Petals on the River » (Reissue)

In 1972, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss sent a hefty historical romance novel, The Flame and the Flower, to eight different publishers and received eight rejection letters. Finally, Avon Books picked up the book, and it became an instant bestseller. Since then, Woodiwiss has sold more than 36 million copies of her romance novels, and colleagues have dubbed her the First Lady of Romance.

The fiery and outspoken adopted daughter of one of England's most formidable women, Shemaine O'Hearn has made powerful enemies. And now her adversaries have found a way to remove the hot-blooded beauty from her life of privilege: by falsely convicting Shemaine of thievery and sending her in shackles to America, where she is to be sold in indentured servitude to the highest bidder.

In a bustling port city in the colony of Virginia, she becomes the servant of Gage Thornton-a shipbuilder with a young child in need of a nanny. And despite whispered rumors condemning the handsome widower for the untimely death of his wife, Shemaine cannot ignore her desire for this caring, generous and enigmatic stranger who silently aches with his growing need for her-even as grave peril reaches out from across a vast ocean to threaten their flowering love.

Library Journal

Laural Merlington does a terrific job of characterization in this classic Woodiwiss romance. Although over the past 20 years the romance genre has matured along with changing mores, Woodiwiss has not altered her style. Her prose remains lush and flowery; her characters are extremes: good/evil, beautiful/ugly, wealthy/poor. Her heroines are unrealistic even within the romance-as-fantasy concept. Shemaine O'Hearn hasn't bathed in three months, has spent the prior four days in a dark, rat-infested closet, and yet every man within sight lusts after her to the point of desperation. Women are vindictive toward her because she's beautiful. Merlington uses Irish and English accents to capture the characters' spirits with cadence and lilts, and she is able to move from demure to fiery, vulgar to innocent with barely a breath. Unfortunately, even her expert ministrations can't overcome the overall tedium of the story. Not recommended except where Woodiwiss has a very strong following. Jodi L. Israel, Norwood, Mass.