Season Of Light by Katherine McMahon (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £12.99 HB £6.99 eBook) (From York Press)

Season Of Light by Katherine McMahon (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £12.99 HB £6.99 eBook)

8:50am Wednesday 30th November 2011 in Books By Bill Spence

INDEPENDENT and spirited Asa Ardleigh accompanies her sister and brother-in-law to Paris in 1788 where she is swept up in the wave of revolutionary idealism of liberty and equality.

She meets Didier Paulin, a trainee lawyer, who is fighting for change and they begin a secret, passionate love affair. A distant wealthy relative, Mr Shackleton, who is also visiting is introduced to Asa and is immediately enamoured of her but she takes an instant dislike to him on the premises that his father’s fortune has been built on the back of the slave trade. When she is forced to return to England she promises Didier she will write and wait for him. Five years after their affair Asa receives a note from Didier asking her to go to him and so her and Madame flee to France. It is now a country at the height of revolution and at war with England. Asa soon finds out that absolutely no-one, not even friends, can be trusted.

From the first page to the last this book will take over your life and have you mentally living in the 18th Century. It is an exciting account of turbulent times and the author brings them vividly to life. It is escapism at its best with its twists and turns so don’t be put off by the unimaginative book cover that groups it into a specific genre rather than for the colourful and exciting story-line it should convey