C. P. Lesley
Bookworm, writer, radio host—I blog about history, fiction, and publishing in the Internet Age. You can find the full blog on my website. This space is for books.
Scent of Cloves
Just realized I never added this to my Currently Reading shelf, and now it seems that BookLikes doesn't list the book except as part of a collection, anyway.
so, my four-star review of Norah Lofts' Scent of Cloves:
Read from August 29 to 31, 2015
Julia Ashley, the child of English Royalists, narrowly escapes death as an infant when Cromwell attacks, then again from starvation at the age of eight. After years in an orphanage, a "glove" (proxy) marriage to the son of a merchant in the Dutch East India Company seems like a godsend. But she soon discovers dark secrets beneath the beauty and spices of a small Indonesian island....
A lovely, clean historical novel in which romance plays just one part in a larger story and apparent clichés twist into something other. Highly recommended.
I read this as a teen, but enjoyed it even more the second time.
5
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