I’m a huge fan of Karen Robards historical romances and many
of them grace my best lists.
Dark of the Moon is
another great romance and different because of its plot detour in the middle. It
begins in Ireland in 1784 and tells of Caitlyn O’Malley who, at 15, has lived
on the streets of Dublin disguised as a lad for so long, she no longer sees
herself as a girl. When she tries to pick the pocket of Connor d’Arcy, Earl of
Iveagh, an Irish nobleman, believing him to be English, she is caught.
Connor, having great sympathy for homeless lads, offers “the
boy” a job on his farm with “three square meals a day.” Hungry, she accepts, traveling
with him to Donoughmore Castle where Connor and his younger brothers farm sheep
in the shadow of the burned out castle that was once their home. Caitlyn never considers
her feminine gender will be discovered. She is, of course, wrong.
Connor, whose family has suffered under the dreaded
Protestant Ascendency (“the colonizers of a once-free land”), takes on another
persona at night—the Dark Horseman. Riding with his brothers, all dressed in
black, Connor robs from the rich Ascendency to give to Ireland’s poor. He’s a
very worthy hero and, of course, Caitlyn falls in love with him. But there is a
local landowner, an evil man, who covets what is Connor’s.
This is very well written with great characters and had me
on the edge of my seat wondering what the feisty Caitlyn would do next. But
there’s a turn in the middle that takes Caitlyn to London. You’ll want to read
it all.
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