LESSONS IN FRENCH

Author: Laura Kinsale ISBN: 9781402237010 2/2010 HISTORICAL Publisher: SOURCEBOOKS
Time Period: Regency

He's always been trouble... Trevelyn and Callie are childhood sweethearts with a taste for adventure. Until the fateful day her father discovers them embracing in the carriage house and in a furious frenzy drives Trevelyn away in disgrace... Exactly the kind of trouble she's never been able to resist... Nine long, lonely years later, Trevelyn returns. Callie is shocked to discover that he can still make her blood race and fill her life with mischief, excitement, and scandal. He would give her the world, but he can't give her the one thing she wants more than anything—himself... For Trevelyn, Callie is a spark of light in a world of darkness and deceit. Before he can bear to say his last good-byes, he's determined to sweep her into one last, fateful adventure, just for the two of them...

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

The book's title, LESSONS IN FRENCH, is a clever trick on the author's part.  Technically speaking, yes, Callie is learning French from Trev, but probably not in the way her father intended.  Despite darker undertones, the book is playful and amusing.  The banter between Callie and Trev—even with all the bad memories and hurt feelings—is easy and witty.  If sometimes Trev is a trifle more flirty than he is serious, no matter, really, because that is just his way.

Callie is serious and a realist, for the most part.  After three failed engagements, she doesn't feel as if she has any true worth and is content to move with her younger sister when she marries.  The reason behind the failed engagements is given less fleshing out than the rest of the novel, and is, at best, weak; but it's really just an excuse for Trev to act the hero to Callie, I think.

I felt bad for poor Callie.  She had been jilted so many times that when Trev is in earnest, she merely thinks she is making good on a childhood friendship they shared.  It takes a lot of doing on Trev's part to convince her otherwise, and up until the end she's still skeptical of her 'womanly' allures.  A former fiancee, who makes a comeback, only serves to worsen her general feeling of self-worth.

Ordinarily I would not enjoy a book where the heroine is upset over her lack of looks, but that isn't really why Callie is hurt by the jiltings.  It's more that it seemed like the fellows cried off for the weakest of reasons, and later, when she hears how a former fiancee really feels about her, she becomes determined to set his mind straight. 

Trev's past, at least since he left England, is murky and a lot darker than I expected.  He did a lot of bad things, even if it was in the name of something 'good', but Kinsale glosses over much of that as the end draws near.  The ending is too pat and tied together to be believed, but it is a happy ending, so that's all that really matters.

Alexandra Cenni