An Old-Fashioned Romance

With the universality of feelings such as love, lust, and possibly that thing of yore called modesty, it is unnecessary to read any of the companion books to indulge in Jo Beverley’s “The Rogue’s Return,” the second to last installment of her Company of Rogues series.

Making no claim to join the literary canon, Beverley has cleverly penned her way to a place of distinction in the niche of historical romance.

If the alliteration of the title is any indication, Beverley’s titillating romance is far from novel.

Yet, written with wit, “The Rogue’s Return” successfully masters that fine balance between fulfilling hormonally active women’s sexual desires and their overwrought sentimentality to create a read that is pleasing enough to excite even a cynic’s heart.

“The Rogue’s Return” is a combination of several recycled romantic plots—a Cinderella story, a tweaked marriage of convenience, and unrequited love fulfilled.

With the requisite duel, a house being set on fire, and the frequent scene of connubial bliss, the novel is a perfect read by which to live vicariously.

After living for several years in Canada gathering information to expose an embezzling gentleman, Simon St. Bride plans to return to his native Britain.

His plans, however, are set awry when the embezzler slanders the name of Jane Otterburn, a beautiful puritanical woman with hints of deep sexuality, and Simon challenges the knave to a duel.

During the duel, Jane rushes to the field—with her normally pinned-back hair streaming picturesquely in the wind, of course—to tell Simon that her guardian botched up his suicide. Enter the damsel in distress.

Her dying guardian makes Simon and Jane promise to get married, which is problematic.

It does not matter that the two desire one another, because they come from vastly different social classes—Simon from the aristocracy and Jane from the merchant class. The passionate consummation scene is much delayed.

The clutch of the novel lies not on the difference in class but on the mystery of Jane. To say the least, she is not who she appears to be.

In a rather confusingly explained plot, Jane is Nan who is Jancy.

To put it succinctly, and to spoil much of the novel, Jane is a bastard child who at first pretended to be a cousin of—but then decides to masquerade as—her dead but legitimate half-sister, the real Jane.

It takes near two-thirds of the novel for Jancy to tell Simon about her origins, and even then she only tells part truths, fearing that he will divorce her.

However, what would have amounted to climactic tension is counteracted by the reader’s knowledge that the novel is a historical romance, and therefore must end happily.

Beverley’s “The Rogue’s Return” takes little energy and even less thought to read, but is sure to make more than one sentimental heart beat wildly with sighs and heaving bosoms.

—Staff writer Emily G.W. Chau can be reached at egchau@fas.harvard.edu.

The Rogue's Return
By Jo Beverley
Signet
Out Now