NOTE: SPOILERS!!

This is the third in Thane's series of Williamsburg novels; I've read the first but not the second or any others. I enjoyed this, but less than the first book. Perhaps it's just that I'm older, but although I appreciated the romances and the historical detail (especially surrounding the Spanish-American War and the US invasion of Cuba), there were some troubling bits. Thane overuses 'love at first sight,' including an instance in which an adult man falls for a fifteen-year-old girl (whom he initially mistakes for a boy). Somewhat creepy, though of course he's a perfect gentleman and waits for her to grow up.

I was also bothered by a single woman of about fifty who was in love with her double cousin (siblings married siblings in the previous generation). Convinced when young that their relationship wouldn't be possible, he married someone else while she remained a single, faithful friend. Although she's courted by a perfectly nice man in this novel, she turns him down for the sake of her hopeless love for her cousin. Sad.