The Passion of the Purple Plumeria

How wonderful that Miss Gwen finally moves from side character to star! When Jane Wooliston's younger sister Agnes disappears from her English boarding school along with her friend Lizzie Reid, Jane and Gwen head off to England to find them. Joining them in their search is Colonel William Reid, newly arrived from India and expecting to find his daughter safely at school.

All of a sudden there are French spies, missing jewels, and Gothic novels all competing for time on stage. Gwen and William track his older daughter to a hovel where she takes in laundry to support her grandmother who is having memory issues. They also attract footpads which results in William being stabbed and he and Miss Gwen taking shelter in a dubious inn until he show more heals. This gives William a chance to get to know someone other than the imperious Miss Gwen.

I liked that this one brought together earlier plot threads like the missing Jewels of Berar and William's son Jack who is also the Moonstone. I liked that many chapters began with excerpts from Gwen's Gothic novel. I also liked getting to know more about Gwen's backstory and how she became the formidable character we've seen through earlier novels in this series. Colonel William Reid is also a pretty fascinating character who is receiving all kinds of shocks when he arrives in England. I liked getting to know him better. He makes a great partner for Miss Gwen.

The current storyline is also concerned with finding those still-missing Jewels of Berar and has Eloise and Colin very reluctantly teaming up with cousin Jeremy. show less

In the eyes of the world, Miss Gwendolyn Meadows is the fiercely protective chaperone of Miss Jane Wooliston, who is currently one of the belles of Parisian society. But since Jane is also the elite British spy known as the Pink Carnation, Miss Gwen's duties also include strategy, swordsmanship, and a taste for the dangerous work of espionage. Miss Gwen thrives upon the excitement of her double life, but she is forced to return to England when Jane's younger sister goes missing from her prestigious boarding school. A second girl has also disappeared: the youngest daughter of Colonel William Reid, an officer of the British East India Company who has recently returned to England to reunite with his daughters. Now Miss Gwen and Colonel show more Reid must work together to find the missing girls -- and fight their increasing attraction to one another, because Miss Gwen is all too aware that her clandestine activities are the probable reason for the girls' disappearance.

This is the 10th book in Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation series, and as I expected, it was a fun Regency romp complete with legendary Indian treasure, a meeting of the Hellfire Club, and a sinister French master spy. I like the fact that Willig chose a more mature hero and heroine for this installment of the series; it lent a bit of substance to the story, although the book still retains the series' trademark light and fluffy tone. Miss Gwen is in her 40s and has long despaired of ever finding romance, so the relationship between her and Colonel Reid is particularly sweet and satisfying. I also liked how Willig is starting to gather the loose threads from some of her earlier books; for example, Colonel Reid is the father of Alex Reid from The Betrayal of the Blood Lily, and some of the events of that novel are relevant to this story. I am really hoping that Jack Reid, the black sheep of the family, is a hero in one of the future Pink Carnation books! All in all, I'm still enjoying this series and will continue to read more by Willig. show less

The madcap adventures continue! In contemporary times, Eloise and Colin search for the family's fabled treasure, while in the distant past, Miss Gwen finds a challenge that surpasses all her thrilling spy exploits. I admit, I wasn't sure I would enjoy a romance centered on the prickly Miss Gwen. She was a great comic character, a good foil for Jane, and an excellent operative. I did not view her in any sentimental light. I am pleased to report, though, that this novel does an excellent job of making the reader care for Miss Gwen as a person rather than a caricature, and creates a romance for her entirely suited to her personality and style.

Gwendolyn Meadows and Jane Wooliston are summoned back to England after hearing that Jane's show more sister has gone missing from her school. When Gwen arrives at the school to check out the situation - scorning the ineffectiveness of its headmaster and teachers - she meets Colonel William Reid. He is the father of Lizzy Reid, who has disappeared along with her friend, Agnes Wooliston. Gwen is surprised to discover she is attracted to Colonel Reid, a fact she tries to hide and suppress. However, Colonel Reid doesn't make this easy with his gallantry and teasing. She appreciates his confidence, finds him charming and engaging, and feels more comfortable with him since he is closer to her age. On his part, William Reid is at first impressed with Gwen's imperious confidence and relies on her to help solve the mystery of his missing daughter, but he also sees Gwen as an attractive woman buried beneath her stiff layers of propriety and defensive emotional walls. After all, William Reid is not a young gallant, but an older man, who has already had serious relationships in his past and can appreciate a mature and handsome woman. In other words, they are a good match.

Of course, neither of them is willing to admit this at first, especially Gwen, who has determined that a solitary life of spying is her destiny. They can't escape being thrown together as they track down clues about the missing young ladies. An interview with Lizzy's older sister is followed by an encounter with hired thugs, who wound Colonel Reid. Gwen is forced to care for him in a hotel under the guise of being husband and wife; you can imagine the tension developed in this setting. Later, Gwen and William infiltrate a meeting of the infamous Hellfire Club, and their observations of the bizarre rituals and their close quarters while spying on it all manage to heighten sexual tension between the two. Plenty of obstacles stand in the way of a happy union, though: Gwen thinks William feels sorry for her, she doesn't want to leave Jane, and William isn't sure Gwen feels the same way he does. When he discovers that Gwen is a spy, and may have been using him to get close to his family, their budding relationship is pushed to the edge of ruin.

Meanwhile, Jane has been doing investigating on her own, and Gwen is crushed when she realizes she has been kept in the dark. Jane didn't want Miss Gwen to know that the vanished girls are linked to Colonel Reid's son, Jack, also known as the French spy the Moonflower. Jack turned on his French employers and made off with a valuable treasure, the Moon of Berar. Surely, the missing jewels and the missing girls are connected. In true Pink Carnation fashion, the espionage, romantic problems, and relational tangles build to a climax that explodes with action and confessions, resolving the issues of the book while leaving room for other stories to be developed.

Another installment in a unique series that I am really going to miss when it ends (with book twelve). The pacing is suspenseful, the characters are all engaging, the spy stuff is a blast, and the romance is steamy. I love that all the books incorporate witty banter and ridiculous scenarios that are given reasonable enough contexts to exist. Willig can find the compassionate angle in every character, it seems. In this book, she took a prickly character (yes, I used that word twice, but it really does best describe Gwen prior to this book) and added depths that made her sympathetic and real. I didn't think I could be invested in a love story for Miss Gwen, but I totally was. Also, she stops being Miss Gwen in this novel and becomes Gwen; not a prim spinster "chaperon" but a woman of her own interests and passions. The longer story lines involving Jane as the Pink Carnation also get real development here, with her drastic decision at the end, and the revelation of The Gardener's identity. The series is moving toward its final destination, but it has not lost any steam along the way. I am excited to read the final two volumes awaiting me. show less

You would think at 10 books in this series I would get sick of it, however, the exact opposite is true…I keep falling even more head over heels in love with Willig’s Pink Carnation series. They are just pure amazingness : ) The wit in these books is outstanding and she is one of three authors (as of yet) who can make me laugh out loud while reading on a regular basis. Gah, I want the next one is this series NOW!

If you’re not familiar with Willig’s writing style, it is one that flips between two different storylines; one in the past (Bonaparte’s time) and one in present day. All except one of her novels in this series is written in this manner. In the first few books I felt the present day storyline could have been done away show more with, but I now I truly care about these modern folks and do actually take the time to read their stories.

In Passion of the Purple Plumeria we have as the main character Miss Gwendolyn Meadows, the governess of Jane Wooliston. Miss Gwen has always been an imperious and rather humorous (because she’s so blunt) character in previous novels so I was very interested (and a little nervous) to see how a book focusing on her would turn out. I was afraid I wouldn’t believe her story because of what I had already read about her beforehand…but I needn’t have worried. Willig did a splendid job of keeping the story just as believable, action-packed, humorous, and as full of passion as all of her other novels. This one in particular had great banter back and forth between Miss Gwen and her Colonel Williams.

I wish I could get everyone to read this series….is the next one out yet? show less

Hooray Gwen! Stubborn, witty, adventurous, capable Gwen... getting to see inside her head and see her vulnerable as well as fierce. Fun spy plot. Funny bits. I cackled out loud on the subway.
Also... I liked the modern story frame better than I had elsewhere in the series, found it better crafted, less intrusive. Clever bit of mirroring between past and present.
May need to go back and reread series for Amy and Henrietta and Miles fix.

I love the banter between Miss Gwen and Col. Reid in this book. It ranks with The Seduction of the Crimson Rose for the best banter in the series. It's also always impressive how Lauren Willig can show new sides of characters that we already know when they get a book from their point of view. The books up to now have only shown Miss Gwen as the younger generation understand her; getting inside her own head and also seeing her as a man roughly her own age (or a bit older) does gives us the chance to see her through fresh eyes while still remaining true to the character that we love.

I didn't enjoy the modern bits quite as much in this one. I'm not somebody who routinely dislikes them, but the find-the-treasure plot struck me as slightly show more ridiculous. Furthermore, it didn't seem to me that anything actually developed in Eloise and Colin's relationship this time around. By the end of the previous book, it was established that they'd be going long distance while Eloise returned to America to teach. In this book, Eloise angsted a lot about the fact that she was going to be returning to America to teach and they had a conversation near the end about the fact that they'd just have to go long distance for a while. Also apparently Eloise is willing to give up her own flat and move in with Colin, which is itself an indication of seriousness because it means she's wiling to count enough on their not breaking up to risk being out of a place to live if they do, yet still insists that she isn't sure how serious their relationship really is. The framing device doesn't offend me in itself but Eloise just bothered me in this book. show less

Gwendolyn Meadows has been the companion of Jane Wooliston, the Pink Carnation, since the start of the series and now we finally get to see who she really is! Jane's younger sister Agnes has gone missing so Jane and Gwendolyn return to England to find her. They are thrown together with Colonel William Reid, the father of Agnes roommate, also missing. Gwen and William concentrate on the search while Jane waits for news. The reader us treated to the background story of Gwen which is sensational. At the same time, as in all the other Pink Carnation novels, the reader also sees the current time romance of Eloise and Colin and the difficulties that they encounter during the research saga.

One of the best so far!