Black Silk Book

Lately I'm feeling like an unsuccessful truffle pig, rooting around the myriad HRs being cranked out by an unbelievable amount of authors (or wannabes who are just putting words to paper with varied success). Every once in a while there's a really good one, just to keep this truffle pig from giving up.

But a lot of the time when I need a good romance for my exercise bike time I find myself rooting through my "keeper" boxes. That's how I came to reread BLACK SILK this week. This was one of my least favorite Judith Ivory books. The heroine seemed a bit off in behavior and the hero less than heroic (although very flawed heroes are common in Ivory books). But it's amazing what getting older and also being deprived of new good HRs will do to one's perspective.

Heroine Submit (groan, yes, that's her name) is the widow of a marquess much older than she. Married at 16, her personality had been less than formed and much of her formation is due to her years with her old, rather dominant (but kind and loving to her) husband. She seems a bit prissy, prim, straitlaced, quiet, and not given to having fun. But all these things that I didn't like about her I now see are not really her fault and I have much more sympathy for her.

Hero Graham Wessit, the Earl of Netham, is the nephew of Henry, the deceased marquess. Orphaned young, he lived with Henry and Henry's illegitimate son William during his boyhood, but Graham went the opposite direction from Submit under Henry's tutelage. Rebellious, he turned out fun-loving, somewhat irresponsible and irreverent.

Now that Henry is dead, Submit and William are in a legal battle over their inheritance and Graham finds himself involved peripherally. In addition, Graham has some issues of his own to worry about: 1) a young lower-class woman falsely accusing him of impregnating her, with everyone believing her because of his reputation; 2) a mistress who seems to want more from him than he is prepared to give; 3) a popular serialized newspaper story of a rake's life, a rake whose similarity to Graham is unmistakable.

The plot meanders a lot but the book is so well written that I even enjoyed the tangents that never led anywhere. These are complex, complicated, well-developed characters and their tangled lives made for a very good Victorian romance, IMO.