"delightful Victorian romantic suspense"
Knowing her family needs money, photographer Venetia
Milton obtains a gig at isolated Arcane House where she
plans to seduce her employer Gabriel Jones. She succeeds
on both parts, but feels despondent when she has to leave
as she believes she is in love. However, not long
afterward, she reads in the newspaper that her beloved
died. Feeling like a widow, Venetia pretends that she and
Gabriel were married. To her shock, Gabriel arrives at
her home. Apparently, he arranged his death to fool his
enemies who want his secrets that he possesses as the
current ancestor of an alchemist who formed a clandestine
society to study psychic phenomena; Venetia hides the fact
that she sees auras from her "guest". As they fall in
love, they team up to uncover killers, blackmailers, and
thieves who covet both their secrets in a world filled
with masquerades in which SECOND SIGHT can prove
misleading. This is a delightful Victorian romantic suspense with a
touch of the paranormal. The story line balances the
kissing scenes with the perilous escapades so that the
audience obtains a quick-paced fun thriller. Venetia is a
wonderful protagonist struggling with her secrets
including her desire for her "late" employer while Gabriel
battles his enemies but has revised his life goals as he
reciprocates his employee's desires. Historical romance
fans will enjoy this charming couple who either are in the
fire or causing the fire. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted November 15, 2006
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An Arcane Society Novel
The first book in the new Amanda Quick series featuring
the Arcane Society. This is historical romantic-suspense
with a psychic twist. Financially straitened and on the path to spinsterhood,
Venetia Milton thought her stay at the remote, ramshackle
Arcane House would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
engineer her own ravishment. She was there to photograph
the artifacts collected by a highly secretive
organization, founded two centuries earlier by an
alchemist. And the alchemist's descendant-her employer,
Gabriel Jones-has the eyes of a sorcerer.
But despite Venetia's intent to seduce Mr. Jones and move
on, she is shattered upon her return home to read in the
press of his violent demise. Using the sizable fee Mr.
Jones paid her, Venetia establishes a new life, opening a
gallery in London. Of course, posing as a respectable
widow makes it easier to do business, so-in a private
tribute to her lost, only lover-she assumes the identity
of "Mrs. Jones."
Her romantic whim, however, will cause unexpected trouble.
For one thing, Mr. Jones is about to stride, living and
breathing, back into Venetia's life. And the two share
more than a passionate memory-indeed, they are bonded by a
highly unusual sort of vision, one that goes far beyond
Venetia's abilities as a photographer. They also share a
terrible threat-for someone has stolen a centuries-old
notebook from Arcane House that contains a formula
believed to enhance psychic powers of the kind Gabriel and
Venetia possess. And the thief wants to know more-even if
he must kill the keeper of the Arcane Society's treasures,
or the photographer who catalogued them, to obtain such
knowledge.
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