Penelope Williamson’s HEARTS BEGUILED – Superb Pre French Revolution Romance!

 

September is Georgian and Regency month so that’s late 18^th century and early 19^th century. This story takes place in the 1780s so it’s a Georgian but the setting is Paris, France and its environs, at the dawn of the French Revolution. It’s the story of Gabrielle, who is poor, but endowed with noble blood and beauty all men admire. At the tender age of 16, she loses her young husband and her mother on the same day.

 

Pregnant and alone, she runs from her husband's father the duc de Nevers who would take her child and banish her to a cloister—or should she refuse, he will send her to prison. She escapes from him and his lackey, a creepy lawyer named Louvois, and manages to barely scrape out a living until she is rescued from life in the slums of Paris by a kind pawnshop owner who becomes a father of sorts to her.

 

Through her work for the pawnbroker, she meets the dashing and mysterious Maximilian de Saint-Just, a brilliant scientist and bastard son of the comte de Saint-Just. Max has turned his apartment into a science lab and is blowing things up as he seeks to discover a fuel for his hot air balloon. In addition to all that, Max has devoted his life to casting dirt on his father's name and is involved in spying for the cabal, an underground network of smugglers out for their own profit.

 

Max’s growing love for Gabrielle makes him want to be a different man.

 

They will face many challenges and both hide secrets that will tear at their love—all the while the country is plunging into revolution and Max is uncovering new scientific discoveries.

 

It's a compelling story, and an early Steampunk if you will, that will sweep you away to 18^th century France—an important time in history. Oh, yeah…it’s also a classic keeper!