"It is spring of 1915. Spoiled twenty-one-year-old Clemency Jervis and her Fifth Avenue entourage board the Lusitania, bound for England, where Clemency is to marry the dashing Lord Hugo Hazzard of Loburn. A few miles off the Irish coast, the ship is torpedoed by the Germans. One of the few survivors is Clemency‰ÃƒÂ›Ã‚ªs maid, Hetty Brown, a young woman who resembles her mistress. Surprised to be taken for Clemency, Hetty carries out a daring deception that makes her a nobleman‰Ûªs wife and the mistress of a magnificent country estate, despite doubts about her among some in her aristocratic new set"

Is this plot summary from Amazon not awesome? Unfortunately, the actual book is not so much. Didn't hate it but it could have been so much better.

( )

Rich american — to Europe — looking to be a Titled American — we had $ they had titles — set in NYC + London / countryside gilded age —

Be careful what you wish for. Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts', suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage.

When I was barely into my teens, I read a lot of Gothic novels by writers like Victoria Holt, Anya Seton, and Mary Stewart to name a few. I think my favorite author was New Zealander Dorothy Eden, and when I saw a Kindle version of her book The American Heiress, I was reminded of all her books that I had read. Upon further inspection, I found this book to have been published well past the time I'd been reading that type of book. Would I still enjoy Dorothy Eden? I had to find out.

I'm happy to report that the experiment was a complete success. The plot may be a bit predictable, but it's what Eden does with the ordinary to turn it into the extraordinary that counts. There is a wonderful World War I period flavor in The American Heiress. Eden did her homework well, and of course there is a magnificent old house (which is a must for Gothic novels) with dozens of rooms I wanted to explore.

But it is the characterization that brings the entire story to life. Clemency and her mother are not nice people, but Eden shows them to be the spoiled, entitled people of their time, not as evil beings, which would certainly be easy to do. Hetty is a young woman readers can care about and worry about. Yes, Hetty is dishonest, but Eden gives her some interesting reasons for her behavior as well as a guilty conscience that makes readers wonder if she's going to be able to go through with her deception. Add to that the cat-and-mouse game played by Hetty's mother-in-law and her companion, and you've got a story whose pages almost turn themselves in your hurry to find out what happens next.

Good writing is good writing, and I'm so happy to see that Dorothy Eden and the Gothic novel genre itself stand the test of time well. ( )