Rondo Allegro

This is another Regency romance in the same vein as Danse de la Folie but to my mind much better written - the story flows better and is more believable.

In Naples. a young part-English girl, Anna Maria Ludovisi, obliges her dying father by contracting a marriage with one of Nelson's captains, Henry Duncannon. Parted by Henry's duties and the French invasion, Anna leaves Naples with her maid and travels to Paris, where she trains as a singer, and joins an opera company when her patroness marries and leaves France.

Eventually, Anna and Henry are reunited shortly before the Battle of Trafalgar, where Henry is wounded. Henry sends Anna home to his family in England while he recovers enough to travel. When Anna meets Henry's family, she show more becomes aware of undercurrents - it seems that he was previously engaged to an ambitious young lady who subsequently jilted him for his older brother, Lord Northcote. Unfortunately for her pretensions, she failed to give her husband an heir - just three daughters. She hopes to reattach Henry, but he has in the meantime fallen in love with Anna.

It's light, but readable for all that. Very much in the style of Georgette Heyer, I found it enjoyable enough to resent putting the book down when I reached my station on the commute.

Recommended. show less

The first half of the book follows Anna around Europe (from Naples through Paris under Napoleon, French and Spanish countryside and cities), after she has lost track of her in-name-only husband in the British Navy. We see the Battle of Trafalgar from her viewpoint helping the surgeon on a British ship. The final section of the book, the only part that really feels like a Regency, takes place in a manor in Yorkshire. Anna’s story keeps changing, in different overlapping plot arcs, but continues to be compelling and satisfying.