by Sandra Byrd {Review}
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Mist of Midnight by Sandra ByrdSeries: Daughters of Hampshire #1
Find the Author: Website, Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads
Also in this series: Bride of a Distant Isle
Also by this author: Bride of a Distant Isle
Genres: Christian Fiction, Christian Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance, Victorian Gothic Romance
Published by Howard Books on March 10, 2015
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
Source: Blog Tour
Buy on Amazon | Buy on BN.com | Buy on Thriftbooks
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In the first of a brand-new series set in Victorian England, a young woman returns home from India after the death of her family to discover her identity and inheritance are challenged by the man who holds her future in his hands.
Rebecca Ravenshaw, daughter of missionaries, spent most of her life in India. Following the death of her family in the Indian Mutiny, Rebecca returns to claim her family estate in Hampshire, England. Upon her return, people are surprised to see her...and highly suspicious. Less than a year earlier, an imposter had arrived with an Indian servant and assumed not only Rebecca's name, but her home and incomes.
That pretender died within months of her arrival; the servant fled to London as the young woman was hastily buried at midnight. The locals believe that perhaps she, Rebecca, is the real imposter. Her home and her father's investments reverted to a distant relative, the darkly charming Captain Luke Whitfield, who quickly took over. Against her best intentions, Rebecca begins to fall in love with Luke, but she is forced to question his motives—does he love her or does he just want Headbourne House? If Luke is simply after the property, as everyone suspects, will she suffer a similar fate as the first “Rebecca”?
A captivating Gothic love story set against a backdrop of intrigue and danger, Mist of Midnight will leave you breathless
Excerpt included in FREE Howard Books fiction sampler
In the recent past years I discovered a new author, Christine Lindsay, and her novel Shadowed in Silk was my first experience reading characters set in India. While Mist of Midnight is actually set in Victorian England, it has an Indian native flavor with the heroine living her growing years as a youth to missionary parents and aristocratic English gentry. Yet disaster sends her home to what might no longer exist.
Intrigue, friendship, romance, hardship, pride, adventure, feminist independence, and gentlemanly flirtations all reside within these pages.
Sandra Byrd writes across the genres yet I know her for Christian Historical Fiction. I fell in love with her narrative pen in her Ladies in Waiting (Henry VIII – Tudor) series and I’m delighted to anticipate the rest of the Daughters of Hampshire series. Mist of Midnight is a different experience as a Gothic Romantic Mystery which brings to mind Jane Eyre and Northhanger Abbey, but is told in a narrative voice I enjoy with plenty of wit on the page.
I found myself to be captivate from the first paragraph to the back cover. Enough mystery to keep me going and enough romance to keep me hopeful. Sandra weaves and incredible historical tale (and keeps my up reading well into the night!)
Now I’ll have to bide my time waiting on the next in her series by going to Christine Lindsay’s sequel in her Twilight of the British Raj series Captured by Moonlight and the latest Michelle Moran‘s Rebel Queen (released February 2015!).
(No spam, I promise. Just creative madness ramblings, reviews and life-stories, with quilting and cross stitch inspiration in between!)
3 Comments
Jaina
This looks really good! I’ve heard of Byrd, but never gotten around to reading her works. Maybe I’ll start with this one. By the way, I nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award here. No pressure if you don’t want to do it. 🙂
CherryBlossomMJ
Jaina, I wanted to thank you! The last few months have been so crazy. I really appreciate you coming here. 🙂
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