Sheila Simonson

Simonson is one of the best of the current Regency novelists. Here her heroine, Emily, having lost both husband and baby daughter, offers to take in other children to raise with her own son, Matt. Captain Richard Falk deposits his infant son and young daughter with her before returning to fight Napoleon. Emily falls in love with his children and, during their correspondence, with him. However, Falk, illegitimate son of a duchess, is in danger from his mother's family, who see him as a threat to the dukedom. With a little help from friends, all ends well. The characters are well drawn and appealing, and if the plot seems a bit preposterous, the reader is having too much fun to worry about it.Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Coll. Lib., Davenport, Ia.