Splendor
Brenda Joyce
St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1997, 485 pages.
ISBN#0-312-96391-2
Regency Romance, England and Russia, 1812.
$6.99 U.S. $8.99 Can

Reviewed by Tom
January 2007

It's 1812, and England and Russia are still officially at war, but on the continent Napoleon and his Grande Armie threatens both of them. The Czar has sent an envoy to London to sue for peace and form an alliance, an envoy who wishes he was back with his unit in the First Army, defending his homeland. Prince Nicholas Ivanovitch Sverayov had two great loves in life: his country and his daughter. The ironic thing was, because of betrayal early in his marriage he didn't believe in 'true love', but rather in duty and honor. Proud, bold, and a favorite with the ladies, it took the intrepid newspaper columist and illustrator Charles Copperville spying outside his home, and Carolyn Browne, a bookseller's daughter, to teach him the meaning of the words.

Carolyn Browne was many things. An educated young woman: her father encouraged her to use every opportunity to learn. And a reformist: she support liberal causes. Because of the war with Napoleon there were shortages of food and other necessities. As the peers of the realm held fetes and balls with utter lack of regard to the starving masses around
them. A beautiful peeress: granddaughter of the Viscountess Lady Edith Owsley. She agrees to become companion and educator to Nicholas' daughter Katya. Opening Katya's eyes to more than the traditional female pursuits, and becoming a loving friend to a lonely little girl. When the Sverayovs return to Russia, she follows.

Brenda Joyce carries us with Carolyn and Niki through a vast panorama of a world in conflict, a world of war and intrigue and human emotion, amongst social unheaval at home and abroad. She lets us know if through all this will they choose above all else to live lives filled with the SPLENDOR of love.