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jackiehorne's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 Satie's third book is stronger than her first two, although it still suffers from some lack of character goals/motivation, as well as a slight overabundance of plot.
Lady Lily Spark (sister of Adam, hero of book #1), returns to England after mysteriously disappearing in Egypt years earlier. We hear why she left—her father threatened her with marriage to a much older man after catching her having sex with her lover, and she fled to escape his domineering control—and why she's come home—her husband was killed, and she missed England. We aren't quite sure how she's managed to get hold of a mysterious jewel that could play a huge symbolic role in the current power plays between England, France, Russia, and two factions in the Ottoman Empire, or what she hopes to accomplish with it.
Author, explorer, and former foreign office operative John Tacitus Ware had retired to his country home after being ignominiously dismissed from his post for fomenting a rebellion in the hopes of strengthening the Ottoman Empire and weakening Russia. But the Duke of Clive dangles the hope of reinstatement—if Ware will use his wiles to ferret out Lady Lily's secrets. Her father, the Duke of Hastings, is on the opposite side that Clive and Palmerston, the British foreign secretary, are on, and Clive believes Lady Lily can give them vital information about her father's plans.
Lily and Ware's interactions are a delight. Lily knows that he's been sent to charm and beguile her, and makes him well aware of the fact, yet still enjoys his company (she'd idolized him, and his books, as an adolescent). Ware is in turns impressed and disgusted by Lily's unconventionality, upset to be using her as a stepping stone in his own career yet frustrated by her unwillingness to take part in what he sees as a vital political conflict. The two fence back and forth, each tempting the other, all the while drawing closer and closer. Betrayals, apologies, jealousy, and passion inevitably follow.
The book lacked a certain tension, I think in large part because Lily doesn't seem to have much at stake in the political wrangling or in the ultimate disposal of the jewel. Or at least her stake wasn't that clear to me. Toward book's end, Satie writes "She'd thought she could set it [the jewel] on a scale and use it to balance out the weight of every mistake she'd ever made" (Loc 3586), but I didn't seen much evidence of her doing any such thing during the earlier parts of the book. She was pretty passive re the jewel, not using it at all, just hiding it from everyone. If the big lesson that Lily was supposed to learn by book's end was that "she'd been wrong" to think she could use the jewel so, it would have made more sense to have seen her actually trying to do something with it over the course of the book...
The last third of the book contained a lot of rushing around, imprisonment, escape, and rescue, little of which contributed to the character or romance arcs.
To sum it up: lots of lovely, lovely pieces, but not quite all put together in a way to make for a satisfying, unified whole.
Lady Lily Spark (sister of Adam, hero of book #1), returns to England after mysteriously disappearing in Egypt years earlier. We hear why she left—her father threatened her with marriage to a much older man after catching her having sex with her lover, and she fled to escape his domineering control—and why she's come home—her husband was killed, and she missed England. We aren't quite sure how she's managed to get hold of a mysterious jewel that could play a huge symbolic role in the current power plays between England, France, Russia, and two factions in the Ottoman Empire, or what she hopes to accomplish with it.
Author, explorer, and former foreign office operative John Tacitus Ware had retired to his country home after being ignominiously dismissed from his post for fomenting a rebellion in the hopes of strengthening the Ottoman Empire and weakening Russia. But the Duke of Clive dangles the hope of reinstatement—if Ware will use his wiles to ferret out Lady Lily's secrets. Her father, the Duke of Hastings, is on the opposite side that Clive and Palmerston, the British foreign secretary, are on, and Clive believes Lady Lily can give them vital information about her father's plans.
Lily and Ware's interactions are a delight. Lily knows that he's been sent to charm and beguile her, and makes him well aware of the fact, yet still enjoys his company (she'd idolized him, and his books, as an adolescent). Ware is in turns impressed and disgusted by Lily's unconventionality, upset to be using her as a stepping stone in his own career yet frustrated by her unwillingness to take part in what he sees as a vital political conflict. The two fence back and forth, each tempting the other, all the while drawing closer and closer. Betrayals, apologies, jealousy, and passion inevitably follow.
The book lacked a certain tension, I think in large part because Lily doesn't seem to have much at stake in the political wrangling or in the ultimate disposal of the jewel. Or at least her stake wasn't that clear to me. Toward book's end, Satie writes "She'd thought she could set it [the jewel] on a scale and use it to balance out the weight of every mistake she'd ever made" (Loc 3586), but I didn't seen much evidence of her doing any such thing during the earlier parts of the book. She was pretty passive re the jewel, not using it at all, just hiding it from everyone. If the big lesson that Lily was supposed to learn by book's end was that "she'd been wrong" to think she could use the jewel so, it would have made more sense to have seen her actually trying to do something with it over the course of the book...
The last third of the book contained a lot of rushing around, imprisonment, escape, and rescue, little of which contributed to the character or romance arcs.
To sum it up: lots of lovely, lovely pieces, but not quite all put together in a way to make for a satisfying, unified whole.
kblincoln's review
4.0
Interesting heroine who is both flighty and determined. She seems to make quick decisions that are brash, (such as stealing a politically important priceless pearl) but also values her independence. I'm not sure i'm convinced by the central romance on her side. The hero is awfully closed off and switches his life goals soooooo easily. I do love the incorporation of prior hero/heroine couple into the plot; particularly seeing Clive not always cast in a good light. This series does have characters with much more ragged edges than I'm used to seeing, which is a good thing. Poor Vasari Jones doesn't fare well in this one!
sm_almon's review
4.0
Great story - interesting characters and an intriguing political story in the background.
turophile's review
3.0
Read this four months ago and it did not make much of an impression on me. The heroine had a secret pearl in her possession and the back story surrounding it seemed a bit strained to me at times. (3/5)
anacoqui's review
5.0
I am always so impressed with Satie's ability to make me care for unapologetically ruthless characters. I loved Lady Lily.
Full review on my blog: http://www.anacoqui.com/2015/04/the-orphan-pearl-by-erin-satie.html
Full review on my blog: http://www.anacoqui.com/2015/04/the-orphan-pearl-by-erin-satie.html
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