I never thought I would finish this book. It took me over a month of off and on reading. I was determined to finish it even though I wasn't liking it. I'm glad stuck to it because the last half was better than the first half. It is just so packed with historical details and I'm not too familiar with the Jacobite Rebellion of 1730's in England. When it got more to Colonial America I was hooked. ( )

A painstakingly researched novel of Charles Radcliffe and his secret but legitimate daughter, Jenny. Charles is a hedonistic teen when we first meet him and he really does not get much better as the novel progresses. When his elder brother returns from France, determined to put James on the throne of England, he joins the cause but he never seems to have the fervour of his brother. He seems to inspire a devotion in women that is totally unwarranted and that includes his daughter, Jenny. Her story is the bulk of the novel but I kept wishing that she could choose better men to be devoted to, her father and Rob WIlson, who mainly seems to remind her of her Northern home. The Jacobite revolts are not part of history that I am particularly interested in and mainly find very confusing(though nothing is the Wars of the Roses!) so I enjoyed the basic story telling and some of the characters but I didn't care much about the settings, which are really a major component. I just kept wishing that poor Jenny could have some better men in her life.

This began and ended quite well but I felt it sagged a bit in the middle like a bad souffle, and I found myself counting pages to the end. Some fascinating sections in the jail - it seemed if you were a member of the gentry and had enough money you could pretty much come and go as you pleased. Funny what you pick up in these historical novels. ( )

Devil Water is a saga about a family living in Jacobean England. Charles Radcliffe and his older brother, James, the Earl, join a revolution to foist the German king from the throne of England and replace him with “the Pretender,” the “true king of England,” James. However, the rebellion is quashed and both brothers end up in prison. The rest of the novel covers Charles’s prison escape, subsequent run on the lam, remarriage, and relationship with his child, Jenny.

What I particularly liked about this novel is the ever-changing locale—from the northern moors of England to the soot-swept streets of London to the brisk winds of Calais to the green-gilded lands of Virginia. The love story between Jenny and Rob is predictable and trite, and truly detracted from an otherwise epic saga. The relationship between the brothers is too swift and given far too little attention, as the dichotomy between "good" brother and "bad" brother is an interesting tension.

Furthermore, another (rather minor) annoyance is the abundance of comma splices throughout the novel. For instance: “It might be that Betty had helped him, at least he was still alive, though that might also be chance, since a few other condemned Jacobites had not been summoned” (199) and “The Captain shouted his orders, the ship proceeded the mile and a half upriver to Harrison’s Landing, which was as bustling as Westover’s had been deserted” (352). Those are just a couple of examples in a book rife with them; however, if you’re not a grammarian, these mistakes probably won’t bother you. ( )

Anya Seton once again delivers a fantastic novel, her level of historic research is not often matched. It is very rare that you find contemporary novels of this quality although there are contemporary novelists writing about historical era with the same passion and accuracy. ( )