Beneath a western moon Book

I'm not sure who linked me to the author's website, I know I had read about her on Dear Author sometime before.
It might have been Li reading another in the series or DearAuthor talking about the current release in the series...
I was totally impressed with her essays about her research and the excerpts I read of the books. Once I had finished this book, I went online right away to buy the follow-up.

In any case - if you are a fan of Georgette Heyer's The Spanish Bride - based on the true life diary of Harry and Juana Smith - then the Frasers, Mélanie and Charles, are a look at what might have gone wrong with a war-time decision of a man who never thought he would marry (because of his family background and recent events) offering his hand to support a woman who has impressed him and needs marriage from his point of view (and has no other way of likely survival or acceptance of her circumstances).

I find it fascinating the the author writes in various time-frames in the life of this couple - I decided I'd start with the book that seemed to be earliest chronologically - but the new big publisher release Vienna Waltz (which changes the name of the characters because the author is now writing for a different publisher - how stupid can those publishers be to make it MORE difficult to read in a series!!) is set at the Congress in Vienna roughly two or three years earlier.

There is no info-dumping or As you know, Bob here: we get allusions to decisions that are not explained in this book, but they all serve to explain where the couple stands now - and then there is the mystery - connected to the family and its past, which is why I really enjoyed this more than many other mysteries which I only read for the interaction of the main sleuths. These revelations all have major repercussions in the life of Melanie and Charles and their loved ones.

I'd say this book focuses a lot on Charles' parents and close family, but - as I found out in the follow-up - not even here do we find out everything that actually is buried under the cover of time passing. I loved the supporting gay couple (not sure how likely the tolerance of what they were doing would have been in real life).

Another nifty twist was starting the book after the main couple had been married for some years and had two children! Because the Napoleonic Wars are finally over, they return to London - so we and they get introduced in their current form to the British ton and their family - what there is of that.

The dialogue and the characterisation just work. Really enjoyable for the intrigues and layers of misdirection and the teamwork and problematic relationship between Melanie and Charles.