Venus (Bantam Historical Romance)

by Jane Feather

Book Overview

From the New York Times bestselling Jane Feather, author of To Kiss a Spy and Kissed by Shadows , comes a deliciously sensual tale of intrigue and temptation... The last thing Lord Nicholas Kincaid... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553937677
• ISBN13: 9780553937671
• Release Date: June 1996
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Length: 372 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

nice but not one of her best

Feather uses an interesting time and setting for her book and while I've seen books that had more atmosphere this one does fairly well. She also includes a great deal of information (nicely presented) about the role and lives of actors and Restoration theater. It was not uncommon for high ranking men to marry female actors so the ending for Venus wasn't out of bounds. But I do wonder how many of these women continued in their professional careers after marriage (as Polly seems set to do). Polly is also a mistress for most of the book (nice change) but started out as a 17 year old virgin (sort of hard to believe she had kept her maidenhead in her circumstances for that long a time). Feather balances this by an event I wasn't expecting towards the end of the book when no punches get pulled as Buckingham takes his revenge. I like Nick even as he cold bloodedly prepares Polly for her role in his plan. I get a sense of him as a man of his times who doesn't hesitate to put the little woman in her (lesser) place even though he loves her. He goes for the win in all battles of wit and precedence (though Polly does seem able to control him fairly well) and their relationship is similar to the battles of the sexes in the plays in which Polly stars. There are some nice secondary characters but I was a bit disappointed that Feather didn't use more of the great calamity of the year (the Great Plague of 1665). This book also featured Feather's low key sexual tension style but as I was expecting it, it didn't bother me as much.