Great Regency Novel
Endure My Heart
BRILLIANT!
Joan Smith is one of my top 5 regency authors. Heyer is supreme, of course.
Marion Chesney aka MC Beaton, Barbra Metzger, Emily Hendrickson are the others.
This novel is narrate in the first person. It has a smart heroine, living in a small town/large village, who starts exercising her wits, daring, initiative to become the brains behind smuggling in her part of the country. Running a cell where she has a codename, and her identity is not known to most of the smugglers, who are known as 'the gentlemen'. Widespread involvement in the enterprise, due to poverty in the area, means loyalty is paramount.
The hero is also in disguise, he is really a government agent, and we are not told who he is, we-and the heroine- gradually deduce it.
A deadly cat and mouse game ensues, with barrels of smuggled liquor being brought ashore in the dead of night, multiple times, and hidden in various places in the village, then removed for transportation.
The stakes are high: The heroine-who is of the gentry- faces social disgrace, and public execution if caught. The hero-also gentry-returned from the war to an impoverished estate, needs promotion and to earn money to live on so must catch the smugglers and their leader.
Whoever wins, both lose.
Its VERY well done. FIVE stars. Highly recommended!