A Marriage of Convenience…Gaunt and wearing an eye patch, Major Ian Cameron returns to India after being freed from horrendous captivity in Central Asia. Thoughts of his beautiful fiancée helped him survive his imprisonment, but much can happen when a man has supposedly been dead for two years, and his return brings him face to face with how much he has lost. An unexpected inheritance gives him … inheritance gives him the opportunity to return home to Scotland and begin a new life. First, though, he must fulfill the dying wish of the Russian officer who had shared his captivity by delivering the colonel’s journal to his niece, Larissa Alexandrovna Karelian.
The daughter of tempestuous Russian aristocrats, Laura Stephenson loved her quiet English stepfather and was happy to follow him to India as companion and hostess. His death leaves her adrift—until a handsome, haunted Scot appears to deliver her uncle’s journal.
Startled to find a grown woman rather than a little girl, Ian quickly realizes that Laura is uniquely qualified to be his wife in an unconventional marriage. She accepts his offer and together they begin the long journey home to Britain with a side trip to the mountains to retrieve the belongings her uncle left with a friendly maharajah. In the process, they are swept into an adventure that threatens the future of India, and brings them together with a love and passion that is more than either of them had dared dream of.
The Silk Trilogy:
#1 Silk and Shadows
#2 Silk and Secrets
#3 Veils of Silk
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USAToday bestselling author, Mary Jo Putney was born in Upstate New York with a reading addiction, a condition for which there is no known cure. Her entire romance writing career is an accidental byproduct of buying a computer for other purposes.
Her novels are known for psychological depth and intensity and include historical and contemporary romance, fantasy, and young adult fantasy. Winner of numerous writing awards, including two RITAs and two Romantic Times Career Achievement awards, she has six times had books listed among the Library Journal’s top five romances of the year, and three times had books among the top ten romances of Booklist, the magazine of the American Library Association.
Her favorite reading is great stories, but in a pinch she’ll settle for the backs of cereal boxes. She’s delighted that e-publishing can now make available books that have been out of print.
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Mary Jo Putney is one of my favorite romance authors!
Review of audiobook version of fast-paced, Victorian-era, action-adventure romance with an exotic, East Indian setting
During the events of Book 2 in this trilogy, Silk and Secrets, Scottish aristocrat and British Army officer, Ian Cameron, was rescued by his sister and brother-in-law from a hellish, nearly two-year captivity in a lightless pit of a prison in Bokhara, in Uzbekistan. He was frequently tortured, and in the process blinded in one eye. He is skin and bones and can barely eat because of being starved for so long, and he has trouble sleeping because of PTSD nightmares. Nevertheless, he only takes enough time staying with his relatives to somewhat recover his strength and sanity before setting out for India to reunite with his fiancée. He is convinced that if he can just marry the woman he loves, he can manage to come through on the other side of his horrendous ordeal. Unfortunately, when he reaches the British regiment where he had been stationed in India, he discovers with bitter dismay that the woman he loves has married a fellow British officer and is visibly pregnant. It is small comfort when he learns from his younger brother, a fellow officer, that she only married another because the British government declared him dead, and had intensely mourned his supposed demise. When Ian’s brother further informs Ian that he has inherited the title of Lord of Falkirk, he decides to resign his commission in the military and return to Scotland, with the hope that he will find a reason to go on living by fulfilling his new obligations. But before he begins his journey home, he is determined to fulfill the final request of a Russian named Pyotr, a fellow prisoner in the pit in Bokhara who was executed. Just before his death, Pyotr begged Ian to deliver to his niece, Larissa Alexandrovna, a Bible with his journal written inside it. In the process of seeking her out, Ian discovers that Larissa now goes by the name of Laura Stevenson, having anglicized her first name and taken the surname of her beloved stepfather. Her Russian mother died some time ago, and her stepfather has just died, leaving Laura destitute and without protection. Observing that, in her own way, Laura is almost as emotionally damaged as he is, in an impulse of gallantry and fellow feeling, he proposes to her and, when she accepts, these two wounded souls initiate a platonic marriage.
Fans of the classic, romance-genre, marriage-of-convenience trope will very much enjoy this exciting story. Laura and Ian are sympathetic, honorable, courageous protagonists whom I was rooting for, both individually and as a couple, throughout this wonderful novel. This story is set in a fascinating, exotic location, and Ian and Laura experience many dangerous adventures, heroically handled by these intrepid protagonists, which keep their story moving along at a rapid, thrilling pace. The evolution of their slowburn, romantic relationship, from strangers, to comrades in danger, to friends, and finally to lovers with a lovely HEA, is extremely well done.
It is not essential to have read the other two books in this terrific, Victorian trilogy set in 1841, because each book stands on its own with no cliffhanger. However, it is a much richer experience to read them all, and in order. In particular, Ian is an essential subcharacter in Book 2, which offers a direct experience of his rescue from captivity, on stage, rather than only hearing about it briefly in narrative form in this novel.
Since the great majority of MJP’s novels are set in the Regency period, it is a fun change of pace to read a romance by her set decades later, in the 1840’s, and far away from the typical romance setting of either England or the USA. This novel is extremely well researched, and the exotic setting in India comes vividly to life.
I first read this novel when it was originally released in 1992 in mass market paperback form. I reread it multiple times in that format and then, some years ago, I had the opportunity to re-purchase it in Kindle format as well. I had been hoping for some time that this book would eventually come out in audiobook format, too, and my wish has finally come true. Just this past week, I have had the opportunity to experience it as an Audible audiobook. It is narrated by the talented, British, audiobook narrator and voiceover artist, Siobhan Waring. She does a wonderful job acting out distinct voices for male and female characters of all ages, and many different regional dialects. It is a delightful way to experience this classic, historical romance.
I rate this story as follows:
Heroine: 5 stars
Hero: 5 stars
Subcharacters: 5 stars
Romance Plot: 5 stars
Action-Adventure Plot: 5 stars
Setting: 5 stars
Writing: 5 stars
Audiobook Narration: 5 stars
Overall: 5 stars
This book is like a vacation. It pulls you into the story from page one, surrounds you with the sights and sounds and scents of India, and keeps you going to the very end. I am a huge fan of Mary Jo Putney’s books in general but this one is arguably my favorite. It’s just an incredible ride, beginning to end.