Author: Tessa Dare
Original Title: Once Upon A Winter's Eve
Release Year: 2011
Literary Genre: Romance
Setting: England (Spindle Cove), regency
Series: 1,5° of Spindle Cove series
Vote: 10/10
Splendid,
absorbing, touching.
Another Dare's
short story, from lucky Spindle Cove series.
Violet Winterbottom
is the daughter of a wealthy and respectable family, her dowry is
remarkable and she is beautiful; so she has everything it takes to be
a good catch, instead she lives in Spindle Cove for a year, the place
where many noble girls go to live a quite life far from London
society where they don't feel comfortable. Violet is there on her own
initiative: she was regardless seduced and then abandoned by the man
she has always loved and worshiped, the man she grew up with; that's
why she moved to the peculiar village in Sussex, to heal her broken
heart.
During a ball
hosted by Lord and Lady Rycliff (A night to surrender), where
as always the young Winterbottom act as a wallflower, happens the
unthinkable: a man, covered in blood and severely wounded, bursts
into the room, falls at Violet's feet and then faints. Shortly after
he wakes up, surrounded by a crowd, and is immediately obvious that
he's a foreigner who doesn't speak english at all and Violet,
surprisingly good with languages, comprehend that the handsome man is
Breton...and in the Continent the napoleonic war is erupting so isn't
safe to keep a french nearby, that's why he, although beaten, is
locked and tied up and Violet, who's the only one who can understand
what he says, has to discover his identity and it's pretty clear that
moreover he is taken with her and wants her company.
