Harbinger of Books

The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Anne Long is quite the interesting tale of a man who is a bit of a celebrity who has been wrong convicted of murder and the only one could save him has conveniently disappeared. Colin Eversea has resigned himself to being hanged so imagine his surprise when he is rescued by Madeleine Greenway. Madeleine has plans rescue Colin and sail to America to begin her new life, but someone has decided to kill Madeleine instead of paying her and what of Colin?? The two set out on quite the adventure to figure it all out and perhaps find something they did not even know they were seeking.

First let me start by saying Ms. Long is truly a very talented writer. The dialogue and settings were perfect you had just enough detail but not to much if that makes sense. I also like he choices in characters – without giving it away Madeleine has a rather interesting history and is quite an unlikely heroine but yet she is quite graceful. I even liked Colin and it was interesting to see him battle so many emotions. The mystery was really cute think Hansel and Gretel with the bread crumb trail but a bit overly convenient – I mean everyone is available when you show up??

I daresay the writing is so good you do almost forget about a few minor details. For example in the beginning we are told Colin has this celebrity type image but throughout the story I could not figure out why? Perhaps it is because we see Colin on the run but I could not quite reconcile why he is so famous. We also learn about this huge feud but we see almost no family interaction so it feels foreign.  I also had some trouble understanding the Colin and Louisa love story – so he is in love with this girl since he was 9 I think and he goes off to war comes back uninjured and proceeds to become a bit of a rake never bidding for Louisa until it is to late then he wants to stop his brother from marrying her? For me it rather distracted from the main romance. The other issue was with Madeleine herself – call me greedy but I wanted a little more back story from her – was her life hard, lonely? Did she have friends? Lots of things unanswered.

This in the end works out to be a very unique lighthearted mystery.