February is pirate, privateer and love on the high seas month on the blog… all those swashbuckling heroes and the heroines who love them. I’m starting with one of my very favorites by a great author.
For those of you who read and loved McBain’s Moonstruck Madness, as I did, this is the next book in the Dominick trilogy. The first was set in England and this one begins there but soon takes off for America and the Caribbean. You should read all three, as they comprise one story. This one begins the romance of Dante and Rhea, which concludes in book 3. The original story was a bodice ripper (I have the original). I don’t know if they changed the new edition.
Set in 1769, this is the story of Dante Leighton, captain of the Sea Dragon and Marquis of Jacqobi who is hoping a buried treasure will return him the wealth he needs for revenge against the man who took from him Merdraco, his family estate in England, and Rhea Dominick, the beautiful and sweet oldest child of Sabrina and Lucien, Duchess and Duke of Camareigh, who we met in the first book. Rhea is now seventeen and the object of revenge by the Duke’s cousin. Abducted and sent aboard a ship to the Colonies, Rhea escapes one man’s evil plans for another’s.
McBain weaves many threads together for an exciting tale of betrayal, revenge and love wrapped around a hunt for a sunken treasure ship. Actually it is a very long but very absorbing introduction to the third novel, Dark Before The Rising Sun. I could not put it down and so appreciated McBain’s command of the English language and her attention to vivid detail. It is superbly written.
You will soon be lost in the world of Dante’s ship the Sea Dragon and feel Rhea’s intense longing to return home to Camareigh even as her desire grows for the brooding ship’s captain. Rhea is a courageous, unselfish heroine with a fondness for God’s creatures and those in need of help. Dante is a self-absorbed aristocrat turned hardened American privateer and smuggler who is not beyond taking a duke’s daughter.
I promise you will love it but get the next one for the end of the story!
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| Original cover |
The Dominick trilogy:
· Moonstruck Madness (1977) Sabrina and Lucien
· Chance The Winds Of Fortune (1980) their daughter, Rhea and Dante
· Dark Before The Rising Sun (1982) Rhea and Dante (cont’d.)
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